Chapter 2 - THE UNTOUCHABLE FIANCÉE
By seven o'clock the following morning, the sun rose over Lake Michigan like a pale, frozen coin.
Inside the grand dining room of the Moretti estate, the atmosphere was suffocatingly tense.
Vanessa Whitmore sat at the long mahogany table, wearing a ivory cashmere sweater and delicate pearl earrings. She was sipping her black coffee with an air of practiced indifference, though her sharp eyes kept darting toward the double doors leading to the kitchen.
The doors opened, and Dominic walked in.
He had changed into a sharp navy suit, his dark hair damp from the shower, his face an unreadable mask of power and authority. Behind him walked two heavy-set men in dark overcoats—Frank and Carlo, Dominic’s primary enforcement lieutenants.
Vanessa set her coffee cup down with a delicate clink.
"Dominic," she said, offering a tight, gorgeous smile. "I was hoping we could talk about last night. I admit... I lost my temper with the servant. But you humiliated me in front of the entire Chicago social register. My father called me at six this morning furious about—"
"Pack your bags, Vanessa," Dominic said calmly, taking his seat at the head of the table.
Vanessa’s smile froze. "What did you say?"
"You have thirty minutes to clear your things from the master suite," Dominic continued, leaning back in his leather chair, tapping a gold pen against the table. "Frank and Carlo will assist you. Anything you bought with my money stays. The ring stays on the dresser."
Vanessa’s face turned from pale to a dangerous, inflamed red. She slammed her hand down against the tablecloth.
"Are you insane?!" she shrieked, standing up. "You're breaking our engagement over a fucking maid?! Do you have any idea who my father is?! The Whitmore family controls the city banking board! If you cut ties with us, your shipping permits for the South Side docks will be revoked by noon!"
Dominic didn't even blink. He gestured slightly with his hand.
Frank stepped forward, pulling a heavy folder from his coat and laying it flat on the table in front of Vanessa.
"Inside that folder," Dominic said softly, "are six months of bank statements from an offshore account in Grand Cayman registered under your maiden name. Three weeks ago, a transfer of two hundred thousand dollars was made to that account from a front company owned by the O'Connell syndicate."
Vanessa went dead quiet. All the color drained from her face, leaving her looking like a ghost.
"The O'Connells have been trying to take my territory for five years," Dominic said, his voice dropping into a razor-sharp whisper. "And you offered to clear the way by removing my mother. You thought if Eleanor died of a heart attack, I would be too consumed with grief and family restructuring to notice the shift in dock leases."
"Dominic... no... it's not what you think," Vanessa stuttered, her hands beginning to shake violently. "They threatened me! They said if I didn't—"
"I don't care why you did it," Dominic interrupted coldly. "The only reason you are walking out of this house on your own two feet instead of being fed to the fish in the river is because your father was my father's friend. But if I ever see your face in this city again, Vanessa... not even your father's billions will save you."
Frank stepped up, grabbing Vanessa firmly by the elbow.
She didn't fight him. She looked at Dominic with pure, terrified hatred, her breath coming in short, ragged gasps as she was escorted out of the dining room.
Dominic sat alone at the massive table for a long moment, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
The door to the pantry opened quietly.
Hannah stepped into the dining room carrying a silver breakfast tray. She was no longer wearing the torn housekeeper's uniform; Walter had provided her with a simple, elegant dark gray wool dress that fitted her modest frame perfectly. Her wrist was freshly bandaged under her sleeve.
She set the coffee pot down on the table near Dominic.
"You didn't have to banish her on my account," Hannah said quietly, not looking him in the eye as she poured the dark roast into his cup.
"I didn't do it on your account," Dominic said, watching the movement of her slender hands. "I did it because she tried to murder my mother."
Hannah’s hand paused for a fraction of a second over the cream pitcher.
"She was a tool," Hannah murmured. "Women like Vanessa Whitmore don't know how to isolate foxglove extract. Someone gave it to her."
Dominic’s eyes sharpened. "And you know who?"
Hannah set the pitcher down and finally looked at him. "The O'Connells don't have the medical sophistication to synthesize pure liquid digitalis either. It requires a high-level pharmaceutical lab. The kind of lab that was shut down in Boston three years ago."
Dominic stood up slowly, towering over her. "Boston?"
Hannah bit her lip, realizing she had said too much. She immediately stepped back, pulling her hands behind her back.
"I have to check on Mrs. Moretti's morning medication," she said quickly, turning to leave.
"Hannah," Dominic commanded, his voice echoing in the vast room.
She froze at the door, her back to him.
"You have ten seconds to tell me why a woman with a Boston medical accent and an advanced knowledge of corporate toxicology is hiding as a housekeeper in my estate," Dominic said, walking toward her, his steps slow, heavy, and absolute. "Or I start making phone calls to the East Coast."
Hannah turned around slowly. Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes, but she forced them back with a fierce, stubborn pride that made Dominic’s heart beat faster.
"If you make those calls," Hannah whispered, her voice laced with an agony so profound it shook him to his core, "the men who killed my father will find out where I am. And they will come here to finish what they started."
Ten minutes later, Dominic and Hannah sat in his private study. The door was locked from the inside.
Dominic poured two fingers of amber whiskey into a glass and set it in front of her. She didn't touch it.
"Talk," Dominic said, leaning back against his desk.
Hannah looked down at her bandaged hands. "My real name is Dr. Hannah Vance. Four years ago, I was a chief resident of cardiothoracic surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston."
Dominic’s eyebrows raised slightly. A chief resident at twenty-two. She was a prodigy.
"My father," she continued, her voice trembling, "was Dr. Arthur Vance. He was the head of research at Vance Pharmaceuticals. He spent fifteen years developing a target gene-therapy drug that could repair damaged heart tissue after severe infarctions."
"A multi-billion-dollar medical breakthrough," Dominic noted silently.
"Yes," Hannah said, a bitter smile touching her lips. "A breakthrough that a rival syndicate wanted. They didn't want to buy the patent, Mr. Moretti. They wanted to steal it and sell it on the black market to foreign oligarchs."
"Who were they?"
"The Moretti family," she spat out.
The room went deathly silent.
Dominic went completely still. "What did you just say?"
Hannah looked up at him, her dark eyes flashing with pure, unadulterated venom.
"Four years ago, three men broke into my father's private lab in Boston. They tortured him for six hours to get the decryption key for the formula. When he refused... they executed him in front of me. I was locked in the supply closet. I heard every single word."
Dominic’s jaw tightened into a hard, rigid line. "And you heard the name Moretti?"
"The leader of the hit squad answered a phone call right outside the closet door," Hannah whispered, her voice cracking. "He said: 'It's done, Mr. Moretti. The old man is dead, but the girl escaped. We have the drives.'"
She leaned forward, her hands gripping the edge of the mahogany desk so hard her knuckles turned white.
"I fled Boston with nothing," she continued, tears finally spilling over her lashes. "I changed my name. I hid in small towns, scrubbing toilets and sleeping in cars to stay off the grid. But two months ago, I heard that the man who ordered my father's murder—the head of the Moretti family—was living in Chicago."
Dominic stared at her, his mind racing through the dark history of his family.
Four years ago... his father, Thomas Moretti, was still alive and running the family. But Thomas had been bedridden with terminal cancer during his final year. The rogue operations on the East Coast had been managed by...
Uncle Marcus.
Dominic’s chest heaved with a sudden, violent rage.
Marcus Moretti—his father's younger brother, who had been banished to the East Coast arm of the business three years ago after Dominic took full control of the Chicago syndicate. Marcus was a ruthless, greedy bastard who had always operated in the shadows, running illegal drug manufacturing and medical extortions behind his father's back.
"I came to this house to find the proof," Hannah said softly, her tears dropping onto the polished desk. "I wanted to find the encrypted drive they stole from my father. I thought if I could get it to the federal prosecutors, I could finally end the nightmare and clear my father's name."
She looked up at Dominic, her face pale, fragile, and utterly broken.
"I didn't know your mother was innocent," Hannah whispered. "I didn't know you weren't the one who gave the order. But last night... when I saw Vanessa trying to poison your mother, I couldn't let another innocent parent die. Even if it meant exposing myself."
Dominic stood there in the quiet study, looking at the daughter of the man his family had destroyed.
The debt hanging over his family wasn't money. It wasn't land or political power.
It was blood.
Dominic walked around the desk, stopping right in front of her. He dropped to one knee, putting himself at eye level with the young doctor who had spent four years hiding in the dark.
"Hannah," Dominic said, his voice deep, rough, and absolute. "My uncle Marcus ran the Boston crew four years ago. My father was dying in a hospital bed when your father was killed. I didn't give that order. But my family name is on your father's blood."
He reached out, taking her cold, trembling hands in his large, warm palms.
May you like
"I cannot bring your father back," Dominic said, looking directly into her soul. "But as long as I draw breath, Marcus Moretti will never hurt you again. And I will personally retrieve your father's formula and place it back in your hands."
Hannah looked at him, stunned, her breath catching in her throat as she realized the most dangerous man in Chicago had just pledged his life to protect her.
