Page 77 of Bound in Ruin

My hands begin to tremble, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.

I look up at him, the silence between us growing thick and terrifying.

"Dominic," I ask, my voice barely a whisper, thick with a cold, mounting apprehension. "How did you know his eyes were open? I had closed them."

Dominic blanches.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

DOMINIC

I have an insane, overpowering urge to lie.

To spin some quick, polished story. To throw out a technicality. Anything to stop the cold, agonizing disappointment currently pooling in Rosalia’s eyes.

I wasn't thinking.

Fuck. I shouldn't have said that.

But the words are already hanging out there between us, and I can literally see the wheels turning behind her eyes as she pieces it together.

"Dominic," she breathes again, her voice trembling, laced with an awful, fragile fear. "How did... how did you know?"

My tongue feels like lead in my mouth. For the first time in my life, I am utterly afraid. I stand frozen against the marble counter, holding her gaze, watching the warmth we built over the past days crumble into dust in a matter of seconds.

How the hell could I tell her?

How could I possibly admit that I was the one who slipped through the shadows of the De Lorenzo estate in the dead of night?

That I bypassed a full perimeter of armed guards without making a single sound, stepped into Luciano's bedroom, and ended his life with my own hands?

I knew his eyes were wide and vacant because I was the last thing he saw before the air left his lungs forever.

Fuck!

"Rosalia—" I start, my throat bone-dry.

"Please don’t lie to me.” She steps back, her hands coming up to cover her mouth as tears pool in her eyes. "Just tell me. Please, Dominic. Tell me the truth."

The air leaves my lungs in a harsh, ragged exhale. The lies die in my throat. I can't do it. I can't look at her trembling frame and feed her another rehearsed story.

"I killed him," I confess, the words falling heavily between us like iron weights. "Luciano betrayed me. He was playing both sides, and in our world, that carries only one penalty. I killed him, Rosalia."

A sharp, ragged gasp escapes her lips. She stumbles back another step, hugging her arms tightly around her stomach as if trying to hold herself together.

Every instinct in my body screams at me to close the distance, to pull her into my arms and wipe away the tears spilling down her pale cheeks. But I stay rooted to the spot. I know if I reach for her right now, she will shrink away from my touch—and I don't think my heart could stomach her rejection.

Fuck!

Luciano was still causing problems for me even after his death.

The old man was a bastard. Plain and simple. For years, Luciano had worked directly with me, helping move dark money connected to off-the-books defense contracts, mercenary outfits, and high-profile political assassinations.

But Luciano wasn't just a partner; he was a paranoid fox. During those years of quiet cooperation, he had secretly compiled a massive, ironclad ledger of proof detailing my entire illegal infrastructure—and he hid it inside a heavily encrypted private account in Rosalia’s name.

If that file ever sees the light of day, if federal prosecutors or rival syndicates get their hands on it, it will be the absolute end of me. My empire will crumble to dust, and I will spend the rest of my life in a supermax cell.

I needed Rosalia to win today. Now that she controls the entire De Lorenzo estate, accessing Luciano's core archives and private vaults is going to be infinitely easier.