Chapter 11 - EVERYONE HAS A PRICE
I stared at Elena.
“You’re kidding.”
She almost looked embarrassed.
“Put your hands where I can see them.”
Dominic didn’t move.
“Elena.”
“Don’t.”
“You’ve been chasing him for fifteen years.”
“Yes.”
Salvatore smiled.
“She finally caught me.”
Elena’s mouth tightened.
“And learned that retirement is expensive.”
I felt something inside me go cold.
Dad had died trying to expose people like this.
Police.
Businessmen.
Politicians.
Now a federal prosecutor too.
“Was there ever anyone clean?” I asked.
Elena looked at me.
“That’s a childish question.”
“No. It’s not.”
“You think good people stay good when the mortgage is late? When their kid needs surgery? When one bad decision can solve every problem?”
I thought about the hundred-dollar tip.
The gloves.
Every insult I swallowed.
For one uncomfortable second, I understood her.
Then I looked at Salvatore.
“No.”
Elena blinked.
“What?”
“You’re wrong.”
I stepped closer.
She raised the gun.
“Stop.”
“I know exactly what desperation feels like.”
I kept my hands visible.
“I’ve counted quarters for gas. I’ve skipped meals. I’ve sat in hospital parking lots wondering which bill I could ignore without ruining our lives.”
“Avery,” Dominic warned.
“But I never sold someone else’s life to make mine easier.”
Elena’s face hardened.
“Stop talking.”
“That’s the difference.”
Salvatore clapped slowly.
“Beautiful.”
I looked at him.
“Go to hell.”
He smiled.
“In time.”
Then Dominic moved.
Fast.
He flipped the table.
Gunfire exploded.
I dropped behind it.
Elena fired.
Dominic tackled one of Salvatore’s men.
I crawled toward the side door.
Someone grabbed my ankle.
I kicked backward.
Connected with a face.
I rolled up.
Vanessa.
Of course.
She had escaped.
Her nose was bruised from our last fight.
Her eyes were wild.
“You ruined my life!”
She lunged.
We crashed into a row of chairs.
“You did that yourself!”
She grabbed my throat.
“I was going to have everything!”
I hooked her arm and rolled.
We hit the floor.
She punched me.
I tasted blood.
I hit back.
Not like a fighter.
Like a daughter.
Like a woman who had been slapped, mocked, used, threatened, and pushed too far.
Vanessa reached for a fallen gun.
I trapped her wrist.
She screamed.
“You think Dominic cares about you?”
“This isn’t about Dominic.”
“He’ll throw you away when you stop being interesting.”
I twisted.
The gun slid away.
“You really don’t understand anything.”
I shoved her back.
“All you’ve ever understood is being chosen by powerful men.”
Her face changed.
I had hit the real wound.
She screamed and charged.
I stepped aside.
She crashed through a glass partition.
Not outside.
Into the bar.
She fell hard.
Alive.
Groaning.
I turned.
The room had gone quiet.
Dominic stood bleeding from the forehead.
Salvatore was gone.
Elena lay wounded near the doorway, gripping her shoulder.
Dominic pointed his gun at her.
“Where is he?”
She laughed through the pain.
“You lost.”
Then the building shook.
A deep explosion sounded below us.
Dominic’s face changed.
“Basement.”
Smoke began pouring through the floor vents.
Salvatore had rigged the building.
Dominic grabbed my hand.
“Run.”
We reached the front hall.
A second explosion blew out the windows.
I hit the floor.
Dominic covered me.
Outside, sirens finally screamed in the distance.
Then I heard another sound.
A man coughing.
Behind the collapsed staircase.
I looked.
Salvatore.
Pinned beneath a beam.
Dominic saw him too.
Flames spread across the ceiling.
Salvatore reached toward us.
“Dominic…”
Dominic stopped.
I grabbed his arm.
“We have to go.”
Salvatore coughed.
“Help me.”
For one second, Dominic was no longer a billionaire.
No longer a crime boss.
He was a boy looking at the uncle who raised him.
Then Salvatore said, “Family.”
May you like
Dominic stared at him.
And stepped toward the fire.
