“I want an auditor.”
Lydia blinked.
“Augustus stole from me for three years,” Dominic said. “He used his father’s loan business to hide it. There are shell vendors, ghost invoices, false shipments, maybe worse. I need someone clean to follow the numbers.”
“I do payroll for a paper supplier.”
“You graduated top of your class at NYU Stern.”
Her stomach tightened.
“You looked me up.”
“I look at everything.”
“I’m not doing mob accounting.”
“You’d be auditing fraud.”
“For a mob boss.”
“For yourself.”
Lydia laughed once, cold and humorless. “That was almost clever.”
Dominic’s eyes hardened.
“Your father forged your signature on the collateral documents.”
Everything inside her went silent.
“What?”
“He used your name as guarantor. If I call the debt, you become liable.”
“No,” she whispered. “He wouldn’t.”
Dominic said nothing.
He didn’t have to.
Her father would.
The man she had protected, paid for, forgiven, and fed would absolutely sign her name if he believed it bought him one more night at a table.
Lydia felt something inside her crack.
Dominic picked up a clean linen napkin.
“Hold still.”
She was too stunned to move.
He leaned across the table and carefully wiped the cheap eyeliner from between her brows. His knuckles brushed her cheek. His hand was large and rough, but his touch was controlled, almost gentle.
When he was done, he dropped the stained napkin beside his plate.
“There,” he said. “Now I can see you.”
Lydia hated that her throat tightened.
“You don’t know me.”
“I know enough. You’re smart. Cornered. Angry. And you’ve been cleaning up your father’s messes so long you forgot you didn’t make them.”
Her eyes burned.
“And what are you?” she asked. “My knight in shining armor?”
Dominic gave a short laugh.
“No, tesoro. I’m the dragon. But tonight, the dragon is the only thing standing between you and the wolves.”
He pushed the ravioli closer.
“Eat. You start Monday.”
Part 2
Monday morning smelled like exhaust, sea salt, and burnt coffee.
Lydia stood outside a warehouse in Red Hook, staring at the sleek black Audi parked near the loading dock and wondering what kind of woman reported for work to a mafia boss.
Apparently, one in black trousers, flat boots, and an oversized gray sweater that made her look like a nervous cloud.
No onion this time.
She pushed open the steel door.
Inside, forklifts moved crates across the concrete floor. Men in work boots called to one another over the roar of machinery. Above it all, enclosed behind thick glass on a mezzanine, sat a modern office.
Lydia climbed the metal stairs.
A bald man the size of a refrigerator sat at a reception desk.
He pointed to a closed oak door.
“In there.”
“Friendly,” Lydia muttered.
The man did not smile.
Dominic’s office was cold and bare. No photos. No plants. Just a massive desk, filing cabinets, and a wall of monitors showing shipping data.
Dominic stood near an espresso machine, sleeves rolled up, shoulder holster visible over his white shirt.
Lydia stared at the gun.
“Coffee?” he asked.
“I have my own.”
“Suit yourself.”
She dropped her purse beside a second desk piled with red leather ledgers and external hard drives.
“These Augustus’s?”
“Some are. Some are official fronts. Some are the third set of books he kept because he thought he was smarter than me.”
“Three sets?” Lydia forgot to be afraid for half a second. “That’s not corruption. That’s an administrative suicide note.”
Dominic’s eyes flickered.
“Find the ghost vendors. Track the money. Tell me who helped him.”
She looked up.
“And then what? You break their kneecaps too?”
His expression went flat.
“That depends on what they stole.”
“I’m not handing you a hit list.”
“You’re handing me truth.”
“That’s a pretty word for blood.”
Dominic stepped closer. Not touching her, but close enough that his shadow fell over her desk.
“Your father put your name on paper, Lydia. Augustus’s people know that. My competitors know that. If this mess isn’t cleaned up, they won’t just come for him. They’ll come for you.”
Her anger shrank under the weight of reality.
“Do you understand the ecosystem you’re in?” he asked.
She hated him for being right.
“Yes.”
“Good. If you need anything, ask Leo.”
“The refrigerator?”
“Leo,” Dominic said. “And don’t leave without him.”
For nine hours, Lydia drowned in numbers.
Augustus had been sloppy. Lazy. Arrogant.
Vendor IDs didn’t match. Invoice dates shifted by days. Some payments were hidden under “site maintenance,” others under “consulting,” and at least one shell company appeared to exist only as a mailbox in Newark.
By evening, the warehouse below had gone quiet.
Dominic had not left either. He took calls in low, rapid Italian while Lydia cross-referenced ledgers until her eyes burned.
At 7:36 p.m., she found the first pattern.
“Apex Solutions,” she said.
Dominic looked up instantly.
“You found something.”
“Maybe. Payments hit the fourteenth of every month. Always after certain waterfront shipments clear. And the amounts are off by ten percent.”
“Kickback.”
“Exactly. But that’s not all.” Lydia turned the laptop toward him. “If these manifests are real, Augustus wasn’t just stealing cash. He was skimming cargo.”
Dominic went very still.
The room changed temperature.
“Show me.”
He leaned over her shoulder, close enough that she could smell coffee and clean soap under something darker.
“Here,” Lydia said, highlighting rows. “Electronics. Medical equipment. Pharmaceuticals. The four million is just what moved through the accounts. If the cargo values are accurate, he took double.”
Dominic straightened.
“Leo.”
The oak door opened immediately.
“Bring me Vincent.”
Lydia’s stomach turned.
“Who’s Vincent?”
“Dock manager.”
“What are you going to do to him?”
Dominic looked at her.
“Go home.”
“I’m not done.”
“I said go home.”
The words cracked through the office.
Lydia grabbed her purse and left before she saw what truth looked like in Dominic Rossi’s world.
Three weeks passed in spreadsheets, takeout containers, and fear.
Something else passed too, though Lydia did not want to name it.
Dominic was violent. She never forgot that. But he was also disciplined. He never touched her without warning. Never mocked her panic. Never forced her to soften when she wanted to stay sharp.
And for the first time in years, her phone had stopped ringing with threats from men her father owed.
No casino calls.
No debt collectors.
No Frank sobbing apologies into voicemail.
The silence should have felt lonely.
Instead, it felt like oxygen.
On a rain-heavy Tuesday night, Lydia sat alone in the glass office, staring at one final routing pattern. Dominic had gone out hours earlier. Leo was downstairs.
Apex Solutions was not hiding offshore.
It was buying real estate in the path of Dominic’s legitimate construction projects, forcing his companies to buy land back at inflated prices.
A loop.
A brilliant, dirty loop.
Lydia hit print.
The door below slammed open.
She jumped.
Dominic came in soaked from the rain, white shirt clinging to him, one side stained dark red. He dragged a man by the collar and dropped him onto the reception floor.
The man groaned, bruised and bloody.
Lydia froze.
She had known what Dominic was.
But knowing and seeing were different kinds of horror.
The smell hit her through the cracked office door. Copper. Wet asphalt. Violence.
She turned and threw up into the trash can beside her desk.
Her body shook so hard she could barely breathe.
The oak door opened.
Lydia scrambled backward until her back struck a filing cabinet.
“Don’t,” she rasped, throwing one arm up. “Don’t touch me.”
Dominic stopped.
For a moment, he looked at her.
Then he looked at his bloodstained hands.
Without a word, he went to the sink and scrubbed them until the water ran clear. He filled a paper cup and crouched three feet away from her, placing it on the floor between them.
“Drink.”
“Who is that?” she whispered.
“The man behind the holding companies.”
“Is that your blood?”
“No.”
She closed her eyes.
“I can’t do this,” she said, tears spilling hot and ugly. “Please. Let me go. I’ll work three jobs. I’ll pay somehow. Just don’t make me part of this.”
Dominic did not lie to comfort her.
“You can’t go back.”
She opened her eyes.
“You know too much now,” he said quietly. “Names. Accounts. Routes. If Augustus finds out how far you got, your apartment won’t save you. That broken deadbolt won’t slow anyone down.”
Lydia shook her head, but the truth pressed down on her chest.
“I’m keeping you alive,” Dominic said. “It’s ugly. I know. But in here, you are untouched.”
She stared at him crouched on the floor, a monster with clean hands and blood on his shirt, offering water from a paper cup.
She hated that she took it.
She hated more that he looked relieved when she drank.
Two days later, Dominic handed her an invitation printed on cream cardstock.
“A children’s hospital gala?” Lydia asked.
“The boards of three holding companies will be there. I need you to listen.”
“I’m an accountant, not a spy.”
“You’re better than a spy. You understand when numbers make people nervous.”
Which was how Lydia found herself in a private hotel suite at the Plaza, staring into a full-length mirror at a woman she did not recognize.
The dress Dominic’s people had delivered was emerald silk, cut simply but mercilessly. It skimmed her curves instead of hiding them. Her hair fell in soft waves around her shoulders. The makeup was minimal, but it made her eyes look larger, sharper, alive.
She looked expensive.
She looked dangerous.
The bedroom door opened.
Dominic stepped in wearing a black tuxedo.
He stopped dead.
For one breath, his mask slipped completely.
Lydia felt it like heat.
“Say something,” she whispered.
His eyes moved over her slowly, not vulgar, not careless. Careful. Devastating.
“You clean up well, Auditor.”
“It’s armor,” she said.
He came closer. His hand hovered near her bare shoulder before resting there lightly.
“This kind suits you better.”
Her skin burned under his palm.
At the gala, the ballroom glittered with chandeliers, orchids, champagne, and lies.
Lydia stayed near Dominic’s side, listening.
A thin blond man with a sharp smile approached them.
Simon Keller.
She recognized him from the files.
“Dominic,” Simon said smoothly. “Interesting choice of company. Bringing the hired help to the Plaza?”
The words hit old bruises inside Lydia.
Before she could answer, Dominic shifted in front of her.
“She is my chief financial officer,” he said in a terrifyingly calm voice. “And you will look at my face when you speak, Simon, or I will remove your eyes and hand them to you.”
Simon’s smile vanished.
“My mistake.”
“Yes,” Dominic said. “It was.”
Simon disappeared into the crowd.
Lydia looked at Dominic.
He wasn’t watching Simon. He was watching her, checking whether she was all right.
No one had done that in a long time.
Without thinking, she reached up and straightened his slightly crooked tie. Her fingers brushed his chest, right over the hidden holster.
Dominic caught her wrist.
“Don’t,” he said softly.
Her breath caught.
“Don’t what?”
“Touch me like that unless you know what it means.”
The ballroom spun around them, full of music and money and monsters.
Lydia looked at his hand around her wrist and realized the cage did not feel cold anymore.
It felt like fire.
Part 3
The Maybach moved through rain-slick Manhattan in silence.
Lydia sat against the door, emerald silk pooled around her knees, her bare feet aching from three hours in heels. Dominic sat on the other side, tie loosened, jaw hard, eyes on the dark glass partition between them and Leo.
“Where are we going?” Lydia asked finally.
“Not your apartment.”
Her head snapped toward him.
