Chapter 8: The Crossroads On Callum Street
Dominic came the very next day.
He didn’t suggest the diner. Scarlett specifically texted him the location of the small, crumbling public park on Callum Street, two blocks from her apartment. It was a perfectly ordinary, public place.
He arrived alone.
He sat down next to her on the peeling green wooden bench. In the thin, gray November light, without his bodyguards or his corner booth, he looked vastly less enormous than he did everywhere else.
He told her the truth. Not everything, but enough.
“The port contracts were real,” Dominic explained, staring out at the dead grass. “Some of the financial arrangements surrounding them would never survive a federal prosecutor’s scrutiny.”
He rubbed his jaw, looking exhausted. “I am insulated from the operational side by enough corporate layers that my direct culpability is legally arguable. Jeffrey Hart believes the RICO case will never reach me.”
“And what does Sandra Cole believe?” Scarlett asked quietly.
“Based on the pace of her recent subpoenas,” Dominic sighed, “she firmly believes she can bury me.”
Scarlett pulled her jacket tighter against the freezing wind. “What are you going to do?”
“Jeffrey has secretly worked on a federal cooperation framework for fourteen months,” Dominic revealed, trusting her with information that could get him killed. “There are corrupt people below me in the structure who would be impacted. The ultimate question is whether what I provide will satisfy what Cole wants.”
“And is it?” Scarlett asked.
Dominic looked at her with devastating honesty. “Probably not.”
Scarlett absorbed the reality of his legal jeopardy. “Why are you telling me this, Dominic?”
“Because you demanded the truth,” Dominic said simply.
“People demand things they don’t always get,” Scarlett pointed out.
“I know,” Dominic said, turning his body toward her. “I decided a few weeks ago that I refuse to be that kind of manipulative person with you. Whatever happens between us. You do not deserve half-truths, Scarlett.”
He paused, letting the admission hang in the freezing air.
“You are the first person outside of Jeffrey and my brother who knows what I just told you,” Dominic confessed.
Scarlett looked out at the park. She watched a woman throwing a tennis ball to a golden retriever twenty yards away.
She thought about Deanna’s spare room in Portland. She thought about exactly what she was built to survive.
“I am not built for the violent world you live in,” Scarlett whispered, staring at her boots.
“I know,” Dominic said softly. “But I think you already knew that, and you are sitting here anyway.”
“Yes,” Scarlett admitted, tears pricking her eyes.
“Why?” Dominic asked, his voice thick with raw emotion.
He looked at her for a long, intense moment.
“Because you fiercely told me to go to my daughter’s dance,” Dominic confessed, his voice breaking. “Because you bravely told me the coffee was hot, even when I threatened you. Because you sit across from me and you talk to me like I am a normal person who can be held accountable.”
He reached out, his warm hand hovering just inches from hers on the bench.
“And because,” Dominic whispered, “I would like very much to be someone you can trust. I haven’t decided yet if I am capable of it, but I would like to try.”
Scarlett Monroe sat on a freezing park bench in November and looked at this incredibly complicated, powerful, genuinely lonely man.
She felt the undeniable sensation of standing at a massive crossroads. Both roads were real. Both had horrific, life-altering consequences. Nobody in the world could make the choice for her.
She looked Dominic Caruso dead in the eyes.
“I am not moving to Portland yet,” Scarlett stated.
Dominic’s breath hitched in his throat.
“Do not make me regret this,” Scarlett warned him fiercely.
Something profound moved in his face. It wasn’t curiosity. It was incredibly raw. It looked like pure relief—like a man carrying a crushing weight for twenty years finally offered permission to set it down.
“I will try,” Dominic promised softly.
“That is not good enough,” Scarlett said.
Dominic smiled—a real, genuine smile. “I know.”
