Chapter 2: The Weight of the Blade

The bell above the shop door chimed, slicing through the rhythmic thwack, thwack, thwack of Riley Hayes’s heavy steel cleaver.

She didn’t look up immediately. Riley was busy breaking down a heavy pork shoulder, expertly separating bone from muscle. She was an unapologetically fat woman, carrying her weight not with the timid slouch of someone trying to hide, but with the solid, immovable gravity of a boulder. Her forearms were thick from years of hauling sides of beef.

Dominic stepped inside, flanked by his two heaviest hitters, Paulie and Vincent.

“Lock it,” Dominic ordered quietly.

Paulie grinned, turning the deadbolt with a loud click and flipping the open sign to closed.

Dominic stepped over the sawdust on the floor, his expensive Italian leather shoes stopping just short of the display glass. He analyzed her. To Dominic, fat meant soft. It meant lazy. It meant a lack of discipline. He assumed her size made her a vulnerable target.

“You’re a hard woman to reason with, Miss Hayes,” Dominic began, expecting her to visibly tremble at the sound of his voice.

Riley wiped a streak of blood off her cheek with the back of her wrist, leaving a faint crimson smear on her pale skin. She finally looked up. Her dark eyes locked onto his. She didn’t shrink. She didn’t gasp.

“Shop’s closed,” she said, her voice completely flat. “Come back tomorrow at eight, though I don’t think you’re here for the brisket.”

“I’m here about Tony,” Dominic said, offering a cold, predatory smile. “He’s currently in surgery. Because of you.”

“He shouldn’t have put his hands on my scale,” Riley replied calmly, returning her attention to the pork shoulder.

She picked up a smaller, razor-sharp boning knife and began slicing with terrifying precision.

“It disrespects the meat,” she added without looking up. “And it disrespects me.”

Paulie, a hulking man with a broken nose, took a furious step forward, his hand slipping into his heavy coat. “Watch your mouth, pig. You’re talking to Mr. Castelli.”

“Hold,” Dominic commanded, raising a hand.

He was fascinated, though mostly offended, by her complete lack of terror. He thrived on breaking people’s psychological defenses, and he assumed hers were built entirely on false bravado.

“I don’t think you understand the gravity of your situation, Riley,” Dominic said, stepping around the counter, invading the sacred space of her prep area.

“I understand gravity perfectly fine,” Riley noted.

“You think because you’ve got some padding, because you swung a hammer at a man who wasn’t looking, that you’re tough,” Dominic sneered, pacing slowly toward her. “You’re a lonely, overweight butcher in a dying neighborhood. I own the police. I own the landlords. By tomorrow morning, I can make sure you don’t even have a name.”

Riley stopped cutting.

She set the knife down on the stainless steel table. The ambient hum of the commercial refrigerators seemed deafening in the sudden silence. She turned to face him fully. Up close, Dominic realized the sheer, imposing breadth of her shoulders.

“You talk a lot for a guy who just walked into a room full of sharp objects,” Riley noted softly.

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