Chapter 8: Renegotiating the Past
Dominic Castelli sat in his dark charcoal sedan across the street, watching the shop. His instinct, sharpened over a decade of war, told him something was wrong. Paulie hadn’t checked in.
“This is not logical,” Dominic whispered, his fingers drumming on the steering wheel. “It is irrational behavior.“
A flickering red light drew his attention.
Inside Hayes Prime Cuts, the emergency lights had kicked on, revealing the fractured shadows of a struggle.
Dominic exploded from the car. He didn’t take Paulie. He didn’t take Vincent. In that moment, he realized those men, his “loyal” guard, were not just missing—they were the problem.
He sprinted through the rain, kicking his expensive Italian shoes onto the wet pavement. He checked his silenced submachine gun, his eyes dead with a lethal clarity.
He hit the door of the butcher shop, slamming his shoulder into the glass and the deadbolt, knowing the alarm would trigger. He didn’t care.
“Riley!” Dominic roared, raising his weapon as he scanned the main floor.
He didn’t see her. He saw the sawdust scattered, the marinade jars smashed, and a trail of blood—not massive, but undeniable—leading toward the walk-in freezer.
“God help me,” Dominic murmured. He advanced toward the freezer door, which was hanging open.
The blast of sub-zero air hit him, followed instantly by the smell of blood and spice. Dominic stepped inside.
The visual that greeted him stopped his heart.
Paulie Valente was bound, wrist-to-ankle, to one of the massive meat hooks on the iron track, hanging inches off the floor. His knee was visibly pointing in the wrong direction, a compound fracture sticking through his jeans. He was shivering violently, his face blue.
Vincent was unconscious, tied to a shelf.
Riley Hayes stood in the center of the freezer, her broad, calloused hands resting on the handles of her massive, twenty-inch wisto butcher knife. Her breath bloomed in a calm, rhythmic cloud. Her dark eyes, fierce and unblinking, locked onto Dominic.
She wasn’t holding the weapon on him. She was holding it in protection of what she had secured.
