Chapter 12: The Race Against Ash

“Get to the car! Now!” Dominic roared, his voice completely devoid of its usual terrifying calm. It was a raw, primal shout that vibrated violently against the corrugated steel walls of the warehouse.

He didn’t wait for Khloe’s reaction. He grabbed her aggressively by the forearm, practically dragging her through the freezing, torrential downpour toward the idling armored sedan.

“Thomas, get the engine hot!” Dominic barked into his encrypted comms unit as he shoved Khloe into the cavernous backseat. “We are leaving immediately. Do not wait for clearance at the gates. Ram them if you have to.”

The heavy reinforced doors slammed shut, sealing them back inside the leather-scented fortress. But the quiet luxury of the vehicle was entirely gone, replaced by the suffocating, acidic stench of panic and impending ruin.

Thomas slammed his foot onto the accelerator. The massive car violently fishtailed on the wet, oily concrete of the South Port before finding its brutal traction, rocketing forward into the blinding rain.

Dominic was already moving. He was ripping off his soaking wet suit jacket, throwing it carelessly onto the floorboards. His thumbs flew violently across the screen of his encrypted phone.

“Answer the damn phone, Marcus,” Dominic growled, holding the device to his ear. The veins in his thick neck bulged prominently against his skin. “Come on, pick up the line.”

“Are they at the penthouse?” Khloe asked, her voice shaking uncontrollably as she clutched the edge of the leather seat. The freezing rainwater dripped from her hair, soaking completely through her heavy black turtleneck.

Dominic completely ignored her, his dark eyes fixed on the blurring cityscape outside the window.

“Dominic, talk to me!” Khloe screamed, entirely abandoning the quiet, submissive posture she had carried all morning. “Are they attacking our home?”

“The internal security grid is completely offline,” Dominic stated flatly, lowering the phone. His face was a mask of pure, unadulterated fury. “Marcus isn’t answering the secure line. The lobby desk is routing directly to a dead automated signal.”

“How did they bypass the building’s security?” Khloe demanded, her mind racing. “You own the entire high-rise. You have twenty armed men stationed in the lobby alone.”

“Because they didn’t have to bypass anything if they had a key card and a distraction,” Dominic snapped, his jaw grinding loudly. “They needed me off the premises. They needed my personal security detail stripped down and sent out to follow me to the South Port.”

“And they used my humiliation at the mall to do it,” Khloe whispered, the sickening realization settling heavily in her stomach.

“They knew about the emerald bag,” Dominic said, turning his entire body to face her. “They left a replica of it pinned to the warehouse door to guarantee I would lose my temper. They knew exactly how to play me.”

“But how did they know?” Khloe argued, her hands violently trembling as she wiped the rain from her eyes. “How did they know I was at the luxury concourse yesterday? How did they know what that miserable saleswoman said to me?”

“Someone is talking,” Dominic stated, his voice dropping into a lethal, terrifying whisper. “Someone inside my inner circle knew my wife was shopping alone yesterday afternoon. Someone knew my exact psychological trigger.”

“You think someone betrayed you?” Khloe asked, her chest heaving.

“I don’t think it, Khloe. I know it,” Dominic replied, racking the slide of his handgun to check the chamber for a third time. “And when I find out who sold you out to the East Side crew, I am going to peel their skin off while they are still breathing.”

“Stop talking about murder!” Khloe yelled, aggressively swatting his weapon down toward the floorboards. “We are heading toward an active ambush, Dominic! If they want to destroy the penthouse, let them burn it. We have the money. We can just leave.”

“It is not about the money, Khloe!” Dominic shouted back, the sheer volume of his voice shaking the heavy ballistic glass of the car. “It is about the message! If they burn my sanctuary, they prove to the entire syndicate that I cannot protect my own territory. They prove that you are my absolute weakness.”

“I am not a weakness!” Khloe fired back, tears of sheer frustration violently springing to her eyes. “I am your wife! I warned you not to clear out that mall today. I told you it was a mistake to flex your power over a miserable retail clerk. But you wanted to play the terrifying cartel boss.”

“I did it for you!” Dominic snarled, leaning completely into her personal space. The metallic scent of blood and rain rolling off him was suffocating. “I did it so no one would ever look at you like you were dirt ever again!”

“And instead, you painted a massive target on my back!” Khloe screamed, her voice cracking violently. “They used your arrogance, Dominic. Not my tears. Your arrogance.”

The heavy silence that followed her accusation was deafening. The only sound in the car was the violent, rhythmic swishing of the windshield wipers aggressively fighting the torrential downpour.

Dominic stared deeply into her eyes. For a fraction of a second, the terrifying, unyielding monster completely vanished. He looked entirely, fundamentally human. He looked utterly terrified.

“Thomas,” Dominic said quietly, never breaking eye contact with his wife. “How far are we from the tower?”

“Three minutes, sir,” Thomas replied, his hands gripping the steering wheel in a white-knuckled death grip. “I am seeing heavy smoke rising from the financial district skyline.”

If your partner’s desperate need to protect you was the exact thing that put you in mortal danger, could you ever forgive them for the chaos they caused?

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