Chapter 7: Blood and Lavender

The estate’s basement trauma center smelled of fresh antiseptic and the metallic tang of failing biology. Doc Miller had frantically reconnected all the equipment transported from Queens. In the center of the room, surrounded by banks of blinking monitors and IV poles, lay Clara.

The harsh overhead surgical lights offered no mercy, highlighting every brutal detail of her decay. A thick, clear tube snaked from a ventilator machine into her nose, forcing oxygen into her ruined lungs. Miller was adjusting the drip rate on a bag of opaque yellowish fluid, his hands shaking violently.

“She woke up for a minute,” Miller whispered, stepping back as Dominic approached the bed. “Her heart rate spiked. Dom, her blood toxicity levels are incompatible with life.”

Dominic ignored the doctor. He stood beside the metal railing, looking down at the woman he had mourned for over two thousand days. He reached out, hesitating before resting his large, warm hand lightly over her skeletal fingers.

Clara’s eyelids fluttered, dragging open heavy and slow. Her cloudy hazel eyes stared blindly at the ceiling for a long second before slowly shifting to focus on his face.

“You look exactly the same,” she breathed, pain lacing every syllable. “Still wearing that stupid scowl.”

“Save your breath,” Dominic rasped, his voice cracking, betraying the iron grip he was trying to keep on his fractured composure.

“She is yours, Dominic,” Clara whispered, her voice fading rapidly, slipping into the narcotic haze as her organs finally began to shut down entirely. “Mia. I named her Mia.”

“I know,” Dominic said softly.

“Don’t,” Clara gasped, her eyes rolling back slightly as she fought to stay anchored to the present. “Don’t turn her into you. Don’t let her live in the dark. Promise me.”

Dominic looked down at her. He wanted to lie, to tell her he would buy an island and live out their days in the sun, but he was a man who trafficked in brutal, unforgiving truths.

“I can’t promise that, Clara,” he murmured, his lips inches from her ear. “Because the only way to keep her safe now is to drag the entire city into the dark with me.”

Clara didn’t respond. The wet rattling in her chest hitched, stuttered, and then stopped entirely. The heart monitor let out a single, solid, unbroken tone. A flat, piercing scream of machinery that cut through the silence.

“She’s gone,” Miller said helplessly. “Her heart gave out.”

Dominic stood perfectly still, letting the flatline ring in his ears, letting it rewire his nervous system. Slowly, he pulled his hand away, turned his back on the bed, and walked toward the heavy steel door.

“Put her in the freezer, Miller,” Dominic ordered without looking back.

He walked up the stairs, bypassed the kitchen, and marched down a narrow hallway to the back of the estate. He punched a six-digit code into a heavy biometric steel door, stepping into the pristine, meticulously organized armory.

Dominic pulled off his suit jacket, unbuttoned his cuffs, and reached for a heavy black canvas duffel bag. He began loading magazines with hollow-point ammunition, the metallic clack-clack-clack of the rounds sliding into place the only sound in the house.

“You’re making a mistake, Dom,” Paulie said, standing in the threshold of the open armory door.

“Get a crew together,” Dominic replied, racking the slide of an assault rifle with terrifying finality. “We hit Rossi’s compound in Staten Island first, then we sweep the docks.”

“No,” Paulie said. It was the first time in fifteen years the enforcer had refused a direct order. “You hit Staten Island tonight, you’re a dead man. Rossi has fifty guys on that perimeter. You’re walking into a woodchipper.”

“I’ll peel Victor’s remaining skin off his skull!” Dominic roared, whipping around to face his friend.

“And when you die tonight, who looks after the kid upstairs?” Paulie fired back, his voice steady. “Rossi won’t let her live. If you walk out that door right now, Clara died for absolutely nothing.”

The words hit Dominic like a physical blow, fracturing the armor of his blind rage. Before he could respond, a small shadow detached itself from the hallway behind Paulie.

Mia stepped into the harsh fluorescent light of the armory. Helen had scrubbed the street off her. She was wearing an oversized gray cashmere sweater, her dark hair combed flat against her skull. But it was the smell that made Dominic’s breath catch in his throat.

Lavender soap. The exact scent Clara used to wear.

Mia stared past Paulie, her pale hazel eyes locking onto the arsenal spread across the table. She didn’t look afraid; she looked terribly resigned, waiting for the violence she had been promised her entire life to finally arrive.

“Are you going to die?” she asked, her quiet voice echoing off the concrete walls. “The man who brought the food said if we ever left the box, men with guns would shoot us.”

Dominic looked down at the polymer rifle in his hands, designed solely to end human life. Then he looked at his daughter, Clara’s last act of defiance, standing perfectly still in a room built for war.

He set the submachine gun down on the steel table. The clatter was loud, jarring. He unclipped his holster, tossed it aside, and walked slowly toward her, crouching down until he was at her eye level.

“No,” Dominic said, his voice dropping to a gravelly, quiet murmur. “I am not going to die tonight.”

Mia tilted her head, her eyes narrowing with inherent suspicion. “Are you going to shoot the man with the melted face?”

Dominic held her gaze, giving her the ugly, unvarnished truth. “Yes. I promise you, I will. But not tonight. Tonight you sleep in a warm bed. And tomorrow… we start taking apart their world.”