Chapter 3: The Monster’s Kitchen
Dominic chuckled, a dry, humorless sound. He closed the distance between them, stepping deep into her personal space.
He intended to grab her by the jaw. He wanted to force her to look up at him, to establish the absolute physical dominance that had defined his entire criminal career.
“Look at you,” Dominic whispered, raising his hand. “You’re shaking. You’re just meat, sweetheart. And in my city, I’m the grinder.”
He reached out.
That was his first, and nearly his last, fatal miscalculation.
Dominic’s hand never made it to her face. Before his fingers could even brush her jaw, Riley moved with a sudden, explosive velocity that completely shattered his prejudiced expectations.
She didn’t block his hand. She intercepted his wrist, her thick, calloused fingers locking around his bones like an industrial vice.
“What the—” Dominic gasped, shocked by the sheer, unyielding density of her grip.
He tried to yank his arm back, but Riley used his own pulling momentum against him. She pivoted her heavy frame, dropping her center of gravity. Using her substantial weight and lower body strength, she twisted his arm downward and stepped aggressively into his guard.
CRASH.
She slammed Dominic face-first into the freezing stainless steel prep table.
The impact knocked the wind out of his lungs in a violent hiss. Before Paulie or Vincent could even process that their untouchable boss was airborne, Riley had her left forearm pressed brutally against the back of Dominic’s neck, pinning him entirely to the metal.
With her right hand, she snatched the six-inch boning knife off the table.
“Hey!” Paulie roared, yanking a heavy semi-automatic pistol from his jacket.
Vincent did the same, both men aiming directly at Riley’s broad back.
“Take another step, and your boss gets a second smile cut right below his jaw,” Riley barked, her voice echoing fiercely off the tiled walls.
She wasn’t bluffing. She pressed the razor-sharp tip of the knife directly into the soft flesh of Dominic’s carotid artery. A tiny bead of dark red blood welled up around the steel.
Dominic froze entirely. The cold metal of the table bit into his cheek, but all he could feel was the searing, terrifying heat of the blade kissing his pulse. His heart hammered wildly. He was completely, utterly at the mercy of a woman he had dismissed thirty seconds ago.
“Put the guns down, boys,” Dominic choked out, his voice a strained, humiliating whisper. “Do it now.”
“Boss, we got a clear shot—” Vincent stammered, his hands shaking.
“I said put them down!” Dominic roared as loudly as his restricted airway would allow.
Paulie and Vincent exchanged panicked glances before slowly lowering their weapons to the sawdust-covered floor.
“Kick them away,” Riley ordered.
They complied. The heavy guns slid across the floor and under the meat display cases. Riley leaned in close. Dominic could smell the metallic tang of raw meat and the faint, intoxicating scent of vanilla on her skin. Her heavy, rhythmic breathing was calm. Far too calm for a civilian holding a mafia boss hostage.
Most people would be screaming or panicking in a standoff with the mafia. Riley was completely calm. Could you keep your composure if a gun was pointed at your back?
“You made a few bad assumptions today, Mr. Castelli,” Riley whispered, her lips hovering right by his ear. Her voice was devoid of panic, replaced by an icy, calculated edge. “You looked at me and saw a fat girl you could bully. You saw soft.”
“Listen to me—” Dominic started.
“Shut up,” Riley commanded, pressing the blade a fraction deeper. “You didn’t realize that weight is leverage. You didn’t realize that breaking down two-hundred-pound hogs every single day gives a person a very deep understanding of anatomy.”
Dominic squeezed his eyes shut, a cold sweat breaking out across his forehead.
“But your biggest mistake,” Riley continued, the twist of her words sinking in, “was not doing your homework on who owned this shop before me. My father was Arthur Hayes.”
Dominic’s eyes snapped open. The name hit him like a physical blow to the stomach.
Arthur Hayes.
“I see you know the name,” Riley noted, feeling his muscles instantly tense beneath her forearm.
Everyone in the New England underworld over the age of thirty knew Arthur Hayes. He wasn’t just a butcher. During the brutal gang wars of the nineties, Arthur had been the premier ‘cleaner’ for the O’Cannon Irish Syndicate. When the Irish needed a body to completely vanish without a trace, it was brought to the back room of Hayes Prime Cuts.
Arthur knew how to dismantle a human being in under an hour, feed the flesh to the stray dogs, and dissolve the bones in industrial lye.
“He… he died five years ago,” Dominic stammered against the steel table.
“He did,” Riley agreed softly. “A massive heart attack. But not before he taught his only daughter the family trade. How to hold a knife. How to process meat. How to make sure a mess is cleaned up so thoroughly that even the FBI can’t find a single strand of DNA.”
She leaned her considerable weight a little heavier onto his neck, restricting his airflow just enough to induce panic.
“You walked into my shop, threatening to make me disappear,” she growled, the raw power in her voice vibrating through the table. “Do you have any idea how easy it would be for me to drag you into the walk-in freezer right now? I’ve got enough lye in the basement to turn all three of you into a bad memory by sunrise.”
Dominic struggled to draw a breath.
“You think you’re the monster in this city, Dominic?” Riley whispered. “You just stepped into the monster’s kitchen.”
