DOMINIC POV
Dominic doesn't come to auctions.
He sends James Hart. James handles the small transactions, the low-level business that doesn't require the godfather's attention. But the tip came in at three in the morning from a source deep inside Richard Chen's organization, and Dominic made an exception.
Richard Chen is selling something valuable tonight.
Dominic sits in the back row of the basement, hidden in shadow, and waits. The air is thick with smoke and desperation. Men around him shift in their seats, checking their phones, calculating their finances. These men are dangerous in their own ways. Dealers. Extortionists. Mid-level criminals who still answer to someone higher up the chain.
They have no idea who he is.
Dominic prefers it that way.
Eight years. That's how long he's been waiting for this.
He closes his eyes and the memory hits him like it always does. The restaurant. Sunday dinner. His father Giovanni in his kitchen, the place he'd built from nothing in 1985. His brother Anthony laughing about something. The smell of fresh pasta and garlic and home.
Then the explosion.
Dominic was twenty-four years old when the bomb went off. He was supposed to be there. He was supposed to be eating pasta with his family like every Sunday. But he'd stayed late at a business meeting. He'd been making his first real money, doing legitimate work for the family's finances.
So he lived.
His father didn't. Anthony didn't. Eighteen other people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time didn't.
For three years, Dominic had nothing. No leads. No suspects. No answers. Just dead weight on his shoulders and a family falling apart because the godfather was dead and nobody knew what to do.
Then Dominic found the money trail.
Two million dollars. That's what it cost to kill his father. Two million dollars transferred through four shell companies, three intermediaries, and a network of corruption that took Dominic six months to untangle. But he found it. He traced every wire transfer, every digital footprint, every connection.
It led to Richard Chen.
Richard Chen, the legitimate businessman. Richard Chen, who owned import-export companies and real estate and had no criminal record. Richard Chen, who had ordered the bombing because Dominic's father was threatening his business interests in Queens.
A simple transaction. Kill the problem. Move forward. Make money.
Richard Chen had paid two million dollars to erase Dominic's family.
For five years, Dominic's obsession was finding Richard Chen. When he made his move to become godfather two years ago, finding Chen was his first priority. Deciding what to do with him was his second.
Now the moment is finally here.
The auctioneer starts talking about the lot. Dominic's attention sharpens. A young woman walks down the marble stairs. She's wearing a navy dress that probably came from somewhere expensive, and her face is composed in a way that suggests she's spent a lifetime learning how to hide fear.
She's beautiful in a way that catches people off-guard. Not delicate. Not soft. Beautiful the way a knife is beautiful. Sharp and dangerous and clearly capable of cutting.
Her eyes scan the room methodically. She's not looking at the men bidding. She's analyzing the space. The exits. The security. The power dynamics. She's doing exactly what Dominic would do if he were standing on that stage being sold like merchandise.
She's analyzing her own prison.
Something about that makes Dominic lean forward.
"We have something special tonight," the auctioneer says, his voice excited. This man doesn't understand what he's holding. He doesn't understand the weight of what he's about to say.
"Maya Chen, age twenty-six, financial analyst. Photographic memory for numerical data. No criminal record. Significant information value."
Dominic's entire body stops moving.
Maya Chen.
Richard Chen's daughter.
The girl exists in rumors and shadows. Dominic's research turned up almost nothing about her. Richard keeps her separate from the business. She went to private school. She works at a legitimate hedge fund. She has no criminal connections. She's a ghost in Richard's life, barely mentioned, barely known.
Until now.
Richard Chen is selling his own daughter.
Dominic's mind runs through the implications at the speed of lightning. This is desperation. This is a man who's lost everything. This is Richard Chen offering up his most valuable asset because he has nothing else left to bargain with.
Dominic knows what Richard is worth because Dominic has been studying him for five years. Richard has three hundred million dollars hidden across accounts and shell companies worldwide. But if he's selling his daughter at an auction, something has shifted. Something has broken.
The bidding starts. One million. One point two. One point five.
Each number is a heartbeat. Each bid brings the moment closer when Dominic can finally move.
The young woman on stage is trying to hide her fear. She's failing, but only slightly. Her breathing is shallow. Her eyes are too bright. Her fingers are clenched at her sides. She's terrified and absolutely no one in this room realizes it except Dominic.
Dominic, who's spent eight years learning to read people. Dominic, who's spent two years learning to read Richard Chen specifically. Dominic, who understands that fear and control are different things and this girl has one but not the other.
Yet.
"One point eight," a man with a scarred face says.
Dominic waits one beat. Then he speaks.
"Two million."
The room dies.
It's not the amount that kills the auction. It's the voice. It's the way he says it like he's not bidding. Like he's making a statement. Like he's telling every man in the room something they should already understand.
The scarred man lowers his hand slowly.
The auctioneer's voice gets higher, faster. "Going once. Two million dollars. Going twice."
Nobody else bids.
"Sold," the auctioneer says, and the gavel comes down.
Dominic stands up and the two security men who've been standing behind him move forward silently. They're large men with cold eyes and the kind of presence that makes the room smaller. They walk toward the stage like they own it because their boss owns everything.
The girl watches him approach. Her composure cracks slightly when she realizes something: this man who just bought her doesn't look like he needs anything from her. He doesn't look desperate or eager or hungry. He looks like he's been waiting for her specifically.
He looks like he knows something she doesn't.
Dominic climbs onto the stage and looks at her directly. This close, he can see the fear she's hiding. He can see the intelligence beneath it. He can see that she's trying to calculate something about him.
She's running through the same analysis he would run.
"My name is Dominic Rossi," he says quietly. "You belong to me now. Two million dollars makes it official."
Something shifts in her eyes when he says his name. Not recognition. She doesn't know who he is. But she recognizes that the name means something. She's heard it before, probably from her father's phone conversations or his meetings. Dominic Rossi is a name that carries weight in certain circles.
But she doesn't know why he's here. She doesn't know this is personal. She doesn't know that the man standing in front of her has spent eight years hunting the man who sold her.
And she definitely doesn't know that her father ordered a bombing that killed nineteen people.
She asks him what he wants from her, her voice steady. That surprises him. Most people would beg or cry or bargain.
Not her.
"Everything," Dominic says, and he means it. "I'm going to own your skills. Your intelligence. Your future. Everything you have, I own now."
He gestures to his men and they guide her off the stage. Dominic watches her walk toward his security team, her spine straight, her composure returning inch by inch.
She's already adapting.
She's already calculating how to survive this.
That's when Dominic understands the full weight of what he just did. He didn't just buy a tool to use against Richard Chen. He bought Richard Chen's greatest asset. He bought the one thing Richard actually loves because Richard is a coward, and cowards always love something they can use as leverage.
Dominic just took that leverage.
And when Richard Chen discovers what his daughter has become under Dominic's control, when Richard realizes that his beloved only child is now in the hands of the man he should have killed eight years ago, the real destruction will begin.
But there's something else happening too. Something Dominic didn't plan for.
The girl intrigues him.
She's not broken. She's not crying. She's not begging. She's analyzing the situation like it's a math problem. She's trying to figure out what this man in the expensive suit actually wants from her.
She has no idea that he's a crime boss.
She has no idea that two million dollars is nothing to him.
She has no idea that her father ordered his father's death.
And as he watches her disappear into his car, as he watches her turn back one final time to look at the basement where she was sold, Dominic realizes something dangerous.
He's not just hunting Richard Chen anymore.
He's keeping Richard Chen's daughter.
And Richard is going to understand what that means. Richard is going to understand that his greatest fear has come true: his daughter is now completely in the power of his enemy. And there's absolutely nothing he can do about it.
Dominic smiles.
It's the kind of smile that men in power give when they finally see the pieces of their revenge clicking into place.
His phone buzzes. A message from James Hart: "Sir, we have the girl's background file. You should see it."
But Dominic already knows what he needs to know.
He bought her.
And before this is finished, she's going to help him destroy everything her father built.