Chapter 6 - The Confession in the Dark
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Victoria left the office with a triumphant smirk.
Clara sat frozen at her desk for ten minutes, her mind racing through a hundred different terrifying scenarios. She could run. She could take her mother and disappear. That was what the old Clara would do.
But she wasn't the old Clara anymore. She was a Russo.
She picked up her encrypted phone and hit speed dial one.
"Dominic," she said the moment he answered. "We have a problem."
Within twenty minutes, Dominic was standing in her office, listening as she recounted Victoria’s threat. His face was a mask of pure, terrifying stone.
"She thinks she can use your mother as leverage," Dominic murmured, staring out the window. "She thinks I am weak."
"Is my mother safe?" Clara asked, her voice trembling.
"I already dispatched a tactical team to the facility," Dominic assured her. "They are moving her to a secure safehouse as we speak. But you are coming with me."
Dominic grabbed her hand and led her out of the building, surrounded by a phalanx of armed guards. They didn't go to the main estate. They went to a luxury penthouse in the heart of the city—a reinforced, bulletproof bunker overlooking the skyline.
That night, the tension in the penthouse was suffocating.
Clara sat on the edge of the massive bed, staring at her hands. Dominic stood by the window, pouring a glass of whiskey.
"I should never have let you claim me publicly," Clara whispered. "I brought this war to your doorstep."
Dominic set the glass down with a sharp clink. He crossed the room and knelt in front of her, taking her hands in his.
"You didn't bring the war, Clara. The war has always been here. You just gave me a reason to finally finish it."
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He looked up at her, his gray eyes softening into something she had never seen before. Pure, unguarded devotion.
"I told you I was waiting for the right moment to make this real," Dominic said softly. "I lied. I've wanted you since the first day you walked into my office and told me my accountants were idiots. I just didn't know how to ask a woman like you to love a monster like me."
