CHAPTER 3: THE PRIVATE CALENDAR
CHAPTER 3: THE PRIVATE CALENDAR
Working for Dante Russo was an exercise in cognitive dissonance.
My office was located on the top floor of the Russo Global Logistics building, a glittering glass monolith overlooking the Chicago River. My days were filled with tasks that any corporate secretary would find mundane: scheduling meetings with European shipping partners, managing invitations to political fundraisers, and organizing invoices for the Russo Philanthropic Foundation. Dante was an exacting boss, demanding absolute punctuality and flawless organization, but he was never cruel. He treated me with a quiet, distant respect that made it easy to forget where we had met.
But the underworld had a way of bleeding through the corporate veneer.
It happened during my third week on the job. It was late, past seven in the evening, and the corporate staff had already gone home. I stayed behind to finish logging the donations for an upcoming gala for inner-city children—a cause Dante championed with a ferocity that puzzled me.
The heavy glass doors of the executive suite swung open, and Dante walked in, followed closely by Luca. Dante’s charcoal suit jacket was missing, his white dress shirt rolled up at the elbows, revealing thick, muscular forearms corded with veins.
But it was his hands that caught my attention. His right knuckles were split open, smeared with a dark, drying crimson.
I stood up from my desk automatically, my breath catching in my throat. My psychological training immediately screamed threat identification, but my maternal instinct—the part of me that spent every day assessing safety—made me freeze.
Dante stopped when he saw me. He didn't try to hide his hands. He just looked at me with those dark amber eyes, searching my face for the terror he probably expected to see.
"You're still here, Sophia," he said, his voice dropping into that quiet, gravelly register.
"I was just finishing the foundation ledger," I managed to say, my voice steady despite the hammer beating inside my chest. "Your... your knuckles are bleeding, Mr. Russo."
Dante looked down at his hand as if he hadn't noticed the injury until that exact moment. "An occupational hazard. A shipping dispute required a... hands-on resolution."
Luca stepped forward, holding a small first-aid kit he had pulled from the executive bathroom. But before the large guard could open it, Dante held up a hand, stopping him. His eyes never left mine.
"You were a pre-med track before you switched to psychology, weren't you, Sophia?" Dante asked softly.
"How do you—" I stopped myself, remembering who I was talking to. "Yes. I took two semesters of advanced first aid and wilderness medicine."
"Luca has the hands of a blacksmith," Dante said, stepping closer to my desk, leaving a faint scent of rain, expensive cologne, and iron in the air. "Clean me up."
My hands were shaking as I took the first-aid kit from Luca, who gave me a nod of approval before stepping out of the office, closing the heavy doors behind him.
Dante sat on the edge of my mahogany desk, extending his injured hand toward me. I pulled up my chair, wet a sterile gauze pad with antiseptic, and gently began to dab away the blood. The split across his knuckles was deep, requiring stitches, but he didn't even flinch as the alcohol burned into the open wounds.
"You aren't asking who the blood belongs to," Dante observed, his gaze fixed on the top of my head as I worked.
"It's none of my business," I murmured, keeping my eyes locked on his hand. "My job description includes discretion, Mr. Russo. Not interrogation."
"A wise policy," he said. "But curiosity is a human trait. Especially for a psychologist."
"I'm a mother, Mr. Russo. My curiosity ended the day Lily was born. Now, I only care about outcomes." I finished cleaning the skin, applying a neat, professional layer of medical tape over the gauze. "You need three stitches in that middle knuckle, by the way. I can do it if you have a suture kit, or you can see a real doctor."
Dante stared down at the perfect bandage, a rare, genuine smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "You have steady hands, Sophia. Even when you're terrified."
"I'm not terrified of you," I lied, looking up to meet his amber eyes.
"You should be," he said quietly, his expression turning solemn. "The world I live in doesn't accommodate innocence, Sophia. I brought you into my orbit to protect you from the wolves at your door, but never forget that I am the alpha of the pack."
He stood up, adjusting his cuffs, the corporate king once again. "Go home to your daughter, Sophia. The driver is waiting downstairs."
May you like
As I rode the elevator down to the lobby, my mind was spinning. He was right; I should have been terrified. I had just cleaned the blood of a mob boss's victim off his hands. But as I thought about the way he had looked at me—not with the predatory hunger of the men at the Velvet Room, but with a fierce, almost desperate protectiveness—I realized something far more dangerous than fear was taking root in my chest.
I was starting to see the man behind the monster. And that was the first step toward getting destroyed.
