Chapter 6 - The West Side Relapse
The peace lasted exactly until the first freeze of February.
Ryan Perez had been stripped of his badge, his pension, and his public dignity within forty-eight hours of Dominic’s meeting with the captain, but a man who has lived by fear doesn't simply disappear into the shadows when the lights are turned on. He gets desperate. He gets loud.
At 11:45 PM on a wet Friday, the rear doors of the Grand Avenue Bakery—the ones leading to the dark loading alley behind the flour silos—were pried open with a heavy crowbar.
Jenna was in the small office behind the kitchen, reviewing the new delivery contracts from the Indiana mill, when the security alarm on the panel began its high-pitched, rhythmic chirp.
Before she could reach for the landline, the office door was slammed open, splintering the frame.
Ryan Perez stood in the doorway. He didn't wear his tailored detective’s coat or his polished CPD leather jacket; he wore a stained canvas jacket, his face pale and haggard, his jaw still showing the dark yellow bruising from Marco’s knuckles three weeks ago. He carried a short-barreled shotgun in his right hand, his eyes wild with the frantic, chemical energy of a man who had spent the last month drinking his way through the dive bars of Cicero.
"Jenna!" Ryan shouted, his voice echoing off the stainless-steel prep tables in the kitchen. "Get your hands on the desk! Right now! Don't you touch that phone!"
Jenna stood up slowly from her chair, her heart executing a sudden, explosive leap against her ribs, but the paralyzing, helpless terror that had defined her life for three years didn't arrive. Instead, a cold, crystalline fury settled into her chest—the same fury she had felt when she looked at the stolen ledgers in the Moretti Tower.
She kept her hands flat on the mahogany desk, her blue eyes locked onto his face without a single drop of fear. "You shouldn't be here, Ryan. The court order says fifty yards."
"The court order is a piece of paper signed by a judge who’s currently crying in his office because Moretti bought his mortgage!" Ryan sneered, stepping into the room, his shotgun shaking slightly as he pointed it at her chest. "You think you're safe because you're sleeping in the penthouse? You think that Italian bastard cares about a south side baker? He used you to clear my narcotics files, Jenna! He used you to strip my captain's rank! You're nothing but a piece of evidence to him!"
"He didn't use me, Ryan," Jenna said, her voice steady and resonant in the small office. "He looked at the books. He saw what you and Rossi were doing to the grain shipments. You aren't a cop anymore, Ryan. You're just a small-time thief who’s about to run out of luck."
"Shut up!" Ryan roared, stepping closer, his fingers tightening on the trigger. "You're coming with me. We’re going to the west side warehouse. You're going to sign the affidavit saying Moretti’s men forced you to lie to Internal Affairs, or I’m going to leave this whole block in ashes."
Before he could take another step, a shadow materialized from the dark kitchen behind him.
Marco DeLuca didn't say a word. He didn't issue a warning. He simply reached out with one massive, leather-gloved hand, grabbed the barrel of the shotgun, and twisted it upward with a sickening, audible crunch of bone. Ryan let out a sharp, choked cry of pain as his wrist fractured under the torque, the weapon discharging once into the tin ceiling before Marco slammed his fist straight into the center of Ryan’s face.
The ex-cop went down hard against the concrete floor, the shotgun skittering away under the desk.
Dominic Moretti walked into the office then, his long black overcoat snow-flecked from the drive, his stride unyielding and calm. He didn't look at Ryan, who was currently gasping and bleeding into the sawdust on the floor. He walked straight to the desk, his gray eyes scanning Jenna’s face once, checking the alignment of her shoulders, the steady rhythm of her breath.
"Are you intact, Jenna?" Dominic asked.
"I'm fine, Dominic," she said, her voice dropping into its natural, quiet register as she stepped out from behind the desk. "He didn't touch me. Marco was too fast."
Dominic turned his head slowly, looking down at the groveling form of Ryan Perez. The expression on the crime boss’s face wasn't anger—it was something older, colder, and infinitely more dangerous. It was the face of a man who was about to permanently balance a ledger.
"You're a slow learner, Ryan," Dominic said, his voice dropping into that quiet, terrifying frequency that filled the room until the glass in the windows seemed to rattle. "I told your captain that if I saw your name within city limits by sunrise, there would be consequences. You didn't even wait for the sun."
"Moretti... please," Ryan gasped, his hand clutching his shattered wrist, his eyes wide with the sudden, absolute realization that his badge was gone and no one was coming to save him. "We can... we can make a deal. I know about the Cicero shipments... I know about the Detroit network..."
"I own the Detroit network, Ryan," Dominic said softly, stepping closer until his polished leather boot was resting flat against the ex-cop’s uninjured shoulder, pinning him to the floorboards with a force that made the wood groan. "You don't have anything to sell me but your absence. Marco, put him in the rear seat of the sedan. Drive down to the Calumet harbor terminal. The third warehouse has a secondary container that’s currently empty, waiting for a shipment to Naples."
"Moretti, no! You can't!" Ryan screamed as Marco dragged him toward the back door by his collar, his shoes scuffing uselessly against the concrete. "Jenna! Tell him! Tell him to stop! I'm sorry! I'm sorry, Jenna!"
The heavy steel door of the loading dock slammed shut, cutting off the rest of his shouts.
The office fell into a sudden, clean quiet, the only sound the hum of the bakery’s commercial refrigerators in the next room. Dominic stood in the center of the floor, his hands tucked into his overcoat pockets, his gray eyes fixed on Jenna with an intensity that made her breath catch in her throat.
"You didn't flinch," he said quietly.
"I spent three years flinching, Dominic," Jenna said, walking over to him until she was standing only inches from his chest, her blue eyes locked onto his with an absolute, unyielding trust. "I'm done with that. If you're going to burn this city down to keep me safe, the least I can do is hold the matches."
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A slow, beautiful smile touched the corners of Dominic’s mouth—the chiseled mask completely gone, leaving only the man who had answered the wrong number at midnight. He reached out, his long fingers gently cupping her jaw, his thumb tracing the faint white line where the orbital bruise had finally healed.
"The city is already clean, Jenna," he whispered, his voice warm against her lips. "We’re just setting the new parameters."
