Chapter 4 - The Fury of Moretti Tower
The wind roared in Dominic’s face, but he didn't seem to feel it. He tore through the knee-deep snow like a man possessed, his expensive tuxedo coat flying open as he lunged toward the dark space between the brick wall and the dumpster.
“Emma!” he roared, his voice swallowed by the blizzard.
He found me at 11:42 p.m.
I looked like a discarded doll, my face half-buried in a drift of white, my dark hair frozen into rigid, icy strands against the red brick. The snow had already covered the lower half of my coat, turning me into a permanent part of the Chicago landscape.
Dominic dropped to his knees, the cold snow soaking through his trousers instantly. He didn't care. He reached into the drift, his large hands scooping me out of the ice and pulling me against his chest with a desperate, violent strength.
“Emma,” he choked out, his hand going to my cheek. The skin was as cold as marble, firm and unresponsive. He pressed two fingers against the side of my neck, waiting, his own breath coming in ragged, white plumes.
For three agonizing seconds, there was nothing. Then, beneath his fingertips, he felt it—a single, fluttering stroke, so weak it felt like the heartbeat of a dying bird.
“Marco!” Dominic screamed, his head snapping back toward the open door where his security detail and Marco were standing, paralyzed by the sight of the most ruthless man in the city on his knees in the dirt. “Call the ambulance! Get the private medical team from the west wing! Move!”
“Boss,” one of the guards, a young man named Tony, stepped forward hesitantly. “The city ambulances are backed up because of the storm. It could take forty minutes—”
Dominic stood up, lifting my limp body into his arms as if I weighed nothing at all. His face was twisted into an expression of such pure, unadulterated rage that Tony actually drew his weapon by instinct before realizing who he was looking at.
“If she dies because a car is late, Tony, I will personally ensure you never see another sunrise,” Dominic whispered, his voice deadlier than the winter wind. “Bring my car around to the front. Now. We’re going to Mercy Hospital ourselves.”
He carried me out of the alley, his long strides breaking through the drifts until he reached the bright, heated expanse of the main lobby. The security guards at the door stood at attention, their eyes widening as they saw the boss carrying his secretary, her frozen coat dripping gray slush onto the white Italian marble.
A woman in a gold velvet gown—the wife of a prominent city counselor—stepped out of the elevator, a glass of champagne in her hand. “Dominic, darling, what on earth is going on? Who is that girl—”
Dominic didn't even look at her. “Get out of my way,” he said, his voice a low growl that made the woman drop her glass. The crystal shattered on the marble, the expensive liquid pooling around his shoes as he marched straight through the glass doors toward the waiting black SUV.
He slid into the back seat, pulling me down onto his lap, wrapping his heavy wool coat around both of us. He held my face against his neck, his hands rubbing my arms with a frantic, desperate rhythm.
“Drive,” Dominic ordered the chauffeur. “And don't stop for a single light.”
Inside the vehicle, the heat was turned to its maximum setting, the vents roaring with warm air. But inside Dominic’s coat, I was still a block of ice. I didn't move. I didn't blink.
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Dominic looked down at my face, his thumb tracing the blue line of my lips. For two years, he had watched me from behind his desk—the quiet girl who never complained, the girl who knew exactly how he liked his coffee, the girl whose eyes always met his with a strange, fierce intelligence that he had never allowed himself to acknowledge.
“You don't get to leave me like this, Emma,” he whispered fiercely into my frozen ear, his chest heaving as he held me tighter against his heart. “You don't get to die because of a stack of papers. Stay with me. Do you hear me? Stay.”
