His Bride Limped Down the Aisle Smiling — The Mafia Boss Stopped the Wedding to Lift Her H

Chiến dịch 13

The Bishop’s private vestry smelled of aged frankincense, dry leather books, and the sharp, metallic stench of fresh blood.

Dominic laid Clara down on a velvet-upholstered divan against the oak-paneled wall. He didn't wait for permission from the pale, trembling parish priest who hovered near the vestry door.

"Get out," Dominic told the priest without looking back. "Lock the outer doors of the sanctuary. No one leaves until my men have checked every vehicle in the parking lot."

The priest didn't hesitate. The door clicked shut, leaving only Dominic, Leo, and the unconscious girl.

Dominic stripped off his tuxedo jacket, threw it over a nearby armchair, and tore his cufflinks loose, rolling his white sleeves up past his forearms. He unholstered his custom SIG Sauer from beneath his arm and laid it deliberately on the communion table beside a silver chalice.

Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a spring-loaded silver pocketknife.

"Dominic, listen to reason," Leo urged from the doorway, keeping one eye on the hall. "Tommy took four hundred and fifty grand from the Taylor Street depot. That wasn't just cash—that was payroll for three crews. If you take this girl to your home, if you treat her like family before we verify what she is, people are going to think you've lost your edge. She could be set up to poison your well."

Dominic clicked the knife open. The steel blade caught the amber light of the stained-glass window.

"She walked seventy feet on a shattered fibula, Leo," Dominic said, kneeling beside the divan. "Her brother sold her to settle a tab. If Viktor Kozlov or the Morettis wanted to put a spy in my bed, they wouldn't snap her leg like a dry branch first."

With steady, precise strokes, Dominic slid the blade under the yellow electrical tape wrapped around Clara’s leg.

He cut the binding away layer by layer. Each pass of the blade released more pressure, but it also revealed the horrific reality beneath. The tape had been wound so tightly that the skin had adhered to the adhesive. When he pulled the final strip away, Clara groaned in her stupor, her head thrashing against the velvet pillow.

"Easy," Dominic murmured, his voice instinctively dropping into a lower register. "Hold on."

Beneath the tape, the bone was visibly shifted beneath the skin. It wasn't just a hairline fracture; the lower third of the fibula was displaced, pressing hard against the purple flesh. Around her ankles, the wire burns were raw and weeping yellow serum mixed with blood.

Someone had bound her ankles together with heavy wire, probably anchoring her to a pipe or bed frame, and left her there for days before forcing her into the bridal gown.

Dominic took a clean white linen altar cloth from a cabinet, dipped it into the silver basin of blessed water on the table, and began gently dabbing the dried blood from her skin.

Clara flinched violently at the damp contact.

Her eyes snapped open. For three frantic seconds, her gaze swept the carved ceiling, the heavy oak beams, and the stained-glass saints before fixing on Dominic’s face.

Panic hit her like an electric shock.

"No!" She scrambled backward on the divan, crying out as her left heel dragged across the velvet. "Don't touch me! Tommy, where is she? Where is she?!"

"Clara," Dominic said firmly, catching her shoulders to keep her from throwing herself off the couch. "Look at me. Look at my face."

She stared at him, her chest heaving, pupils dilated until her green irises were barely visible. Her small hands came up, grabbing his forearms, her nails digging directly into his skin through his rolled-up sleeves.

"Castiglione," she whispered, the realization hitting her like ice water. "You... you didn't finish the vows."

"The wedding is over for today," Dominic said evenly.

"No!" A sob tore out of her, raw and guttural. "No, no, no! You don't understand! The certificate had to be posted to the registry by four! Sal is watching the parish website! If the marriage record doesn't show up in the database, Sal won't open the door!"

Dominic’s hands tightened on her shoulders. "Who is Sal, Clara?"

She was shaking so violently her teeth rattled together. "Sal Briggs. Tommy’s partner. He... he has Lily."

The room seemed to drop ten degrees.

Leo stepped forward from the door, his eyes narrowing. "Lily? Tommy doesn't have a kid. Tommy's a bachelor."

"She isn't Tommy's kid!" Clara cried out, turning her desperate gaze toward Leo, then back to Dominic. "She's five years old! She's my sister's daughter! My sister died of leukemia two years ago in Cook County Hospital, and Lily was all she left behind! I’ve been raising her! Tommy didn't care about her until he needed something to trade!"

Tears streamed down her pale face, soaking into the lace collar of her gown.

"Two nights ago," Clara gasped, the words tumbling out in a ragged, breathless flood, "Tommy came to my apartment on 24th Street. He was bleeding from his nose. He said your men were coming to cut his throat because of the Taylor Street money. He said he found a way out—that you agreed to take me instead of the cash."

Dominic’s jaw clamped shut. "I never told him to bring me a prisoner."

"I told him no," Clara sobbed, looking directly into Dominic's dark eyes. "I told him I wouldn't sell myself to a mob boss to pay for his drugs and his bad bets. I told him I was packing Lily’s clothes and taking the midnight Greyhound to our aunt in Indiana."

She swallowed, her throat convulsing with nausea.

"Tommy didn't say anything. He just went into the kitchen, grabbed the heavy iron lug wrench from his toolbox, and told Sal to take Lily out to the car. When I tried to run for the door... Tommy swung the wrench. He hit my leg."

She squeezed her eyes shut, a shudder racking her entire frame.

"I went down on the kitchen linoleum. Tommy tied my ankles with the baling wire from the closet so I couldn't crawl out into the hall. He told me that if I didn't put on the dress his friends bought, if I didn't walk down that aisle with a smile on my face, Sal would lock Lily in the basement on 47th Street and walk away."

Dominic let go of her shoulders. He slowly stood up, towering over the divan.

His face was completely devoid of emotion, a blank wall of stone that Leo knew meant someone was about to die.

"Tommy told you the $450,000 was for drugs and bad bets?" Dominic asked quietly.

Clara blinked through her tears, confused by the question. "Yes. He said he owed your loan sharks."

Dominic turned toward Leo.

Leo pulled a black leather notebook from his breast pocket, his voice tight. "Tommy didn't borrow that money, Clara. Three weeks ago, Tommy broke into the Castiglione logistics depot off the canal. He cracked our safe. He stole four hundred and fifty grand in clean payroll, along with three sets of keys to our South Side transit hubs."

Clara stared at them, completely stunned. "What?"

"Tommy didn't owe a debt out of desperation," Dominic said, his voice dropping into a register of icy clarity. "He robbed me. And when he realized my enforcers were closing every border and train station in Illinois, he needed a distraction to keep me standing in one place while he made his run."

Dominic walked over to the communion table, picked up his heavy SIG Sauer, and slid it back into his shoulder holster.

"He used your wedding to freeze me," Dominic said, buttoning his cuffs. "He knew I wouldn't move against his crew while my own family was gathered at Holy Name. He broke your leg so you couldn't escape, put a gun to a five-year-old child's head to force you to smile, and used my honor to buy himself a six-hour head start."

Clara tried to sit up, her hands clutching the edges of the divan. "Where is Lily? Dominic, please, what did he do to Lily?!"

Before Dominic could answer, the heavy oak door of the vestry burst open.

One of Dominic’s street soldiers, a young man named Frankie, stood in the threshold, breathing hard. In his hand, he held a cheap burner phone enclosed in an evidence bag.

"Boss," Frankie said, glancing nervously at Clara before meeting Dominic's eyes. "We intercepted the courier Tommy sent to the back parking lot. He had this phone. It just got a picture from a burner in South Shore."

Dominic took the phone through the plastic bag and tapped the screen.

Clara watched his face harden into pure marble.

"What is it?" she whispered, trying to pull herself forward on the couch, ignoring the agonizing flare of pain in her leg. "Dominic! Show me!"

Dominic turned the screen toward her.

On the small, cracked display was a photograph of a little girl with curly brown hair, wearing a stained yellow sweater, sitting on a concrete floor in the dark. Behind her was a rusted iron cellar door chained shut with a heavy padlock.