DOMINIC POV
Dominic is losing focus.
This is dangerous. A crime boss who loses focus dies. A leader who gets distracted gets overthrown. A man in his position can't afford weakness, and what's happening to him right now is weakness.
He knows it.
He's at his desk at two in the morning watching her work through his office window. She's hunched over her spreadsheet, her dark hair falling out of its bun in loose pieces. She's been like this for fourteen hours. She forgot lunch. She hasn't eaten dinner.
She's talking to herself. Little whispers. Numbers spoken like prayers. Calculations murmured as she traces money through accounts. Her lips move silently as she processes information.
She's beautiful in a way that has nothing to do with her face.
James enters the office without warning. He's learned not to knock anymore.
"You're becoming attached," James says carefully.
Dominic doesn't respond.
"Sir, I'm serious. The way you watch her. The decisions you're making. You're not thinking clearly."
"I'm thinking perfectly clearly," Dominic says. It's a lie and they both know it.
"A month ago you would have fired anyone who lost four million dollars in leaks," James continues. "Now you're watching her solve that problem and looking at her like she's something you need to own more than you need to breathe."
Dominic finally turns away from the window. His expression is unreadable but his hands are clenched.
"She's useful," he says.
"She's more than useful," James replies. "By week two, her suggestions had saved you two hundred thousand dollars. By week four, it's five million. She's not just competent, sir. She's essential. And I think you know that."
James moves closer.
"What I don't know is what happens when this is over. When you've destroyed her father. When she realizes what you did. When she understands that you've been using her this whole time."
Dominic turns back to the window. Maya is still working. She's pushed her hair out of her face. There's a pen behind her ear. She's writing notes in margins. She's solving problems that took his best people months to untangle.
He paid two million dollars for her.
She's worth infinitely more.
"Leave," Dominic says quietly.
James hesitates. Then he leaves.
Dominic sits in his office and tries to focus on work. Financial reports. Operation updates. Territory disputes with other families. Things that used to matter the way oxygen matters.
Nothing matters anymore except the fact that Maya Chen is sixty feet away working without knowing what she's actually helping him do.
He should tell her. He should be honest about the plan. Tell her that her father ordered a bombing. Tell her that two people died. Tell her that everything he's doing is personal. Tell her that using her this way makes him complicit in a kind of betrayal he didn't think he was capable of anymore.
He stays silent instead.
A week later, she presents findings that trace money directly to her father's shell companies. The amount is staggering. Fifty million dollars that Richard Chen hid over the past decade. Money that Dominic can now use to dismantle everything her father built.
Dominic listens to her presentation without interrupting. When she finishes, she's flushed from the work. Satisfied with what she's accomplished.
She has no idea she just helped her father's enemy destroy him.
At three in the morning, Dominic finds himself unable to sleep again.
He pulls files from a locked drawer. Photographs from eight years ago. The restaurant. The aftermath. Investigators' reports. Names of the dead.
He spreads them across his desk and stares at them.
His father's name appears in multiple reports. His brother's name. Sixteen others who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Eighteen people. Eighteen families. Eighteen futures that ended because Richard Chen decided a business rival was worth killing.
Dominic picks up a photograph of his father's face. Not from the bombing. From before. From a Sunday dinner. Giovanni smiling. Happy. Alive.
He hears footsteps in the hallway.
He should close the files. Should hide the photographs. Should pretend he's been reviewing something else.
He doesn't.
Maya appears in his doorway. She's wearing a sleep shirt that goes to her knees. Her hair is down. She's barefoot. She looks vulnerable in a way that makes something in his chest hurt.
She stops when she sees the photographs.
She doesn't ask permission to enter. She walks into the office and stares at the images spread across his desk. She picks up one photograph carefully. Then another. Her hand starts shaking.
"What is it?" she asks quietly. "What did my father do?"
Dominic's entire body goes still.
She knows.
Not the details. But she knows something is terribly wrong. She knows this isn't about money or empire or business rivalry. She knows this is about blood.
She looks at him and her eyes are older than they were a month ago.
"Tell me," she says. "Tell me what my father did to you."