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There’s a carefulness to his phrasing, the details somehow in the words he’s not saying. I can see the methodical strategic mind Shane said Dominick possesses, making contingencies until the end.
I feel like we’re all pawns in Dominick’s chess game, but we’re still on move three and he’s already planned out his game to the checkmate move.
Shane nods and offers his hand. “Agreed, with one caveat. You will not use either of us in a way that would endanger us, especially Maggie.”
Dominick bows his head and offers his own hand. “I wouldn’t threaten a man’s family. That’s how cockroaches operate, and while I may be a devil in your eyes, I’m no cockroach.”
They shake, and the agreement’s made.
Chapter 22
Shane
“Oh, my goodness, I can’t believe Dominick’s going to help us!” Maggie exclaims happily, falling ungracefully to the couch. We’re upstairs at the club, in the private apartment Dominick keeps. I’ve been up here before, mostly on days when Dom’s stayed over himself. It’s a cush place, small but fancier than anything I’ve ever had for damn sure. And it’s not even his real home, just a crash pad.
After reaching our agreement, Dominick ‘offered’ us the protection of the club and the use of the place. It wasn’t so much an offer as a demand. We’re definitely more prisoner than guest, but his protection comes with his rules, so here we are.
I sit down beside her on the couch, pulling her legs into my lap and slipping off her shoes to rub her feet. “He’s helping, but we can’t get too comfortable in this gilded cage. I’m not certain he won’t flip on us. And we still don’t know what he plans to do about Sal.”
Maggie looks thoughtful, smiling as she wiggles her toes for me. “Honestly, I’m not sure I care. All this mob stuff was happening before, right under my nose, and I was oblivious. If I wasn’t in the middle of it this time, I probably still wouldn’t know about this potential threat to the city. Maybe I’d be better off, happier in my blissful ignorance.”
I run my hand along her calf up to her thigh, marveling at the power in her muscles and tracing the fading marks from last night. “Maybe so. But the power structure that directs the city, from politics, to businesses, to the streets, it’s all intertwined, and if things are running smoothly, you don’t notice them.”
“Kinda like the sewer company?” Maggie asks. “As long as the toilets are working right, you never notice them.”
I nod, thinking Maggie’s found a pretty good analogy. “You haven’t noticed things here because Dominick does a damn fine job of keeping himself seamless. If Sal were running things, you’d know the difference. You’d see it on the news, you’d feel it when you walked around your neighborhood. To be a part of the solution, you have to be aware of the problems . . . all of them, even the scary ones.”
Maggie’s eyes bore into me even as she leans back against the couch cushion. “Is that why you do it, why you’re an FBI agent? To be part of the solution?”
My hands still. I’ve known this was coming. We dropped these big bombs of who we are on each other but then had to let the issues lie while we got to safety.
Now that we’ve got the semblance of protection, the tenuous pause on our questions drops away. “Remember how I told you about my dad?”
Maggie’s chin dips as she whispers quietly. “Yeah. Barney Fife, more or less.”
“Well, Barney Fife, who was about the same size as me, but yeah. He’s why I do this. I grew up seeing him help people, sometimes by being a big, powerful guy with a badge, but more often, it was by being an ear to listen to people’s problems and help them find a way out of whatever trouble they were having. When I was a kid, it was normal to come downstairs and find that Dad had taken in a stray overnight . . . sometimes a kid, sometimes a whole family, and a few times, a recently released felon who needed guidance to see the better path available to him. We had a couple of tents that Dad would let them use, or if the weather was bad, he’d let them crash on the porch or even inside in winter. I always knew I wanted to be a police officer like him, to help people.”
“So, how’d you end up in the FBI?”
“I knew I wanted to be more than a street cop,” I reply honestly. “Dad always said that the real criminals were the ones he could never touch, and I thought I could make a difference. So I went to college for criminal justice, and my grades and performance were good enough to catch the attention of the right people. I was given a few scholarships and cranked my way through a four-year degree in three years before reporting straight to Quantico for the FBI Academy. They broke me down and molded me the way they wanted, taught me how to go undercover, that creative problem-solving is an asset, not a rule-bending problem, and so much more. I don’t think my dad fully realized the extent of what I’d gotten into, but he knew I was an agent before he died, and he was proud of me. My mom kinda lives in denial about my job, but she’s proud too. She just can’t handle the constant anxiety when I disappear for long assignments.”
