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Dominick rises, indicating the conversation is over. As he nears the door, Nick and I still shadowing him, he turns around. “Oh, Sal. I was discussing the shooting with my team when a curious thing occurred to me.”
Sal, who’s whispering furiously to an underling, looks up. “Oh?”
“In watching the security feeds, it seems the hitman never entered the club through the front door,” Dominick reveals. “In fact, it seems he entered through a back door and completed the hit during an irregular blip in our surveillance. Most unusual, wouldn’t you agree?”
Sal nods, a smarmy smile crossing his face. “Yes, must’ve been his lucky day.”
Bad move, and Dom just won the war without even firing a single shot. With his words, Sal just unintentionally confirmed Dominick’s version of events in front of his entire crew. The men look angry . . . at Sal.
Dominick nods, letting things play out with just one more nudge in the right direction to let Sal destroy himself. “I don’t particularly believe in luck myself. I believe in planning and strategy. And I asked myself, what would be my plan for a job like this? It took me a moment to come to terms with my answer, admittedly because I wanted to refuse the truth, but truth is apathetic, neither caring whether we want it or not. It simply is . . . true.”
In a lightning-fast move that I can barely follow, Dominick turns and punches Nick square in the jaw, sending him crashing to the floor. I drop my foot back to steady my stance, keeping my eyes on everyone but Dominick, knowing he can handle himself with Nick on the floor. Everyone in the room is frozen, on high alert, but not getting involved . . . yet.
“An inside man. That’s what he needed to get in and out undetected,” Dominick growls, bending down to grab a handful of Nick’s hair and slamming his face to the floor. “Someone in the club had to let him in the back door and mess with the security feed.”
Dominick slams a heel on Nick’s knee, the crack audible even as Nick cries out in agony. I see Rivaldi men tensing, but this isn’t a matter they can involve themselves in. Dom is beating the shit out of his own man. Besides, they know I’ve got the drop on the whole room, my pistol in my hand but not drawn yet.
Dominick trusts that I’m watching the room, a huge move on his part, He ignores the gathered men, instead addressing Nick, his voice rising in anger. “Even once I admitted that someone in my organization had to have been in on it, I didn’t want it to be you. You were the good soldier, I thought. But it lined up. It was you. Did you even try to catch him when you pursued him? I doubt it.”
Nick is trying to crawl away, but Dominick stomps on his right hand, twisting his heel to get every finger. The bones sound like twigs being broken, and Nick collapses, rolling onto his back and cradling his ruined hand to his chest. “Dom—”
Dominick grabs Nick’s shirt, pulling him face to face. “I trusted you, Nick. And you repaid me with betrayal, working for the little mice and their hired gun. For what? Money? Power? You think they’ll trust you when you’ve already turned once?” Dominick sneers in disgust. His voice quiets, the amount of control scarier than if he was raging. “Not killing you today is a kindness for the years of service you did give me. But if I ever see you again, I will kill you.”
And with the final threat, Dominick lands one last powerful punch to Nick’s nose and blood splatters. Dominick drops him, reaching into his pocket with his clean hand to retrieve his handkerchief and meticulously wiping the blood away.
I reach down, taking Nick’s gun while Dominick finishes up, turning back to Sal and sounding like nothing’s happened. “I’ll leave this trash for you. Not sure he’ll be of any use to you with a bum knee, fucked trigger finger, and buyable loyalty. But he is your man after all. I trust there won’t be a repeat of this issue.”
Sal looks from Dominick’s stone-cold eyes to Nick, groaning in agony on the floor, and seems to realize that he’d severely underestimated just how smart and how batshit-crazy Dominick really is. “No, Mr. Angeline.”
Satisfied, Dominick walks out the door, stepping over Nick dismissively. I wish I could do the same, but the anger in me is too much to bear. Nick is part of the machine that put my Angel in danger.
I can’t do anything about Sal right now. I can’t get my hands on the hitman the way I’d like, but I trusted Nick and Maggie trusted Nick. He was the guy I thought was my most trusted coworker.
