Dominic watched him absorb the fact that this woman did not care who he was.
“Do as she says,” Dominic murmured.
Marco’s jaw flexed. “Boss…”
“Do it.”
The conversation in Marco’s face ended there.
“Fine,” he said, the word ground thin by frustration. “But you can’t stay forever.”
He left with less noise than he arrived, and when the door shut Rosa muttered, “That one has the face of a man who bites.”
Dominic closed his eyes.
“That’s one of his better qualities.”
By the time Christmas Eve came, the little house smelled like cinnamon, onions, and cheap candle wax.
Paper snowflakes hung in the windows. Lily had made a garland from construction paper stars and insisted on taping one above Dominic’s bed “because even bad men need Christmas decorations if they’re trying.”
He should have left by then.
He knew it. Rosa knew it. Marco reminded him every twelve hours. Vince Moretti had seized warehouses, turned lieutenants, and set small fires in Dominic’s empire that would grow into infernos if he remained absent much longer.
But Dominic stayed one more day, then one more, then one more after that, because in this house time moved according to needs more human than power. Lily needed help with spelling words. Rosa needed someone to carry groceries when her knees swelled. The sink leaked. The back porch rail wobbled. The trash had to go out. The world kept presenting ordinary reasons to remain, and Dominic found he wanted them.
That terrified him more than bullets ever had.
