Chapter 1 - The Bloodline ContractThe air in the private wing on the seventh floor of St. Catherine’s tasted like copper and ozone. Rain hammered relentlessly against the thick glass windows overlooking Manhattan, blurring the twinkling lights of the city into long, bleeding streaks of amber and white.

Dominic Rossi stood motionless outside the double doors of ICU Suite 704. He had refused to wash the blood from his hands. It had dried into a dark, cracking varnish across his knuckles and beneath his fingernails—Clara’s blood, mixed with the acrid gunpowder residue from his own gun.

Isabella stood beside him, her rosary beads clicking rhythmically in the quiet hall. "Protecting her with six guards isn't enough, Dominic. The Costa family owns half the precinct captains in Queens. A fake badge, a misplaced IV bag... she won't survive the week."

"She survived seven bullets," Dominic said, his voice a low, gravelly rasp. "She isn't dying in my hospital."

Enzo stepped down the corridor, his heavy leather shoes squeaking against the polished linoleum. He held a crimson folder tucked beneath his arm. His face was unusually grim.

"The priest from St. Anthony's is downstairs," Enzo said quietly. "He doesn't want to do it, Boss. He says a marriage contract signed without the bride's conscious consent isn't recognized by the Church."

Dominic turned his head slowly. His dark eyes locked onto his second-in-command with a weight that made Enzo's shoulder muscles tense instinctively. "Father Thomas knows who pays the mortgage on his parish. Bring him up."

"Dominic," Isabella warned gently, touching her son's forearm. "You are binding yourself to a ghost. If she wakes up—"

"If she wakes up, she is a Rossi," Dominic interrupted, his tone leaving no room for argument. "Victor Costa can murder a twenty-six-year-old diner waitress without blinking. But if he touches the legal wife of Dominic Rossi, it is an act of war against every family on the Commission. He won't dare."

Enzo hesitated, tapping the crimson folder. "There's something else, Boss. I ran her background check through our contact at the state registry, like you asked before the gala."

Dominic’s eyes narrowed slightly. "And?"

"The blood work the trauma team ran to match her transfusion..." Enzo swallowed hard, glancing at Isabella before leaning in closer to Dominic. "It triggered a flag in the restricted military database. Clara Evans isn't an orphan from Cleveland, Boss. Her birth certificate was forged twenty-four years ago."

Dominic didn't look surprised. A dark, dangerous understanding settled across his features, sharp and cold.

"Keep it locked in the vault," Dominic commanded softly. "Nobody sees that file. Not Enzo, not the doctors, and especially not my mother."

"You already knew," Enzo whispered in disbelief.

"I knew the night her mother checked into that Cleveland clinic under a dead woman's Social Security number," Dominic said. He looked through the reinforced glass window into Suite 704, where Clara lay buried beneath a labyrinth of plastic tubes, cardiac monitors, and hissed oxygen lines. "Now go get the priest."

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Ten minutes later, Father Thomas stood at the bedside, his hands trembling as he read the Latin sacrament over the rhythmic beep-beep-beep of the heart monitor. Dominic didn't take off his blood-stained tuxedo jacket. He slid a plain gold band over Clara’s swollen, cold finger, leaning down until his lips almost brushed her pale, bruised cheek.

"Now anybody who comes for you comes through me," he murmured into the sterile air.