Chapter 2 - The Shadows of Summerlin
The quiet hum of the climate-control unit in Dominic Rossi’s library sounded like a dull saw scraping against Penelope’s raw nerves.
She stared at the laptop screen. The sheer volume of high-resolution digital photographs was horrifying. There were shots of her carrying groceries into her modest townhouse in Henderson, taken from an elevated angle across the street—likely from behind the frosted glass of an abandoned office building. There were images of her leaning against the service entrance of the Venetian during a corporate gala six months ago, holding a cup of lukewarm black coffee. There were even pictures of her standing beside her mother’s wheelchair in the courtyard of the St. Jude Memory Care facility in Boulder City, taken just three weeks prior.
"This is impossible," Penelope whispered. Her voice sounded thin, stripped of the sharp sarcasm she had used as armor only moments before. "I’m an event director. I coordinate wine deliveries and arrange floral centerpieces. I don't have enemies. I don't have secrets worth three months of private surveillance."
Dominic leaned his forearms onto the polished dark oak of his desk. His tailored jacket off, his white dress shirt sleeves were rolled up to his forearms, revealing thick, corded muscle and the dark ink of old Sicilian family crests crawling up his left wrist. The red outline of her palm had faded from his jaw, replaced by a subtle, dangerous shadow of dark stubble.
"Everyone has secrets, Penelope," Dominic said softly, his voice a low, gravelly rasp that seemed to vibrate through the heavy carpet. "And anyone who interacts with my network eventually becomes a variable. But these photos didn't come from my men. They were recovered forty-eight hours ago from a encrypted drop-box server belonging to a shell company in Panama."
"Recovered how?" she demanded, forcing herself to look away from the picture of her mother and meet his steady, pale-grey gaze.
"My head of security, Matteo, intercepted an anonymous data burst attempting to mirror the security feeds of the Bellagio’s subterranean loading dock during Saturday night’s gala," Dominic explained. "Whoever was watching you wasn't just taking pictures for a personal collection. They were tracking your daily schedule down to four-minute intervals. They knew what time you unlocked the kitchen doors at Lux Catering. They knew which gas station you used on Interstate 15. And most importantly, they knew you were going to be working the private floor at the Bellagio three days ago."
Penelope felt her stomach plunge into an icy abyss. "They wanted me to be there."
"Or they knew you would be the spark that ignited the room," Dominic replied. He stood up slowly, all six feet three inches of him unfolding with a fluid, predatory grace. He walked around the desk, stopping just inches from her chair. He didn't lean over her, nor did he use his physical stature to intimidate her—he simply existed in her space with the total, effortless authority of a man who owned everything his eyes landed on.
"When Tony Lombardi put his hands on your waitress, he was out of line," Dominic continued, looking down at her. "When you stepped in, you acted with a rare, suicidal kind of integrity. But when you slapped me, you created a five-second window of absolute chaos in a room holding seventy percent of the Syndicate’s regional leadership."
"Are you saying... I was a distraction?"
"I’m saying someone was counting on either me killing you on the spot, or you causing enough of a disturbance for a second team to slip through the service corridors unnoticed," Dominic said. He reached down, his heavy, calloused fingers briefly touching the edge of the laptop screen, turning it toward himself. "While three hundred men were watching your hand strike my face, twelve million dollars in untraceable cryptocurrency keys were wiped from a dead-drop server in the basement storage locker beneath your catering staging area."
Penelope let out a harsh, disbelieving laugh. "You've got to be kidding me. You think I’m involved in a high-tech mafia heist?!"
"If I thought you were involved," Dominic said, his eyes darkening to the color of wet slate, "you wouldn't be sitting in a leather chair drinking my bottled water. You’d be lying at the bottom of Lake Mead with iron rebar wired to your ankles."
He bent down slightly, bringing his face level with hers. The clean, expensive scent of sandalwood, leather, and tobacco drifted off his skin, invading her senses.
"You are an innocent bystander who was deliberately positioned as a pawn," Dominic murmured. "The person who took these photos spent ninety days building a profile on you. They know your route to work. They know your mother’s medical bill balance—which, if I'm not mistaken, is currently sixty-four thousand dollars in arrears."
Penelope gasped, her hands tightening into tight fists in the lap of her dark green trousers. "Don't you dare mention my mother."
"I mention her because whoever set this game up is going to use her next," Dominic said smoothly. He straightened up, walking toward the tall arched windows that overlooked the manicured gardens of his estate. "They know you’re vulnerable. They know you have a spine of solid iron, but a heart that bleeds for anyone who can't defend themselves. That makes you useful. And in my world, being useful to the wrong people gets you buried."
"So what do you expect me to do?" Penelope stood up, refusing to remain seated while he paced above her. She pulled her shoulders back, her full figure commanding respect despite the terrifying reality closing in around her. "Run away? Go to the police?"
"The police in Las Vegas answer to three different organizations, two of which I own, and one that wants me dead," Dominic said without looking back. "If you go to the authorities, the person holding those photographs will know within twenty minutes. By nightfall, your mother’s life-support funding will be canceled, and your Honda will catch fire on the freeway."
"Then what are my options, Mr. Rossi?"
Dominic turned back around, a faint, cold curve touching the corner of his lips.
"Option one: You go home, pretend this conversation never happened, and wait for the ghost behind that camera to drop the hammer on you."
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"And option two?"
"Option two," Dominic said, stepping toward her until the toe of his hand-crafted Italian leather shoes brushed against the front of her flats, "is that you stay under my roof. You let my men guard your mother. And you help me figure out who used Penelope Davis as a weapon against the Rossi family."
