THE UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTH

CHAPTER FOUR

The alley is too quiet.

Too narrow..Too cold. Or maybe that’s just me — my breath turning shallow as Dominic’s last words hang between us like a blade.

“Someone you should’ve never stolen from.”

I stare at him, heart knocking against my ribs so hard I feel dizzy. My mind races, collecting pieces of a puzzle I didn’t even know I was putting together.

He doesn't look away.

Dominic stands there in the grainy early light, jaw clenched, blue eyes burning with a truth he clearly didn’t want to give me yet. His suit is wrinkled from the fight, a smear of coffee stains the cuff, and a reddish cut blooms near his knuckle — but he still looks frighteningly composed.

Like fighting three armed men before breakfast is just another task on his calendar.

I swallow.

“You’re kidding,” I say weakly. “Right? I stole a wallet. A wallet. You’re acting like I detonated a bomb in your penthouse.”

His expression doesn’t change.

“I’m not kidding.”

Cold creeps down my spine.

I cross my arms to hide the tremor. “So what, you’re… what? Some kind of crime lord? Mob boss? Mafia prince?” I laugh, but the sound is thin, fake, nervous. “Please. I’ve seen movies, but real life isn’t that dramatic.”

He steps closer.

Too close.

“The men coming after you,” he says quietly, “weren’t dramatic either.”

I shut my mouth.

Silence drapes over us like suffocating fabric. He watches me in a way I can’t read — assessing, calculating, protecting, warning. All at once.

But my fear sharpens into anger.

“You think giving me half-answers is helpful?” I snap. “You think dragging me into alleys and telling me a hit squad is after me is calming?!”

His jaw flexes. “I’m telling you what you need to know.”

“No.” I shake my head. “You’re telling me what you want. That’s not the same.”

His eyes flicker — irritation? Respect? Something darker?

He sighs once, like he’s about to give me a truth he’s been trying not to say.

“Zara,” he begins, “the wallet you tried to take—”

I cut him off. “Your precious wallet again. Let me guess — it contains top-secret government intel? A map to the underworld? A list of people you’ve killed?”

He steps forward lightly, but the concrete feels like it shakes.

“Zara.”

“No,” I say sharply. “Tell me the truth.”

His voice drops to something dangerous and soft.

“That wallet,” he says, “isn’t mine.”

I blink.

“What?”

“It belongs to someone who would burn half the city to retrieve it.”

My throat closes.

“And you,” he adds slowly, “put your hands on it.”

He lets that hit me. And it hits hard.

Now I understand the way those men had scanned faces. Not the café. Not Dominic.

Me.

I step back until my spine touches the cold brick wall. My voice comes out small.

“Why didn’t you just… take it back from me when you caught me last night?”

He studies my face like he’s searching for the right answer.

“Because,” he says finally, “once I realized who the wallet belonged to, I knew I needed to keep you close. To protect you.”

“To protect yourself from liability, you mean,” I whisper.

His gaze sharpens. “If I wanted to protect myself, I would’ve let them take you.”

My breath stutters.

He steps closer — one slow movement, deliberate, inevitable. His hand rises, not to touch me, but to lift my chin so I look at him.

“But I didn’t,” he murmurs. “Did I?”

My pulse is erratic, wild.

His hand falls away.

“For now,” he says, “you need to disappear. Until I figure out why they want you alive instead of dead.”

That should not be comforting.

But somehow… it is.

I shake my head. “Why are you helping me?”

His expression twists — a flicker of something pained, controlled, conflicted.

“Because,” he says, voice low, “I won't let the wrong men get their hands on you.”

Wrong men?

“You’re acting like you’re any different,” I whisper before I can stop myself.

He goes still.

Completely still.

A stillness that feels like he might crush the world in his hands if he chooses to.

Then he steps back and looks away — not out of shame, but out of the calculation of a man choosing his next dangerous move.

He turns to the mouth of the alley.

“You need to come with me,” he says.

I flinch. “Where?”

“My place.”

My stomach drops. “Absolutely not.”

“It’s the only secure option.”

“No.”

“Zara.” His voice is steel. “They will come again. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Today. Two hours from now. Ten minutes from now. You don't have time for pride.”

He’s right — and he knows it.

But my stubbornness flares hot. “I’m not going anywhere with you until I know exactly who you are.”

He exhales through his nose, the sound of a man losing patience, or maybe control.

“Fine,” he says.

He reaches into his jacket.

I stiffen.

He pulls out a sleek black card — metal, heavy, engraved with a crest I don’t recognize.

A lion. A crown. A blade.

He holds it between two fingers. “My full name is Dominic Romanov.”

The name hits like a punch.

Yes, I’ve heard it.

Everyone has

The Romanov name whispers through New York like a legend — old money, old power, old blood. The kind of wealth that politicians bow to. The kind of influence that makes crime families kneel or vanish. Rumors say they own half the East Coast’s underworld quietly and cleanly.

A legacy built in shadows.

A legacy never touched by law.

“If you know that name,” he says, “then you understand why the men looking for you won’t stop.”

My knees weaken.

“Why me?” I whisper.

His gaze holds mine, unblinking.

“That,” he says, “is what I intend to find out.”

A sharp gust of wind blows down the alley, lifting my hair around my face. For a moment, everything is still — painfully still — like the city is holding its breath.

Then, suddenly, Dominic’s body tenses.

He turns his head sharply to the left.

I follow his gaze.

A black SUV sits idling at the far end of the street.

No plates. Black windows. Engine humming.

Dominic steps in front of me instantly.

Too late.

The passenger window rolls down in slow motion.

A gun barrel glints in the morning light.

My heart stops.

“Zara—” Dominic grabs me by the waist and pushes me behind the dumpster just as—

BANG.

Concrete explodes.

I scream and Dominic covers my body with his, shielding me with terrifying, absolute control.

A second shot, A third.

Metal sparks.

Glass shatters.

“Stay down,” he growls in my ear, voice vibrating through me.

The SUV engine revs hard.

Tires screech.

Dominic pulls me to my feet and drags me deeper into the alley. My mind is blank. Frozen. Terrified. The world is noise and shadow and the crushing sound of my heartbeat.

He presses me against the wall, his hand cupping the side of my head so it doesn’t hit brick. His breath is harsh, warm, frantic in a way I’ve never heard from him.

“You’re not safe,” he says tightly. “Not here. Not anywhere alone.”

“Who—” My voice cracks. “Who is after me?”

His eyes burn.

“I think…” he says slowly, “I finally figured it out.”

I swallow hard. “Tell me.”

He leans close — too close — his lips near my ear.

But instead of answering, he whispers:

“Zara… did you take anything else from my jacket that night?”

I stiffen.

His breath stops.

Then his face darkens with slow, chilling realization.

“What did you take?” he demands.

My pulse free-falls.

“I—I didn’t… I don’t know—”

“Zara,” he snaps, grabbing my shoulders. “Tell me.”

My mind spins. I go back to that moment — bumping him, slipping my hand into his jacket, the wallet…

And then I remember.

A second object.

Small. Smooth. Cold.

Something I didn’t think twice about because it felt like a hotel room key-card.

My stomach drops violently.

“Dominic,” I whisper, “I… I might’ve taken something else.”

His eyes widen — fear, fury, and something devastatingly serious crashing together.

“What was it?” he says sharply

“I think… it was a keycard.”

He goes completely still.

His face drains of color.

“Zara,” he breathes, voice low and lethal, “that wasn’t a keycard.”

My blood freezes.

“It was a master-access card,” he says. “The only one that unlocks the Romanov vault.”

I stare at him, trembling.Then... A voice echoes from the mouth of the alley.

Familiar...Cold... Female.

“Well,” she says, “looks like we found our little thief.”

Dominic’s entire body snaps toward the sound—

And my eyes widen in horror as a woman steps out of the shadows…

Holding the exact same Romanov card.

Mine.

The one she must’ve lifted from my pocket.

The woman smiles coldly.

“Hello, Dominic.”

He goes pale.

I whisper, “Who is she?”

He doesn’t look at me when he answers.

His voice is barely a breath.

“My sister.”