Chapter 4 - The Golden Cage
By the end of her twenty-second week, Maddie had established a routine inside the Lake Geneva fortress.
She was not allowed past the front gates, but she had full freedom of the forty-acre property within the walls. Every morning she walked along the lake trail escorted by Leo, a quiet, older guard who carried a concealed weapon and never spoke unless spoken to.
Dr. Evans, a top obstetrician from Northwestern Hospital whom Dominic had put on a full-time retainer, checked her twice a week.
The baby was healthy. A boy.
Dominic spent every weekend at the estate, leaving his business in Chicago to be managed by his younger brother, Julian. When Dominic was at Lake Geneva, he was omnipresent. He sat across from her during meals, read his financial reports in the armchair beside her bed while she slept, and personally rubbed lavender oil into her stretched skin every evening before sleep.
Maddie tried to maintain her distance, but his presence was like gravity—heavy, inescapable, and constantly pulling her into his orbit.
On a rainy Thursday evening, Maddie sat in the grand library upstairs, cataloging a collection of eighteenth-century maps Dominic had purchased for her from an auction house in London to keep her mind occupied.
The heavy oak door swung open. Dominic entered, wearing a loose white linen shirt and dark trousers, looking tired after a four-hour conference call with his New York legal team.
He walked over to her desk, leaning down to press his lips against the top of her head before looking over her shoulder at the maps.
“You’re working late,” he remarked softly.
“I can’t sleep when the rain is this loud,” Maddie replied, not looking up from her magnifying glass. “The baby is active tonight.”
Dominic’s expression softened instantly. He pulled a chair up beside hers, resting his hand gently over her bump.
The baby kicked instantly, a strong, rhythmic thrust against his palm.
Dominic let out a low chuckle, a genuine, warm sound that Maddie hadn't heard in almost half a year.
“He has my kick,” Dominic murmured. “My father used to say a Valente child starts fighting three months before he’s born.”
Maddie set her magnifying glass down, turning in her chair to face him.
“What happens after he’s born, Dominic?” she asked, her voice quiet in the vast room. “Do you keep me locked in this house forever? What happens when I want to go back to work? When I want to live like a normal person?”
Dominic’s warm expression slowly hardened, the mob boss reemerging behind his eyes.
“You are the wife of the head of the Valente Syndicate, Madeline,” he said calmly. “There is no 'normal person' life for you anymore. If you step outside these walls without my security detail, three different families will use you to force me to my knees.”
“I didn't choose this life!” Maddie cried out, frustration boiling over. “I fell in love with a man who told me he ran a shipping company! You lied to me from the very first night we met!”
Dominic stood up, walking toward the stone fireplace, his back turned to her.
“I lied to protect you from the mud,” he said, his voice dropping into a deep, gravelly tone. “I wanted one part of my life that was clean, Madeline. One place where I wasn't ordering men to be buried or deciding which shipping docks to burn down.”
He turned around, his dark eyes burning with an intense, tragic honesty.
“The night I met you at that charity gala in River North, you were looking at a watercolor painting like it was the only real thing in the room. I looked at you and I knew that if I brought my real life near you, I’d ruin you.”
“You did ruin me!” Maddie said, standing up and holding her heavy stomach. “You turned me into a prisoner!”
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Dominic walked across the room in three long strides, stopping inches from her, grabbing her chin gently between his thumb and forefinger, forcing her to look up at him.
“You are not my prisoner, Madeline,” he whispered fiercely. “You are my home. And I will burn every city between here and Palermo before I let anyone take you from me again.”
