Dom Arrested
A dozen minutes later, the heavy silence of the apartment was abruptly shattered. A frantic, desperate knock rattled the thick wooden door, the sound echoing sharply through the quiet living room.
Arthur paused, his supernaturally enhanced hearing picking up the rapid, fluttering heartbeat and ragged breathing of someone standing just outside in the dimly lit hallway.
He walked over with calm, deliberate steps and pulled the heavy door open. Standing there was a girl with long, disheveled hair. A sexy, well-built beauty filled his vision, her usually radiant face now pale and stricken with absolute panic.
It was Mia.
They locked eyes for a single, breathless heartbeat. Arthur immediately saw the profound terror shining in her amber eyes and smoothly opened his broad, muscular arms.
The very next instant, Mia hurled herself forward, crashing desperately into his solid embrace exactly like a ship finding a safe harbor in a violent storm.
"Uhh... Arthur..." her voice broke into a wretched sob, her fingers digging fiercely into the fabric of his dark shirt. "Please save Dom, something terrible has happened to him!"
It was undeniably clear that Dom was in massive, real trouble. Mia had bypassed every other contact and come straight to Arthur's secure location. The absolute moment she saw him, she buried her tear-stained face against his broad chest and sobbed with unrestrained, agonizing grief.
Arthur could never easily stand a woman's tears, least of all the heartbroken weeping of a stunning beauty. He wrapped his powerful arms around her trembling frame, his calloused hand gently patting her back in a slow, rhythmic motion. He leaned down and pressed a soft, reassuring kiss to her damp cheek.
Only then did his low, rumbling voice break the heavy silence. "Easy, I am right here. You are completely safe now."
He guided her slightly, letting her lean her full weight against him. "What exactly is wrong with your big brother? I have been actively job-hunting lately. After I warned him last time about the federal heat, I lost track of his operations for a while."
Mia's head stayed firmly tucked against his chest. She was a tall woman, standing over 1.7 meters. If she were wearing heels, she could almost look eye-to-eye with the towering, 1.82-meter frame of Dom.
If she absolutely hadn't wanted to seek comfort, she couldn't have nestled against Arthur with such perfect, desperate vulnerability.
"Thank you," she whispered, her voice muffled against the fabric.
She was still trembling violently, rubbing her flushed face against his shirt as if trying to absorb his raw, physical heat. Then, she slowly looked up.
Her beautiful amber eyes were completely full of deep worry and suffocating fear. Yet, buried beneath the trauma, there was a tiny spark of restrained excitement the undeniable, comforting joy of reunion after staying away for so long.
Those expressive eyes spoke absolute volumes. Even Arthur, who was historically a bit slow to accurately read women's complex emotions, perfectly understood her genuine feelings at a single glance.
His muscular arms tightened securely around her waist. The sudden, overwhelming surge of his physical strength let Mia truly feel the massive, lethal power of the man holding her.
Especially when her soft cheek met the rock-hard, sculpted curve of his chest once again, a profound wave of absolute safety she had never known before washed over her racing heart.
"Do not cry," Arthur murmured softly, his dark eyes locking onto hers with unwavering confidence. "You still have me. Now, take a deep breath and tell me exactly everything that happened."
Listening to that incredibly gentle, authoritative voice right at her ear, Mia, for absolutely no logical reason, suddenly recalled that crazy, uninhibited night over a month ago. She vividly remembered the wild, untamed passion she had tasted in his arms.
A faint, involuntary flush crept up her pale cheeks, but she immediately shook the stray thoughts away. She knew perfectly well exactly why she had risked everything to come here. She desperately needed his capable help.
So she swallowed hard, steadying her voice. "Arthur, Dom is in massive trouble."
She spent the next long while sitting on the edge of the sofa, carefully recounting every single chaotic, disastrous event of the past two or three grueling weeks.
It had started a month earlier. Arthur had utilized a secure call to Mia to explicitly warn Dom that the federal FBI was actively onto his illegal operations. At first, the stubborn, prideful Dom hadn't taken the warning seriously in the slightest.
A few short days after Arthur's clear warning, Dom had even aggressively ordered his girlfriend Letty and a couple of trusted crew members to move a freshly hijacked load of expensive consumer electronics through their usual, underground black-market channels.
Consequently, Letty and the others were immediately, heavily tailed either by undercover LAPD detectives or the federal Bureau.
Heavily armed police tactical units stormed the underground shops soon after the stolen goods finally surfaced on the streets, violently arresting plenty of people connected to the fencing operation. A crucial partner who had loyally worked with Dom for years was completely exposed and taken into custody.
Days later, Arthur paid Dom another intense, personal visit, again explicitly telling him the FBI was closely watching his every move. They had struck a tense deal then. Soon after, Arthur handed over absolutely everything he knew about the undercover agent the blonde cop named Brian.
By then, Brian had already firmly marked Dom's tight-knit crew. He aggressively tried to get close, specifically targeting Dom's beautiful sister Mia as his primary way into the family.
Brian meticulously planned to use her affection to gather hard evidence, desperate to prove the gang were the exact same highway bandits who had violently terrorized the California asphalt for years.
What the undercover agent absolutely didn't know was that Dom already possessed undeniable, damning photos of him walking straight into the fortified FBI Field Office building, courtesy of Arthur's flawless surveillance.
So when Brian confidently showed up again, expecting to smooth-talk his way in, Dom had a burly henchman step up to teach him a brutal, physical lesson.
It turned out Brian was every inch a highly trained federal agent; he easily floored the street thug with precise combat strikes and walked away completely unscathed.
Brian naturally figured that openly showing off his lethal combat skills and raw driving talent would make Dom actively notice him and eagerly recruit the car-savvy guy who worked at the local parts shop.
He absolutely never expected Dom to aggressively do what he did next.
Using the convenient excuse that Brian had violently hit one of his loyal men, Dom had that same man round up a few other heavy hitters from the crew. They aggressively seized the chance to corner Brian directly inside that performance parts store and beat him savagely, leaving him a bloody mess on the floor.
At the exact same time, the retail store simply for bravely daring to work as an active front for the FBI and trying to make life hard for Dom was trashed so completely and violently by his crew that it had to permanently shut its doors for a while.
After the violent incident, a significant number of senior officials inside the FBI had already fiercely opposed Brian's original, slow-burn undercover plan. They firmly felt it was vastly better to immediately stop wasting federal time and resources sending someone undercover to Dom's side in search of elaborate evidence.
It was far simpler and vastly more effective to find some minor pretext and violently haul in Dom and his entire inner circle directly. They intended to interrogate them thoroughly in federal holding, then aggressively look for the necessary proof.
Because Brian had been brutally injured by Dom's men and a cooperative civilian businessman's property had been completely destroyed, the FBI Los Angeles Field Office ended up with a massive majority completely in favor of violently arresting Dom.
So they simply waited in the dark shadows for the absolute perfect moment.
Not long ago, Dom and several of his core men took part in a highly illegal, high-stakes underground street race. Just as Dom's roaring, nitrous-injected car was about to aggressively cross the finish line, a massive swarm of flashing police cruisers suddenly burst out from the dark industrial area near the track.
Dom and his company had just gone through an incredibly nerve-racking, high-speed race; their physical reflexes and mental awareness were bound to be slightly off.
Add to that the lethal fact that the FBI had aggressively joined forces with the LAPD, deploying a huge, overwhelming tactical force even calling in several heavily armed police helicopters and the violent outcome was painfully obvious.
All of Dom's trusted crew were ruthlessly captured in the blinding spotlights, except for one incredibly lucky man who miraculously managed to slip away into the dark alleys. The rest were violently thrown to the asphalt and arrested.
By now, Dom and the others had been locked in harsh police custody for more than twenty-four grueling hours.
Mia knew perfectly well with absolute certainty that her big brother and his loyal crew were the exact same highway outlaws the California government and local police would love to skin alive. She had also clearly learned from Arthur's direct warnings that the massive weight of the FBI had Dom squarely in their sights.
Fearing that this sudden, massive arrest might completely expose absolutely everything, and judging by the severe, violent crimes Dom and his men had repeatedly committed, Mia's heart was gripped by icy terror.
She logically figured they were looking at several harsh years behind iron bars at the very least, with her brother himself possibly facing ten, maybe even decades in a federal penitentiary.
After a full day of suffocating, blinding panic, Mia completely fell apart. She had absolutely no one else left in the sprawling city she could trust. So she went out into the dark night to find Arthur.