Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Pleasure sang through Dominic’s body as he read Sylvie’s text.
Sylvie: I’ve been thinking of you. Wanted to say hi, see how you’re doing.
He almost wrote back. Then he wondered if Sandford and his uncle had access to his cell phone, too.
Sandford had threatened her. Dominic wanted Sylvie to move on and forget about him. Then maybe his backstabbing lawyer would do the same and forget about her. Sandford could focus his ire directly on Dominic instead.
So he couldn’t write to her. He had to let her go.
That night, he paced the house and watched the doors, both thinking of Sylvie and wondering when his uncle’s next attack might begin. Maureen kept a stoic demeanor, going about her daily tasks. But she didn’t smile nearly as much as usual, and the two of them barely spoke.
The next day, he broke down and asked Maureen to pick him up a burner phone on one of her shopping trips.
There was a small risk his uncle’s people might find out, but Dominic told her to buy it at a drug store along with a bunch of toiletries.
After he got it and pulled the phone out of its clamshell packaging, Dominic entered the number for Sylvie’s phone.
Hi. It’s Dominic.
Sylvie: Hi back.
He lay on his bed, feeling like some idiot teenager texting a girl from school. When had he ever felt this insecure about a woman?
Dominic: Other phone isn’t good. Long story. Sorry I couldn’t write back before.
Sylvie: How are you and Maureen?
Dominic: It’s been quiet. No more SWAT team visits.
Sylvie: That’s a relief. Any other news about the attack?
He didn’t want to tell her about his uncle. That wasn’t Sylvie’s problem.
Dominic: Nothing of note. What are you doing right now?
Sylvie: What else? Working. I’m dull like that. What are you doing?
He could almost see her in front of her computer. Chunky pink glasses, a pout of concentration.
Dominic: Just talking to you. Best part of my week so far.
There was a long pause. He worried he shouldn’t have confessed that. He wasn’t even sure what they were doing. Flirting? Did she still hate him, or not?
Sylvie: Is that really true? Or are you bullshitting me?
Dominic: What do you think?
She didn’t write back, and he wished he’d said something else.
Usually in his life, others had gravitated toward him because they wanted something. His money or power, his looks, his access to the family business. He didn’t know how to make friends with someone like Sylvie in this kind of context.
What did Sylvie want from him? Was it just sex, or something more? Whatever it was, he suspected he’d give it to her if she asked. Or at least he would try.
The following day, he tried texting her again.
Dominic: Are you around?
Sylvie: I’m at work. Big surprise, right?
Dominic: Guess where I am.
Sylvie: Disneyland?
Dominic: Totally where I’m going the minute I get out of here.
Sylvie: Are you a Space Mountain guy? No…Teacups.
Dominic: You already know me so well.
Sylvie: You’re not that hard to figure out.
Dominic: No? I’m disappointed in myself.
Sylvie: Why? You’d rather keep me guessing?
Dominic: If it keeps you interested, then yes. Are you? Interested?
Sylvie: I’m writing to you, aren’t I?
Dominic: And I’m still wondering why. I was afraid I’d lost any chance to see you again.
Sylvie: I keep going back and forth on that. Undecided.
Dominic: I’ve thought about you pretty much constantly since that day. How I wish we could finish what we’d started. Just putting that out there.
Sylvie: You’re always this up front?
Dominic: No. Most of what people say about me is probably true. I’m not a good person. Or honest, most of the time.
Sylvie: Is there a ‘but’ after that?
Dominic: But…you make me want to be nicer.
Sylvie: I don’t think you’re as dark and broody as you like people to think.
Dominic: Is that what I like people to think?
Sylvie: Seems that way to me.
Dominic: I’m more interested in what YOU think.
Sylvie: I think…maybe we could see each other again. If that’s something you want.
Dominic: I want. But what I want has rarely been the determinative factor in my life.
Sylvie: How dark and broody of you.
Dominic: If you come over again, what about your ground rules? We could collect more data without them. Just a thought.
No response.
She didn’t write back until yet another day had passed.
Sylvie: Tell me something you’ve never told anyone.
He was on the couch in the music room. He thought carefully about his response.
Dominic: I watched two seniors have sex under the bleachers when I was a freshman. They didn’t know I was there.
Sylvie: Damn. You had to go straight to the dirty talk.
Dominic: Not what you wanted? I just assumed.
Sylvie: That I’m always horny because I can’t get off?
Dominic: Not what I was thinking, but now that you mention it…
Sylvie: Very funny. Mine’s not dirty. Still want to hear it?
Dominic: Of course I do.
Sylvie: I stole Rachelle Miller’s cowhide wallet in ninth grade. Took it right out of her gym locker after she made fun of me for the drawings on my arms. And I don’t regret it.
Dominic smiled.
Sylvie: Tell me another.
Dominic: I took a hundred-dollar bill from my older brother’s wallet once. Gave it to a homeless guy.
He didn’t want her to say that was sweet or generous. It had been a pathetically small gesture.
Sylvie’s next reply took a while, but he waited patiently.
Sylvie: My best friend chose our oppressive small town over me, even though she’d said a million times she couldn’t wait to escape. I was so hurt I burned all the pictures she ever drew for me and all the notes she ever wrote. But I wish I hadn’t. I wish I still had those memories of her.
This was far more than he’d expected. She couldn’t despise him if she was sharing things like this, right?
He wished she hadn’t gone through that. Yet somehow, he knew Sylvie didn’t want sympathy. Maybe because he didn’t either.
Dominic: The first time I saw my father kill someone, I couldn’t stop vomiting afterwards. I told my mother I had food poisoning. She fired our cook.
That one was a test—to make sure she hadn’t forgotten who he was. What he’d come from, what he’d done. Even though he wasn’t ready to tell her most of it. If she was starting to like him, he didn’t want to fuck that up.
Sylvie: Okay. I’ve got one about throwing up, too. But this involves eating all my cousin’s Easter candy.
He snickered.
They kept sharing secrets, mostly without comment. But he thought he understood why this was so cathartic. Maybe not just for him, but for her.
They weren’t supposed to like each other. And it was fun to break the rules.
Dominic fell asleep with the phone in his hand.
The doorbell rang after breakfast. Dominic saw Sandford and someone else through the window.
This couldn’t be good.
He gave Maureen a hand signal that meant, Lock yourself in your room and don’t come out until I say so.
Then he went to answer the door.
Sandford had a new suit and a butterfly bandage at the bridge of his nose. Two black eyes had almost faded. “Mind if we step inside?”
Dominic widened the door and gestured for them to enter. “Be my guest. I love having friends over.”
Sandford’s companion eyed him as he passed. The guy was some roided-out Neanderthal, obviously brought along to keep Sandford safe. Or perhaps deliver the beating that Sandford no doubt thought Dominic had coming.
“This is Alexi.” Sandford pointed a thumb at the Neanderthal. “If you come near me, if you even think about raising a hand, he’ll take it out on your nut sac.”
Dominic looked the bodybuilder up and down. “You never know. I might be into that.”
The guy didn’t react.
Dominic’s breakfast churned in his stomach, though his inner alarm bells didn’t ring out just yet. He’d lived through unpleasantness before. And for now, his uncle seemed to want him alive. The beating wouldn’t be too severe, if it came at all.
Dominic showed them into the living room. “I’m guessing you have another message for me?”
“Not exactly.” Sandford took a tablet computer from his bag and set it up on the coffee table. “Your uncle would rather speak to you directly.”
Sandford hit a few buttons. A window opened, and after another minute, Charles Traynor appeared on the screen.
Uncle Charles had served as a captain in their organization since before Warren took power. He was in his fifties, but he looked younger. His hair was still the same shade of black it had been when Dominic was a child. He didn’t know if Charles dyed it or if it was natural.
Uncle Charles had always been athletic and youthful. Dominic remembered him playing touch football with the kids at holiday gatherings, though Dominic himself usually sat on the sidelines instead of taking part.
“Nephew, it’s been far too long. How are you?”
“I’m alive.”
Dominic had seen his uncle smile and laugh at the Christmas dinner table.
But he’d also seen Uncle Charles gouge out a man’s eyes with his thumbs.
Dominic was under no illusions about what kind of man Charles Traynor was.
This man wasn’t calling to listen to his nephew whine.
That would only be a show of weakness, and Dominic’s reputation was damaged enough as it was.
“I’ve heard about your legal trouble. Unfortunate that they haven’t dropped those charges yet. I keep hearing you’re innocent.”
Another potential trap. His uncle didn’t give a shit if he was innocent or not.
In fact, his innocence would no doubt be a strike against him.
“It’s a little dull around here most of the time,” Dominic said.
“I’ve never minded a vacation, though it would be more pleasant if I had better companions to choose from. ”
“But you’ve had some very pretty visitors lately, haven’t you?”
Shit, Dominic had walked right into that one. He’d meant to distract the Syndicate away from Sylvie, not remind them of her.
“I’d rather talk about work. Sandford tells me there have been some changes?”