18. Ariana
18
ARIANA
I glance up and down the street from where I’m strapped in. Earlier, it was empty. Now there’s an army of vehicles locking this one in. Men are on standby, watchful. Good grief. All of this for me?
“Is he hurt real bad?” I ask as Dominic rings off and pockets his phone. I got the gist of the conversation.
He opens the back door and slides into the seat next to me. “Marco’s coming to. Consider yourself very, very lucky.”
I chew my bottom lip and look out of the window as the garage rattles open. Dominic is pissed, and this doesn’t bode well for me. But even so, I’m not scared of him. Ever since he came and took charge and carried me out of that warehouse, his hands so gentle and caring, I haven’t been able to slot him in with the others where he belongs: violent and brutal Mafia.
The impulse to run, to fight my way out of every situation always sits shallow, but something broke me. I’m not sure if it was the weeks in that dungeon, or the fact that my vendetta against Franco and Randazzo has broken to pieces, but I’m winded. Portia’s precision shooting rattled me. I don’t run around naked. And Dominic?—
Earlier, when he warned me not to run away again, his clasp around my wrist had been warm and gentle, even if firm in warning. It had been enough to make my pulse skip several beats. I’m not used to being touched by men. I usually avoid it at all costs, and yet Dominic’s touch has never made me veer away in disgust or go rigid in fear.
A man walks out of the garage, closes it again, and then gets into the driver’s seat.
“He’ll be fine, boss,” the driver says. “Going to have a motherfucker of a headache, but he’ll be fine. Gus will stay with him for now.”
“Thanks, Stan. Pick them up once the doctor’s been and Marco’s good to go home. Keep me posted. As it stands, we’ve already lost a man this week.”
Unease chases down my spine as I recall the dead bodyguard slumped in the van when Franco kidnapped Carla.
“Yes, sir.”
I meet the driver’s gaze in the rearview mirror, knowing I’ve sealed my own fate. I blew my one chance to escape, and I’m not getting another. Everybody is going to be on high alert around me now. How was I supposed to know the clinic is as closely monitored as the Papal Palace? There was nothing giving it away.
Maybe I’m not ‘all there’ at the moment. I’ve landed in a Mafia-level hornet’s nest, and yet I’m slow to catch on. My weeks in that death-zone dungeon have done me in.
“Let’s head to the old house,” Dominic says to his driver. “I’ve activated Code Red, so…”
Another sentence left hanging to keep me guessing.
Dominic pulls his phone from his pocket, and I give him a surreptitious side-eye. He has dismissed me and is working on his emails.
As we drive in silence through the suburbs of Boston, the areas become more and more exclusive, the trees taller, the properties bigger, the houses mansions. Eventually, the road winds through patches of forest until we reach a gate. It opens slowly, the guard getting out of his gatehouse to greet the car. I doubt he knows who is in the vehicle because the windows are tinted.
“Where are we?” I ask, taking in the high wall hidden by the thick forest lining the street.
“Whatever it might look like, this isn’t my place,” Dominic says, answering around my question.
We drive into the compound, and I drag in a slow breath as I take in the extent of the lawns and garden, the road winding until a magnificent mansion comes into view.
“Wow,” I whisper. It’s a classical red brick house in a colonial style, two stories high, with a couple of steps to a white-columned front entrance. Farther along, there have been additions to the dwelling, but they blend in, and the massive structure ends with a conservatory…or an indoor pool? Heavens. Hydrangeas bring pops of blue and white to the red brick. It’s breathtaking, and the type of place I’d only ever see in a movie, not in real life. “It’s beautiful.”
“For a prison, it has its charms.”
Dominic shoots me a glance that says it all. Don’t try and escape here. Code Red has been activated.
Then I spot them. Armed guards at various points in the garden, patrolling with Alsatians on short leashes. And that’s only the surface-level security he’s implemented here.
Shit. I’m so screwed. Dominic isn’t messing around, and I know better now than to just take things at face value.
“My prison?” I ask, testing the waters.
He reaches across the seat to squeeze my hand where I have it clenched on my thigh. “Our prison, sweetheart.”
This man is in a prison? And here, of all places? What does he mean? He can’t escape either?
The car pulls up to the front door, and Dominic and the driver get out. I’m not making assumptions here, but I release the safety belt and open my door. When I look up, Dominic is holding his hand out for me.
I clamber out but pull free as soon as I’m out of the car. Instead of leaving me be, his hand settles on my lower back, and he guides me to the front door.
“Are you scared of dogs?” he asks.
“I am now,” I say, with a little nod to the guard dogs farther afield.
“Good,” he says with a smirk. “Those ones aren’t for you. I mean pets. We have a mutt here who’s more coyote slash wolf than dog.”
“Wolf?”
“We’re not sure. We down-sell him as coyote, but he’s a bit big. He’s also old, and to be honest, for most of his life, he’s been misunderstood.”
“Misunderstood?”
“People are petrified of him, and well, it gets him all worked up, which in turns makes people more terrified of him. It’s a vicious circle.”
“You’re telling me I’m about to meet a vicious wolf-dog monster who isn’t vicious at all?”
“Exactly.” He leans in and whispers close to my ear. “Don’t show fear, and you’ll be fine.”
I steel myself, reading the subtext right there. Don’t show fear here , not to him either.
Dominic opens the front door, and a massive ball of fur gets up from where he was lying on the thick Persian carpet, wags his tail, and comes up to him with a few keen steps. It’s an old dog, and his eyes looks glazed over with cataracts, but the way he homes in on me shows every other faculty is in full working order.
“Play nice, Bruno,” Dominic says as he drops to his haunches.
He is literally cuddling the beast, giving the monster dog time to sniff my hand while he holds him in check. The jaws and teeth on that thing are straight out of Little Red Riding Hood. The fangs…I see where he comes from with the notion of this thing having some wolf in him.
“This is Ariana,” Dominic croons in Bruno’s ear as he rubs his back and sides. “She’s going to stay for a while. Be gentle with her, you hear? She’s had a rough time.”
His words hit me full in the chest.
This man.
Goddammit.
I blink at the sudden swell of tears. Since when have I become so freaking weepy? This morning with Gigi and now with him. Always with him, showing me a side to men I’ve never seen before. Has my little pond been so small all these years? Filled with nasty big carps nobody wants to get close to? Probably. That’s what I got for choosing my own path after that one night with Franco.
Once Bruno had sniffed every finger, Dominic gives a little. The dog by instinct homes in on my wound, and when Dominic tugs him back in warning, I reach out and caress my hand over his head. Bruno blinks up at me, gives a pant that looks like a smile, and my heart melts. Misunderstood, indeed.
“That’s it,” Dominic says as he stands. “He’s given you the seal of approval.”
“And what does that mean in this place?”
He quirks his brow. “Clearly, you are a Scalera in one way or another.”
“Ha.” If only I can fool the world this easily.
“Come along. There’s a room ready for you.” He indicates with his hand the direction I should take, forcing me to walk in front. After this morning, I won’t trust me either.
I might have been dog-approved, but fear sprouts in my stomach. What if he drags me down to the basement? I have no choice, so I start to walk towards a corridor but glance around quickly to take in, orientating myself.
A gorgeous wooden staircase curves elegantly up to the second floor straight from the double-volume foyer, making a bold statement: here be money. Lots and lots of it. Two corridors split off on the ground floor, and then at the back of the foyer are also two doors. Beautiful modern art hang on all the surfaces, but there are no portraits or any photos to give me clues who this house belongs to. It’s perfectly anonymous.
I feel Dominic’s eyes on me, studying my every move. If I’m not careful, little things would give me away.
“It’s a beautiful home,” I say to distract him.
He doesn’t respond, and we walk in silence, Bruno tagging along. We walk past closed door after closed door, and at the end of the corridor, Dominic stops me with a hand on my shoulder.
“You’re in here.”
He opens the door, and I stare into a beautiful bright room with big sash windows that look out onto the garden. No dungeon. No darkness. No death.
As he nudges me to walk inside, I cup my hands to my face. I need to do something to stall the emotions wrecking me from the inside out and calm the panic that rises in me every time I think back of the weeks I lost, forgotten and dying. And my team… I can’t tell Dominic anything—he’ll see right through my words, whether they’re truth or lies.
His eyes are on me, reading me like a book.
“Fuck it, Ariana,” he says softly as he gently twists me into his arms. “I know you’re not ready to talk, sweetheart, but I just wish…fuck it, I just wish I can reverse everything he’s done to you.”
He feels so safe, his arms a haven, and I press deeper into his chest, letting the fear and pain flow out of me. For that, we’d have to go back so many years… My tears wet his shirt as he softly rubs my back, letting me cry it out. Why does it feel as if I’ve only started?
“Do you always cry this softly?” he murmurs against my ear, almost reverently as if he doesn’t want to disturb the quiet of my pain, his lips soft and warm and sparking goosebumps down my neck.
“Force of habit,” I say as I try to push free, ashamed I’m falling apart in front of him.
“Stay put,” he says as he holds me close. “It’s okay. It’s just your body dealing with what it’s gone through.”
Something in his tone, his voice, or just his comforting warm scent where I’m pressed to his torso, makes me cave in. My head tells me to woman-up, to be stronger than this, but every other part of me only wants to stay put because it’s finally safe to let go.
I lean against him, against his chest that’s akin to a wall of warm comfort like I’ve never known before, allowing his hands to roam over my back, caressing me in rhythmic strokes and circles that are more than calming. They seem to be healing in a way. In me, that thing I’ve suppressed for twelve long years turns in its sleep.
No.
No-no.
Not this man.
I can’t.
As if he feels the turmoil in me, he stops, and with a finger on my chin, tilts my face up so I’m forced to look at him.
“We haven’t checked with you,” he says as he runs a thumb along my tearstained cheek in a gesture so tender, more tears come out of nowhere. “Is there anybody you need to call to let them know where you are? Someone you trust and want to tell you’re safe?”
I blink, then peel away from his body to wipe at my face with both hands. Safe is so objective and subjective at the same time. Safe for me, or safe for them? Now he offers me the one thing I clung to those weeks in Franco’s dungeon. If only I could get hold of my team, they would come for me. Dominic hands me the opportunity on a platter, but if I do, he’d surely track the number, figure out exactly who I am, and kill me just as Franco had planned to.
Only, he’ll be kinder and give me a quick, quiet bullet to the head. Dominic doesn’t seem like the type who likes someone to suffer.
Bruno twitches his ears where he’s been lying close on the floor and lifts his head. Far off in the house, the front door opens and shuts. Bruno gets up, but not in haste. Now a man is calling for Nicky , and with that, Bruno slumps back to the floor. It’s clear the dog knows the voice and chooses to stay with us.
Dominic continues to stare at me, not distracted at all. I have hesitated too long in my answer, and he is going to read between the lines.
“It’s only my brother, Luca,” he says when I still say nothing. “We’ve got some work to wrap up here so you’re going to be alone for a bit.”
“Okay.” I don’t want to be alone. Not when he could be here, helping me deal with this tailspin I’m in. With a swallow and a shake of my head, I tell him my truth. “I’ve been gone so long now, they’ll assume I’m dead.”
“And you don’t want to?—”
“No. It will only put other people in danger.”