25. Dominic
25
DOMINIC
Something triggered her to lose all focus. And it wasn’t my giant fucking cock begging for attention. It was something I said. She was so into getting my gun, I couldn’t bring myself to interfere. Firstly, it was kinda cute. Secondly, the whispers of her fingers as they ghosted over my skin, brushing against my leg’s hairs, sending sensation to rush under my skin and into my veins… fuck .
Now my arousal is abating at speed because a haunted look has invaded her eyes, and I need to be careful. Just looking at the way she stands, how she cocked the pistol, this one is a professional in one way or another.
She knows her way around guns but has never pulled the trigger to kill somebody.
Until you’ve been forced to shoot, until you’ve felt the body grapple with a last breath as you keep on tightening your grip on that throat, until you’ve stabbed and let blood fountain over you, you actually have no clue how you’re going to react when the time comes.
Sweetheart. Sweetest of sweethearts…
I sigh as I tilt the sofa’s footrest down. It locks in place, and I stand. Ariana has lowered the gun, and it points to the floor now, ready to shoot off a toe if I let her. One step, and I have her by the shoulder, and she doesn’t resist. I slowly slide my fingers down her arm and take hold of the weapon. I secure the gun, empty out the magazine and the bullet in the barrel, and toss it all on a recliner.
She’s standing there, rooted to the spot, petrified. I’m at least a foot taller than her, and I bet I weigh double what she does. Her mind is spiraling; I can see it in her eyes.
“What triggered you, sweetheart?”
She blinks. This time as I reach for her, she visibly flinches.
“I’m never going to hurt you, Ariana,” I say softly, keeping my voice calm, but not retracting my hand where it’s folded around hers. Instead, I rub my thumb over her pulse point, trying to calm her.
“Please—” She strangles a sob as she breathes haggardly, forcing herself to be quiet, trying to contain her emotions. I bet she’s been bottling them up for years.
“Is this about Franco? And being kidnapped to Boston and whatever happened in the weeks before?” Those tally marks cut on her skin. Her begging me not to tie her up or to lock her away in the dark. “Or is this about something else?”
My jaw ticks as I wait for her to answer, but she’s clammed up, and it could be borne out of so many things. Fear for herself, fear for others. There’s a reason why she tried to escape the clinic. There’s a reason why she wanted my gun. I’m not sure what her endgame would have been, and it’s laughable, but also so freaking desperate.
I get that she won’t trust me, but fuck, what more must I do to prove to her I’m not going to take her by force? Maybe that’s the only thing the Mafia does in Italy, but not here. Not in Il Consiglio . Never mind waiting on those DNA tests—if I’d wanted to do so, I’ve had plenty of time. If I wanted her dead, I would have seen to it already.
Instead, she’s literally killing me here with those quiet tears.
“Tell me, Ariana. If he’s threatened people you love on the other side and you are protecting them by not talking, I need to know. Franco’s dead, and you’re the only one who knows what would happen in Italy once people realize he isn’t coming back.”
Vincenzo. He could know. Fuck, I’m glad Steph hasn’t killed him yet, even though it’s been touch and go for days now.
She’s closed her eyes, tears streaming, her fingers gone cold and trembling in shock. She’s definitely in some PTSD loop, and I can try help her out of it, but I don’t even know what dredged up these memories for her in the first place.
“He called me a thief once,” she whispers. “And it’s true.” She looks up at me, eyes like crystal pools. “I stole from him. I don’t mind admitting to it. Over a thousand euros. It took me months, skimming.”
“From whom?” I ask, and when she doesn’t answer immediately, I push again. “Who called you a thief, sweetheart?”
“Franco Fiore. I was so stupid. I thought he wouldn’t notice. There was so much drug money in the house—” She shakes her head, seeming in disbelief. “I wanted to run away. I knew what was coming my way… I—I?—”
She chokes up and tries to catch her breath, but she’s almost hyperventilating now, her chest heaving with sobs and quiet tears. It hits me this woman has never released her pain, and I feel it echo in every scar on my body. I know what’s coming next. There’s torture, and then there’s sexual assault. Men get the brunt of the first one, women always the second, irrespective of age, circumstances, relations.
I keep going with my thumb’s hypnotic movement, caressing her wrist and giving her time to gather herself.
Eventually, she shudders on a gulp. “One day, he came and took the value of what I’d stolen. A thousand euros worth of?—”
She leans into me, and I inch closer, allowing her to rest her forehead on my arm, right there where a kitten would curl up in the corner of warmth between your chest and arm if you let it. Her breathing is strained, and we stand there for such a long while, it seems she’s lost her thoughts. But she’s lost her courage. I bet she’s never opened up to anybody about this.
“A thousand euros worth of you ,” I say eventually, and she sags against me.
“Yes.”
I pull her to my chest and hold her close. From what I’ve seen of Franco, the assault would have been brutal, filled with violence. Something she’s never recovered from. He didn’t only take his measly thousand euros from her, he took her everything .
I’m tense with her revelation, but force myself to stay calm, my body relaxed to let her take whatever she needs in this moment. This is what gets to me the most about this woman. She’s my experience, my photo negative, colors inverted, but mine all the same. Taken by force and done things to that bodies heal from, minds never.
“He’d said if I wanted money,” she croaks against me, “I needed to earn it, and that he had the perfect plans for us. That I needed to get practice, because he was going to use me for extortion. He planned to catch men on camera having underaged sex with me, then blackmail them afterwards.”
I’m already tense, but now, I freeze. “How old were you, sweetheart?”
She quivers, the memory probably too much. “I’d just turned fifteen.”
Fuck . Rage, simple and pure, shoots through me like lightning, and I stretch my hands where I have them on her back, straightening all my fingers, except the one that would no longer obey a simple instruction. Now I’m shaking, too, and it’s as every memory of my own riots to escape the cages I have them locked up in.
“Dominic?” she whispers, fear in her voice, a reaction to what she felt in my body.
“Shhh, it’s okay,” I say, dropping my arms away from her. The last thing she needs is to feel threatened by my oversized, male body, every muscle flexing with the fury raging within me.
She sways and for a second looks like she’ll faint without the support, so I take her by the shoulders, steadying her.
“You know if I could kill him for you again and again, I’d do so,” I say, leaning in to stare into her eyes, to make sure she understands I’m serious. “I promise you nobody will ever touch you like that again. Do you understand, Ariana?”
It’s a sinner’s vow, but it’s a vow I make with everything in me and one I’ll stick to, whatever it takes.
She blushes, and it drives my pulse wild. Has nobody ever stood up for this woman?
“Okay.”
And now, I’m fucking pissed Stephano did such a good job. Hacking off that maniac’s hands. I could have done so much more, could have gone for days and let Franco suffer in a way even his wildest imagination could never have conjured up. He is dead, but I will do the same to any man who even so much as glances at Ariana in a way that makes me wonder what his intentions are. Yes, these are brotherly feelings. Good. They’re the best type of brotherly feelings.
I hesitate to ask the question, but I need to know. “What did you do next, sweetheart?”
She wipes at her face and then hitches a shoulder. “What every woman in my position would do? The next day, I stole ten thousand euros from him and ran away.”
It’s her go-to, like she’s proven twice in a row now, ingrained in her earliest experiences. Everything she does makes sense now.
I shoot her a woeful smile. “Of course you did.”