Chapter 5
DOM
I stink.
The ungodly smell wafting from me into the open windows would rival a pig fresh from rolling around in mud and cow shit. And while I won’t be admitting this to Turi anytime soon, I feel great.
After that disastrous wedding with Serafina—the poor woman was nervous and on the verge of tears the entire time—my presence was demanded at Aldo’s funeral.
It passed in a dark haze, and when Turi took me aside to order me to fuck off to the woods for a week, I left without a fight.
I packed just enough shit not to die and disappeared to Devil’s Lake, perfectly timed for open hunting season—maybe a coincidence, but over the years, I’ve learned not to underestimate Turi.
For one week of bliss, I hunted deer with my compound bow, drank pine needle tea, harvested cattail roots only a little past their prime, and slept shivering in my tent on the hard-ass ground.
My back hurts, I’d kill a man for warm bread, and I smell god-awful, but no one could contact me, so I’m more at peace than I’ve been in years.
At least until I spot the beat-up silver Toyota Matrix across the street from my parking deck. Instead of pulling in, I let out a long sigh and drive to the end of the street to circle back.
Yeah, just what I thought. Fucking Mauro’s watching my place. Or, he should be anyway, seeing as how he’s looking at his phone and hasn’t noticed me driving past. I park and drum on the steering wheel, deep in thought.
I should probably go see what Caterpillar Brows thinks he’s doing watching my penthouse, but I haven’t showered in a week, and I’m about to choke on my own ball stench, so… fuck it.
I gotta haul all this shit to my place first and shower. I’ll just set an alarm for the middle of the night and scare the shit out of him later. Even if Turi sent him to watch my empty penthouse, he should know better than to be staring at his phone.
I pull out my phones from the glove compartment.
The second my work phone boots up, the damn thing floods my notifications with a hundred and thirteen texts and forty missed calls.
I drag a hand over my beard. There goes all that precious relaxation.
I don’t see anything from Turi or any of his pet nerds from his cyber team, so at least nobody started World War III while I was out.
On my personal phone, I browse my family chat. Looks like my youngest sister Allegra finally popped out her baby—a fat little boy with a shock of dark hair. I mark all the photos with a heart and consider calling her until my stomach growls pitifully.
I pat my belly. Soon, buddy.
I jump out of my truck, the thud of my boots echoing off the concrete walls of the parking garage, and the impact knocks about five pounds of caked mud off.
I haul my massive ice chest to the ground.
The thing’s packed to the gills with fresh deer meat, and I still had to give the extras to a couple of overjoyed teen hunters I came across on the trail.
I strap my backpack and bow to my back, brace myself, and lift. “Oof.”
Fuck, this thing’s heavy as shit. I’m half-tempted to see if the concierge will drag it in, but I’ve worked hard to make sure the employees here like me. I’m not about to fuck that up because I’m feeling a little tired.
I spend the long elevator ride up daydreaming about my plans for the night.
First, obviously, a steaming hot shower.
And you know what? Fuck it, a jerk-off session.
Then, I’ll stuff myself with six entrees from the apartment’s in-house restaurant and pass out on the couch with a half-eaten pizza on my belly before I scare Mauro.
The moment the doors ding and open to my penthouse, all my plans fly out the window.
My place smells delicious. The sweet, tart smell of roasted tomatoes spikes a gush of saliva in my mouth.
What the fuck is this? None of my exes have access to my penthouse, and Turi’s overbearing, but he wouldn’t send someone ahead to cook me dinner for the moment I arrived. Did his head chef Conchetta let herself in so I wouldn’t starve?
From the elevator foyer, I glance around the living room.
None of the furniture has been touched. If this is some kind of Dom-themed ambush, first off, kudos to the attacker because this has easily got to be the cleverest approach to lowering my defenses.
Second, they should already know I’m here from the elevator doors opening.
Exhaustion snaps out of me, and I set the cooler down as softly as I can just inside the foyer. Straining my ears for odd sounds, I shuck off my backpack and grab my compound bow. I pull an arrow out of the quiver, notching it in my bow in silent, fluid movements.
The oven beeps from around the length of the foyer, and something shuffles along the floor. Whoever it is, they aren’t trying very hard to disguise their presence. Lulling me into a false sense of security, maybe?
I check my phone again. Nothing from Turi or his head of cybersecurity, Worm.
Maybe it’s one of my brothers—Bertino thinks it’s a fucking gag to drop by unannounced, and I keep forgetting to put him on the “Call First” list with the concierge.
Probably not him, though—he’d sooner chop off his left nut than cook for me.
I inhale and step forward, aiming my bow toward the kitchen.
It’s her.
I lower my weapon.
All the grief I’d bottled up and ignored for a week comes back to drown me. No—fuck—no. I smother it with anger. Why the fuck is Serafina here, like I need any reminder of her dead sister?
Why is she in my penthouse? Why is she cooking?
Her back is to me as she chops a leafy green vegetable on the counter. The top of her hair is tied back, but the rest flows freely over her delicate shoulder blades.
She turns to me and shrieks, lifting the knife as the cutting board clatters to the floor. Even though I can’t see from here, I know whatever she’s been preparing has been sprayed all over the floor.
“Dom,” she exclaims. “You’re back!”
My new wife is wielding a knife at me. Her face is bare, and her whole body is on display in those tight clothes—pink bicycle shorts and a matching tank top that shows a tantalizing strip of tanned belly—as she slowly lowers the knife to the counter.
Even though I’ve seen Serafina in plenty of bikinis over the years, this is the first time her slim figure has stirred interest in me.
I snap my gaze to her rueful face, annoyance settling into mine. Why is she surprised to see me? Could someone just sneak up on her like this?
“Who let you in?” I ask roughly, ignoring the blood rushing to my cock.
Women like Serafina have never been my taste—I like big, opinionated, bad bitches, not soft-spoken princess-types.
Serafina gulps, glances down at the bow and arrow in my hands, and smiles nervously. “Dad let me in.”
Whatever she’s got cooking in the oven smells like cheese and tomatoes. Pizza?
I swallow around a mouthful of saliva. “You need to go back.”
Her face crumples with devastation. Fuck me. Is she going to cry?
It doesn’t matter. My penthouse isn’t a place for a young woman. I’m never here, I have loaded guns all over the place, and there’s basically no protection besides the cybersecurity Turi had set up.
“This is for the best,” I say, knowing it’s as much for me as it is for her—I don’t need another fucking responsibility.
The oven beeps behind her, and a change passes over her face. Goddammit. She calms herself with a deep breath.
While looking me dead in the eye, she picks up the knife from the kitchen counter. I remember the flower petals in her hand, how she made me smell like roses after our wedding, and how I scrubbed my hands under a gas station bathroom sink to rid myself of her scent.
“We are married.” It’s impossible not to see Annetta in her face. Of the two, Annetta was always the strong one.
The old doubt that had crawled into my brain back at Turi’s house returns with a force. Her parents had me convinced Annetta was dead, and I’d chalked up her strange behavior to her sudden loss, but now?
My gut says something is off again.
“I’m not going back,” she says.
Then, like she’s dismissing her lowest employee, she turns to set the knife next to the oven and uses a dish towel—I don’t even own dish towels, especially not ones with blue butterflies on them—to pull out whatever she’s cooking and proceeds to ignore me like I’m a door-to-door salesman and not a stinky, six-foot-five bearded man with a compound bow in the kitchen.
I bite back a string of swears. The tray in her hand that she’s sliding on top of the stove? It’s got my favorite focaccia with escarole and tomatoes. Even from here, I can see she’s added extra anchovy, just how I like.
There are a thousand things I should do, but I finally settle on the most mature option—I throw a big, man-baby tantrum.
I chuck my bow onto the nearest couch, stomping back to the elevator to grab my backpack and cooler.
I drop the cooler in front of the refrigerator with a heavy thud that earns a startled jump from her as she sweeps green leaves off the kitchen floor.
That makes me feel like an even bigger asshole, but instead of apologizing, I stomp upstairs to my bedroom.
I have to take a shower before I can deal with the half-naked woman in my kitchen.
Tonight’s surprises are endless. My bedroom, my oasis, has been transformed. A suitcase filled with robin’s egg blue, bright lemon, and cream clothes spills onto my bed like an overturned vase. I glance at my closet—more of her Easter-egg clothes peek out from between my shirts.
“Nope.” I’m not dealing with this right now. I march to the bathroom and nearly crack a tooth from how hard I grit my teeth. “Motherfucker!”