Chapter 12 Dom
DOM
“He’s going to kill me.”
“Annetta.” I stop. Her name coats my tongue in sweetness.
She’s scared and pissed, but the sound of her name affects her, too, judging by the little inhale she makes.
“Annetta,” I say again. I’m fucked and I know it, but I can’t bring myself to regret kissing her in that cemetery. “I trust Turi with my life. He’s not gonna hurt you. He wanted us to get married. He’ll help us.”
He won’t be happy about it, but he’ll do it regardless, which pretty much sums up our working relationship.
“That’s because he thinks I’m Ser—that I’m my sister. You said you were going to protect me, but he’s going to hurt me. He could hurt Dad.”
“Trust me. You’ll see.”
She sits back and crosses her arms, glaring out her window. I drive on, secure in the knowledge that I’m right.
Annetta.
Most nights I sleep like a fucking baby. I’m going to hell anyway, so why should I keep myself up at night about the decisions I’ve made? Guilt’s not a word in my vocabulary.
But something like it poisons my delight at the knowledge that Annetta’s in the car with me and not her sister, and I know how fucked up that is.
I’m not happy her sister’s dead. Serafina was a nice girl.
She covered her mouth when she laughed, had delicate, ladylike hobbies everyone approved of, and she went to church every Sunday.
The world’s worse off without her in it.
But Annetta.
Almost three years ago, I caught Annetta sneaking out on her eighteenth birthday to Rizo’s Bar. They didn’t card then—still don’t. I was relaxing after a long day and trying to get into the pants of some woman I’d met there, and then Annetta Barbara had waltzed inside without a single escort.
I had excused myself from the woman and slipped into a dark corner to watch.
For a long time, Annetta just stood there with her arms crossed over her chest as she took in what I’d assumed to be her first bar.
She wore makeup I’d never seen her in, a deep red lipstick and dark eyeshadow that didn’t suit her at all—something she probably thought made her look older—and a black blouse and pencil skirt she must’ve found in the very back of her closet.
Then she caught the eye of some random, sleazy old man. As he walked up to her, she lifted her chin and said in a voice I couldn’t hear, but could guess at from that distance. “Buy me a drink.”
And that fucking scumbag did.
I figured I’d let her have her fun but keep an eye on her for her family’s sake.
She was getting married and shipped off to Florida in less than a month, and her bachelorette would probably be boring as fuck.
As the night went on, she looked less and less like she was having fun.
The guy’s hands started drifting under her clothes, and every time she’d shove him off, he’d laugh and try again.
When I stepped in, the look of shock on her face still makes me smile to this day. She thought she’d been so clever sneaking out of the house.
“Can I dance with you?” I asked after I sent her partner away with a single look.
She whispered her answer. “Yes.”
I remember how tiny she was in my grip, like a little bird. We danced one dance together, and I took her hand to leave.
That little bird stood her ground, jerked me back, and made a drunken demand. “One more dance.”
I was so tickled that I let her have her way—my first mistake.
She took my hands and placed them on the curve of her waist, and she danced against me like she wanted to weave herself into me in a dozen little ways.
When the song was over, she straightened and took clipped steps out of the bar like she was headed to the guillotine, and I was her executioner.
I paid for a taxi to take us to her home.
At her house, I followed her, expecting her to walk begrudgingly to the front door.
Instead, she led me past the rose bushes planted against the side of the house until we stopped underneath her bedroom window.
She’d left a ladder to get in and out of the second floor.
“Alright, I’ll hold the ladder.” I was ready to get home and shake off this weird night. “Get inside.”
She put her hand on the first rung and looked up at me. “I don’t want to get married.”
Which went against the rumors that she’d seduced Frederico Chiarelli to steal him from her more popular sister. I had it on good account of what she’d done to wrap that man around her finger. Looking at her then, a plea in her eyes, I realized I should’ve given her more credit.
She wasn’t a malicious person by nature. She was self-sacrificial.
“And Serafina?” I asked.
“She was scared.”
So, she’d thrown herself at Frederico to save her sister from getting married. “Someone else will come along to marry her.”
“I know, but she just wanted more time.”
I thought of myself as another member of the Barbara household, but I’d never thought twice to look into those rumors about Annetta being a husband-stealing slut. She didn’t deserve that.
“Don’t fight this,” I warned, because what else was I supposed to tell her? Frederico would make her a good-enough husband.
“Dom, please.”
“Please, what, reginetta?”
It was too late to get out of that marriage of hers, though I knew she’d try. Maybe she’d beg me to use my connections and help her get out of it.
She fixed her gaze on me. “Please kiss me. I’ve never been kissed before.”
It had shocked me. If she’s a girl now, she was even more so back then.
But a single kiss?
It was so innocent.
And it burned me to know she’d sucked Frederico’s dick, but he’d never even kissed her. Selfish bastard.
I understood what she wanted—a taste of freedom before she moved from one gilded cage to the other.
I leaned forward, intent on kissing her cheek and wishing her a good night. At the last second, she’d swiveled her head and kissed my mouth, snatching my shirt into her little fists.
I froze. She was clumsy and eager, licking at my lips and trying to kiss me like she wanted to eat me alive.
When I pulled away, I saw a look on her face I’d never seen before. A look that seared permanently into my brain, no matter how often I tried to forget.
She was serene. Taking control suited her.
She accepted her fate with grace as she looked me in the eye and told me, “Good night, Dom.”
I helped her into the house and didn’t wash her kiss off my mouth until the next morning.
When I pull up to Turi’s house, most of his SUVs are parked in the gravel lot. Annetta stares forward with wide eyes, wringing the seatbelt across her lap.
I lean over to rest my cut hand on her thigh, and I swear to God, it feels a little less painful from the touch. “I promise, no one’s going to hurt you.”
She looks fucking terrified, but she still whispers, “Or my family.”
“Or your family.”
Her shoulders ease a fraction. “I trust you.”
I know it’s a plea, an emotional jab to make sure I do what she wants, but she doesn’t have to do that. I already want to help her. And for as long as her dad and I have been watching out for each other, this is a loyalty that runs deep.
We walk the short path across the dark, cold driveway to the burst of warmth and light in Turi’s house. This late at night, only two guards are circling the grounds. The rest of the house staff have left for the day.
I know without checking that Turi and Marisol will be awake. If the moon’s out, they’re up.
Before I head upstairs to Turi’s watchtower, my phone buzzes with a text.
Turi
Meet us in the basement.
Nothing ominous about meeting in Turi’s designated torture room.
She couldn’t have read the text, but Annetta takes my hand in hers. Her fingers are slender and cool, and it makes me feel good that she’s still wearing my coat, like it’s my small way of protecting her.
I bring her to the basement door. “Wait here.”
Before I can knock, Turi opens the door. His icy gaze ticks over me and Annetta, landing on our joined hands. “Inside. Both of you, now.”
Annetta stifles a scream as we enter the room.
A man’s strapped to a metal chair, blood gushing out of his mouth.
Next to him, Barbara’s in a white undershirt and chewing a cigar, his breathing almost as loud as the man next to him.
His bloodied hand rests on the man’s shoulder as he watches his daughter enter the room.
The man in the chair is vaguely familiar with his wispy brown hair and shitty tattoos on his arms, but with most of his face bashed in, I can’t place him.
Turi is spotless as he walks over to the medical tray near the stranger and plucks a set of pliers from the top. He looks at the stranger as he swings his pliers toward Annetta and me.
The room seems to hold its breath as we wait for Don Salvatore to speak.
“Tell them what you told us.”
The man lifts his head eagerly.
Annetta sucks in a breath. This is probably the first time she’s seen something like this. I grip her hand firmly and shift her so that her body’s shielded by my arm. She presses in close to me like I can protect her from what the man’s about to say.
“I saw you,” the man says to Annetta.
She stiffens, and I squeeze her hand, cutting a glance to her dad. Only the muscles in Barbara’s jaw, grinding his cigar into tobacco pulp, give away his nerves. He’s worked hard to make sure his girls never see shit like this.
“You were at the Blue Rooster and your friends were talking about going to a titty bar and you went with them, and I knew—”
The man’s burst of words is interrupted by loud, gunshot hacking, blood spraying over his knees as he coughs.
“Sorry, I, uh, I remembered your face, ‘cause Mikey—he doesn’t do girls much, so when I heard he was looking for you, I figured I’d look you up and…”
He swallows and glances up at Turi. Even though he’s covered in blood, I recognize him. Rodney, but he likes people to call him Rod because he thinks it sounds cooler, even though no one gives a damn. He’s a piece of shit who beats up his own mom.