10. Dominic
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Dominic
“You need to get that looked at before you bleed out in your own car.”
Stefan was driving too fast through the empty streets, his knuckles white on the wheel, his eyes flicking between the road and my side where the blood was soaking through my shirt.
“I’m not going to bleed out, it’s not that deep.” I pressed my palm harder against the wound and felt the wet heat pulse between my fingers. “Just get me home.”
“You should go to the doctor, let him stitch you up properly.”
“I said get me home.” I leaned my head back against the seat and closed my eyes. “Liana can clean it. She’s done it before.”
The raid had gone well until it hadn’t. We hit Grassi’s warehouse where he’d been storing the cargo he’d been stealing from my routes. Twelve of my men, in and out, a message that Dominic Costa doesn’t let anyone bleed him without bleeding back.
Grassi needed to learn that lesson. He’d been pushing for months, testing my fences, sending me threatening texts about my wife. He thought he could challenge me and walk away clean.
He was wrong.
We cleared the warehouse and burned what we couldn’t take, and I was feeling good about it until two of his men came out of a back office we hadn’t swept properly.
Stefan put one down before he could raise his gun, but the other one got close enough to drag his knife across my ribs before I put a bullet in his head.
Sloppy. I was getting sloppy, letting Grassi and Angela and the problems with Liana distract me from the basics. The kind of sloppy that got men killed.
“We’re here.” Stefan pulled into the drive and killed the engine. “You want me to come in, help you get cleaned up?”
“No. Go home. I’ll call you in the morning.”
“Dominic-”
“I said go home, Stefan.” I opened the car door and hauled myself out, biting back a groan as the movement pulled at the wound. “I can walk into my own house.”
I made it to the front door and fumbled with my keys, my fingers slippery with blood. The door swung open and I stumbled into the foyer, reaching for the wall to steady myself.
“Dominic?”
I looked up and Angela was rising from the couch in my living room, her eyes wide, already moving toward me.
“What the hell are you doing here?” The words came out harsher than I intended, but I was bleeding and confused and she was the last person I expected to find in my house in the middle of the night.
“Your driver mentioned you were out handling something and would be home soon, so I let myself in with the gate code you gave me and waited.” She crossed the foyer quickly, her heels clicking on the hardwood. “Oh my God, you’re bleeding. What happened?”
“Grassi’s men got lucky.” I pressed my hand tighter against my side. “Why are you in my house, Angela?”
“I had some information about the northern route that couldn’t wait until morning.” She was right in front of me now, her hands reaching for my shirt. “Sit down, let me look at that.”
“I’m fine, I just need to-”
“You’re not fine, you’re bleeding all over the floor.” She pushed me toward the bench. “I’ve got you. Just let me take care of this.”
She knelt in front of me and started unbuttoning my shirt. I should have stopped her. I should have told her to get the kit and let me do it myself.
But I was tired and in blinding pain.
“The cut doesn’t look too deep, but you’re going to need stitches.” She pulled my shirt open and peeled the bloody fabric away from the wound. “Hold still, I need to see how bad it is.”
Her hands were cool against my skin. She leaned in close, examining the cut.
I heard the footsteps on the stairs too late.
I looked up and Liana was standing on the landing in her robe, her hair messy from sleep, her face soft with confusion.
And then her eyes found us.
Me on the bench with my shirt open and blood on my hands. Angela kneeling between my legs with her palms pressed flat against my bare chest.
Liana’s face changed.
“Liana.” I tried to stand but Angela pressed down, holding me in place.
“Don’t move, you’ll make the bleeding worse.” Angela didn’t even glance at my wife. “I’ve almost got it.”
Liana came down the stairs.
She stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked at Angela. “What are you doing in my house?”
Angela’s voice was helpful. “I didn’t want to wake you, Liana. I knew you’d worry, and I thought I could just clean him up and let you sleep.”
“You didn’t want to wake me.”
“He was bleeding everywhere and you were sleeping and I just thought it would be easier if I took care of it.” Angela smiled. “I know how exhausted you’ve been with everything going on.”
Liana’s jaw tightened. Her hands curled into fists at her sides.
“Give me the kit.”
“I’m almost done, really, it’s no trouble.” Angela reached for the first aid kit on the console behind her. “Why don’t you go back to bed and I’ll come get you when-”
“I said give me the kit.” Liana’s voice was flat. “Right now.”
Angela paused, her hand on the kit. She looked at me, waiting for me to say something, to smooth this over, to tell Liana that Angela was just helping and there was nothing to worry about.
I didn’t say anything. The guilt was lodged in my throat.
“Liana, really, I don’t mind finishing.” Angela’s voice stayed sweet. “You shouldn’t have to deal with blood and wounds in the middle of the night when I’m already here and happy to help.”
“You can leave.” Liana stepped forward and held out her hand. “I can take care of my husband.”
“Of course.” She stood slowly and handed Liana the kit. “I was only trying to help him. I didn’t mean to overstep.”
“I know exactly what you were trying to do.” Liana took the kit and knelt down in front of me, right where Angela had been.
Angela didn’t move. She stood by the console, hovering, her purse still on my couch, her presence still filling up my foyer.
“I should probably stay in case you need help.” She clasped her hands in front of her.
“He doesn’t need your help.” Liana still wasn’t looking at her. “He has me.”
“I just want to make sure he’s okay, Liana, that’s all.”
“And I just told you to leave.” Liana finally looked up at Angela, and the coldness in her eyes made even me flinch. “So leave.”
Angela looked at me one more time. I looked away.
“Fine.” She picked up her purse from the couch. “I’ll call you tomorrow, Dominic. We still have things to discuss about the Grassi situation.”
The front door opened and closed. Her footsteps faded on the porch. Then silence.
Liana opened the kit and pulled out gauze and antiseptic. Her movements were sharp, her jaw set hard. She still wasn’t looking at my face.
“Liana, I didn’t know she was going to be here.”
“Don’t.” She pressed the antiseptic against the wound without warning and I hissed at the burn. “Just don’t.”
She cleaned the wound in silence. Her hands were rough, pressing harder than she needed to, scrubbing at the edges of the cut. Every touch felt like an accusation.
“I went after Grassi tonight.” I tried to fill the silence with something, anything. “Hit his warehouse on the south side. He needed to know that he can’t threaten you and get away with it.”
Liana didn’t respond. She just kept cleaning, her jaw tight, her eyes fixed on the wound.
“The text he sent about you, the one about something happening to you.” I swallowed hard. “I couldn’t let that stand. I had to show him what happens when someone threatens my wife.”
“So you went and got yourself stabbed.” Her voice was flat. “And then you came home and let another woman put her hands all over you.”
“I didn’t let her do anything, she was just here when I walked in.”
“She was in our house in the middle of the night, Dominic.” Liana finally looked at me and her eyes were bright with tears. “Sitting on our couch. Waiting for you. And you want me to believe you didn’t know?”
“I didn’t know. I swear to you, I had no idea she would be here.”
“Then how did she know you were coming home? How did she know to wait?”
“She said my driver told her I was out and would be back soon.”
“Your driver.” Liana laughed. “Your driver is giving her information about your schedule now. She knows where you are and when you’re coming home and she lets herself into our house to wait for you like she lives here.”
“How did she get through the gate, Dominic?”
I didn’t answer fast enough.
“You gave her the code.” Her voice went very quiet. “You stood on that boat and told me she’d never set foot in this house again, and you gave her the code to our gate.”
“For the late meetings. So she wouldn’t have to wait outside. I never asked her to use it like this.”
“But you didn’t stop her either, did you?
” Liana pressed a fresh piece of gauze against the wound, hard enough to make me wince.
“You didn’t tell her she couldn’t have that kind of access.
You didn’t set boundaries. You just let her get closer and closer until she felt comfortable sitting in my living room at two in the morning waiting for my husband to come home. ”
The words came out quiet, defeated. “You’re right, I should have seen what was happening.”
“I came downstairs and she was unbuttoning your shirt.” Liana’s voice cracked. “She was kneeling between your legs with her hands on your chest and you were just sitting there letting her.”
“I was bleeding, I wasn’t thinking-”
“That’s always your excuse.” She ripped the tape with her teeth and pressed the bandage down over the wound. “You weren’t thinking. You didn’t notice. You didn’t mean for it to happen. But it keeps happening, Dominic. Over and over again, it keeps happening.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” She looked at me with wet eyes and a trembling jaw. “Because I don’t think you do. I don’t think you understand what it’s like to walk downstairs in your own house and find another woman’s hands on your husband. I don’t think you have any idea how that feels.”
“I’m sorry.”
She stood up and stepped back from me. “Sorry doesn’t erase the fact that she was in my house, in my space, touching what’s mine, and you let her.”
“I didn’t let her, I didn’t even know she was here.”
“Then why didn’t you call for me?” Liana’s voice rose slightly before she caught herself, glancing toward the stairs. “You were hurt. You came home bleeding. And instead of calling for your wife, you let another woman take care of you.”
“She was already there, she was already helping-”
“I should have been the one helping you.” The tears finally spilled over, running down her cheeks. “That’s my job. That’s always been my job. I’ve cleaned your wounds and stitched you up and sat with you through the worst nights of your life. And tonight you let her do it instead.”
“I wasn’t thinking, Liana. I was tired and hurting and she was right there and I just-”
“You just forgot about me.” Liana wiped her face with the back of her hand.
“That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?” She folded her arms. “Why can’t you keep your word Dom? This is like having a whiplash. One night you’re coming home to me and fucking me senseless and then the next night-”
I stood up from the bench, ignoring the pull of the wound, and reached for her. She stepped back before I could touch her.
“Don’t.”
“Liana, please.”
“I said don’t touch me right now.” Her voice broke. “I can’t have your hands on me right now. Not when I can still see her hands where mine should have been.”
“What do you want me to do?” My own voice was cracking now, desperate.
“I want you to go back in time and not let this happen.”
“I’ll fix it. I’ll tell Angela she can’t come here anymore. I’ll cut her out completely.”
“It’s too late for that.” Liana shook her head. “It won’t change what I saw tonight. It won’t change what you let happen.”
“Then what do I do?” I spread my hands. “Tell me, Liana. I’ll do anything.”
“I don’t know.” She wiped her face again. “I don’t know what you can do. I don’t know if there’s anything left to do.”
“Don’t say that.”
“I’m going back to bed.” She turned toward the stairs. “Sleep in the guest room tonight.”
“Liana-”
“I mean it, Dominic. I don’t want you in our bed right now.” She stopped on the first step but didn’t turn around.
“Please don’t shut me out.”
“I’m not shutting you out.” She finally turned to look at me, and the exhaustion in her eyes made my chest ache. “I’m protecting myself. Because you won’t do it.”
She climbed the stairs without another word. I heard our bedroom door close. I heard the lock click.
For the first time in ten years, I let my wife walk away without following her.
Because I didn’t know what to say.
The wound on my ribs was throbbing.
I sank back down onto the bench and dropped my head into my hands.
I had survived Grassi’s men.
But I wasn’t sure I was going to survive this.