Chapter 31 Checkmate
Chapter thirty-one
Checkmate
Dominic
Still riding the high of orgasm, still tucking my cock back into my pants, but my hands were steady.
My purpose was clear.
"Who the fuck," I headed his way, "are you calling a whore?"
Scott stumbled backward. "She's my wife—"
"She was your wife." I closed the distance between us. "Until you threw her away. You don't get to reclaim her now with insults."
"You. . .are a child—" He was gasping, leaning heavily against the doorframe. "This is my house—"
"This is her house." I was close enough now to see the sweat beading on his forehead, the way his pupils were still struggling to focus and how his cock was definitely hard and pushing up against his pants.
Ha! You poor bastard. You couldn’t help but get hard from her moans.
I wanted to punch him in the face. I fisted my hands. "You just sleep here because a judge said you could. Temporarily."
He tried to straighten up, to look intimidating, but his body betrayed him. He swayed and then caught himself. "I'll call the police. I'll tell them what you did—"
"Go ahead." I smiled, and it wasn't friendly. "Tell them how you forced your way back into your ex-wife's house with a court order. How you did cocaine while your kids slept. How you got so high you can barely stand up. Call them!"
His mouth opened and closed.
“Go ahead. You can use my phone." I pointed to my pocket where the device sat. “Do you want it?”
"You're insane—"
"No. I'm precise. You’re pathetic. You neglected her, betrayed her, abandoned her. Step aside before I fucking kill you—"
"Ah!" Scott stumbled backward, then turned and lurched toward the home office.
His movements were erratic—shoulder hitting the doorframe, hand slapping against the wall for balance. He left a trail of sweat on the wallpaper as he hurried down the hallway.
"Dominic—" Teyonah rushed to my side, her voice high and tight with fear. She'd pulled her dress down but her hands were shaking. "He always carries a gun in his briefcase. I don’t know if he is going to get it, but just in case you have to leave so I can—"
"No." I cut her off, keeping my eyes on him as he stumbled into the office. "I'm not going anywhere."
"But—"
"Go upstairs." I turned to look at her. "Call the police. Put on some new clothes. Don't come downstairs until I call you."
"What?" Fear hit her eyes. "I can't just leave you—"
"Please, Teyonah. Do as I say."
She stepped closer, and I could see her calculating—the same way I'd just calculated with Scott.
Weighing options.
Measuring risks.
"He has a gun, Dominic." Her voice dropped. "You could die. You could—"
She couldn't finish. Her hand reached toward me, then pulled back, like she wanted to touch me but was afraid it would make it real.
"I won't die." I said it with absolute certainty, even though we both knew that was a promise no one could make. "But I need you safe. I need the boys protected. And I need you to trust me."
That word hung between us: trust.
She'd heard it before, hadn't she?
From Scott.
Promises that dissolved the moment they were tested.
“Trust me, I'm working late.”
“Trust me, she's just a colleague.”
“Trust me, I love you. I wouldn’t cheat. I’ll always love you.”
All lies.
And now here I was—a man she'd known for a year—asking her to trust me with something that could cost me my life.
Our eyes met, and I watched something shift in her expression.
Not just fear anymore.
Not just lust or gratitude for the pleasure I'd given her.
Something deeper.
More solid.
She was making a choice.
To see me not as the young tenant downstairs.
Not as the medical student renting her basement.
Not as the man who'd just fucked her while her ex-husband watched.
But as someone who could stand between her and chaos.
Someone who would stand there, even if it cost him everything.
"Dominic." My name came out steady now. "Don't you dare die on me. You hear me? Don't you fucking dare."
My heart ached. "I won't."
She studied my face for three more seconds—probably looking for doubt, for fear, for any sign I was lying the way Scott always had.
She didn't find it.
"Okay." She nodded. "I. . .trust you."
Three words that meant everything.
She turned and ran up the stairs, and I heard it in her footsteps—not retreat, but tactical repositioning.
She wasn't running away from the fight.
She was doing her part in it.
Calling the police.
Protecting the boys.
Letting me handle Scott.
That was partnership.
That was what Scott had never understood—trust wasn't blind obedience. It was two people choosing to rely on each other's strengths instead of exploiting each other's weaknesses.
I pulled out my phone, already feeling steadier.
She trusts me.
I wouldn't let her down.
I tapped on my lawyer Spencer's number as I moved toward the office.
From inside came the sound of drawers being yanked open, objects clattering to the floor.
"Yes, Dominic, how can I help you?" Spencer's voice was alert despite the late hour. Good lawyers never really slept.
"I need you at the house. Now." I kept my voice low and steady. "He's snorted coke and acting crazy. I think he’s about to get a gun. I had her call the cops. I want him out tonight."
"We'll be there. Same address?"
"Yes." I hung up and slipped the phone back into my pocket.
The office door was ajar.
Through the gap, I could hear Scott's ragged breathing, the scrape of metal against wood.
I pushed the door open.
Scott stood behind his desk, hunched over an open briefcase. A small handgun lay on the desk surface—compact, probably a .38 or similar. His hands trembled as he fumbled with bullets, trying to load the cylinder through his drugged up haze.
The bullets kept slipping through his fingers.
The desk was a mess.
Papers scattered.
A coffee mug on its side.
And there—a small puddle of vomit near the edge, acrid smell mixing with the sweat and fear saturating the room.
His skin had gone gray-green, sweat pouring down his face in rivulets.
He looked up with his eyes wild and unfocused. "Get back!"
More bullets tumbled from his grip, bouncing across the desk and hitting the floor with small metallic pings.
I analyzed the variables: Pupils still dilated from cocaine. Sweat indicating elevated heart rate. Fine motor control severely compromised. Emotional state: volatile but deteriorating into despair rather than rage.
Probability he'd successfully load and fire: 30%, maybe 35%.
Probability he'd accidentally shoot himself: significantly higher.
"Get out. . .of my. . .house. You are no longer. . .a tenant. . .here!" Foamy saliva dripped from the edge of his mouth. “F-fucked. . .my wife. . .m-mine. . .”
I stayed in the doorway, hands visible at my sides.
Calm.
Controlled.
“G-get out!”
"You can keep this house, Scott. I'm about to buy her a new house."
His eyes widened, pupils dilating further—shock on top of pharmaceutical chaos.
"This house is nothing, just old memories. J and Oliver will forget about this place one day. They'll have to be reminded when they're teenagers that they ever lived here." I took a step forward. "And they'll definitely forget about you. I plan to make sure of that."
"No. You. . .can’t do that. . .No." Although still most likely empty, he lifted the gun with shaking hands and tried to point it at me.
Hell no!
Just in case that gun wasn’t empty, I moved fast, crossing the distance in three strides. My hand came down hard on his wrist, smacking the gun away before his fingers could close around it.
The weapon clattered to the floor.
More bullets scattered like dropped coins, rolling under furniture.
Scott staggered backward, hitting the bookshelf. His mouth opened but only a wheeze came out.
I sneered at him. “You will never get to hurt them again. Never get to make Teyonah feel small or make J feel insecure about their body. Oliver will forget about you soon. I’m going to make sure that you never talk to them again."
"Y-you can't. . .do this."
"I can." I glanced at the briefcase on the desk—still open, contents visible. A small plastic bag half full with white powder. There was residue on the desk as if he'd been too lazy to clean up after he'd done a few lines.
My blood went cold.
I considered how Oliver—so young and with a crazy sweet tooth—could have come down into this office while Scott was sleeping and licked it...thinking the contents were sugar.
My chest tightened.
The medical scenarios ran through my mind automatically.
A child Oliver's age, maybe forty pounds soaking wet.
Cocaine's LD50 in children—lethal dose for 50% of the population—was around 15-20 milligrams per kilogram.
That meant less than a gram could kill him.
And there were several grams sitting right there, within reach, looking innocent as powdered sugar.
First, Oliver would get the immediate rush. His tiny heart—that perfect little heart that beat so fast when he was excited about dinosaurs or Bushy Bear socks—would start racing.
Tachycardia, 180, 200 beats per minute.
His blood pressure would spike.
Then the real damage would start.
Hyperthermia.
His small body couldn't regulate temperature the way an adult's could. He'd burn from the inside, temperature climbing to 104, 105, higher. Seizures would follow—his brain misfiring, body convulsing on this floor while Scott slept off his high upstairs.
His airways could close.
Cardiac arrest could follow within minutes.
I'd seen it during my ER rotation—a teenager who'd tried cocaine at a party.
My supervising doctor had coded him for forty minutes. His mother's screaming still lived in my nightmares.
Oliver wouldn't even understand what was happening to him. He'd just know something was terribly wrong, and he'd cry for his mommy.
My hands curled back into fists.
He could have died. Right here in this office.
Because Scott was too fucking selfish, too reckless, too goddamn high to consider that his children lived in this house.
That shit made me so fucking sick.