Chapter 44
FORTY-FOUR
DOMINIC
It takes a few seconds to convince Phoenix to stop fighting me. I have to say her name about a dozen times before she stops trying to claw at my face and actually look at it.
“Dom?”
“I’m here. You’re okay.”
Then she wraps her arms and legs around me and clings with every bit of her strength.
Her mouth finds my face in the dark and she kisses every inch she can reach. My forehead. My cheek. The bridge of my nose. The corner of my jaw. Frantic, wet, graceless presses of her lips against skin that’s slick with sweat and smoke residue.
“You came,” she gasps between kisses. “You came for me, you came, you came—”
Phoenix Riviera is in my arms and kissing me. For a moment, I almost forget that we’re still in danger.
Get it together, Romano.
“Of course I did. We all did.” My voice comes out rougher than I want it to. Her weight is nothing in my arms, bird-light and trembling. “But right now, we have to go.”
Another kiss lands on my chin. Another on the hollow beneath my ear. Her fingers dig into the leather of my jacket, knuckles white, grip so fierce I can feel her nails through the material.
“Thank you.” Kiss. “Thank you.” Kiss. “Thank you thank you thank—”
“Phoenix.” I shift her weight, trying to get her feet back under her. “We really need to move. Can you walk?”
She doesn’t answer. Her face burrows into the curve of my neck and shoulder, and I feel the hot dampness of tears soaking through my shirt collar.
Her whole body shakes against mine in violent, uncontrollable tremors—the kind that come after the adrenaline burns out and leaves nothing but the wreckage behind.
“Never let me go,” she whispers into my skin. The words are barely audible over the distant crackle of the fire and the growing wail of sirens. “Don’t let me go, Dom. Please don’t let me go.”
Something cracks open in my chest. A fault line I didn’t know existed, splitting apart under the pressure of this small, fierce woman clinging to me like I’m the last solid thing in her world.
I tighten my arms around her and stop trying to get her to stand on her own.
“Okay,” I say against her hair, which smells like smoke and burlap and underneath it all, faintly, that vanilla-citrus scent I’ve been pretending not to notice. “Okay. I got you. I’m not letting go.”
I hitch her higher on my hip and start moving through the maze of containers, navigating by the sound of the sirens and the orange glow painting the sky behind us.
She weighs nothing. Her legs lock around my waist, her face stays buried against my neck, and every few seconds another kiss presses against my pulse point like she’s checking to make sure I’m real.
Footsteps pound the gravel behind us. I spin, one arm clamping Phoenix tighter while my free hand balls into a fist—
Mason skids around the corner of a container, chest heaving, face ghost-white in the reflected firelight.
His eyes lock on Phoenix first. Everything else—me, the smoke, the chaos—ceases to exist.
“Is she hurt?” He’s at my side in three strides, his hands reaching for her. “Phoenix, are you…is she okay? Is she bleeding?”
Phoenix presses her face deeper into my shoulder, her grip on my jacket tightening rather than loosening. A fresh wave of shaking rolls through her.
“We’ve got a bit of a spider monkey situation,” I say. “But I think she’s okay.”
Mason’s hand hovers near Phoenix’s back without touching.
His gray eyes scan what he can see of her—the bruise darkening on her cheek, the raw red rings around her wrists where rope used to be, the way she curls into me like she’s trying to disappear.
His jaw works through something that looks like it might shatter his teeth.
“The fire department is already here. Some of the bikers are trying to keep them from coming through the gate, but I doubt they’ll be held off for long,” he says, dragging his gaze back to mine.
His voice has steadied, professional instincts wrestling control back from panic.
“Setting a fire and calling 911 was a brilliant idea. Hopefully the police are right behind them.”
“Doesn’t matter. We’re leaving.”
Mason’s mouth opens. “Dom, we can’t just—if the police are coming, we need to give a statement, we need to tell them what happened—“
“We’re not doing any of that. Let’s go.”
The objection is visible on his face. His lips thin. His nostrils flare.
But I’m already striding away, Phoenix shaking in my arms. If Mason wants an explanation of my reasoning, he can wait until we’re the fuck away from here.
The shoreline appears through a gap between the last row of containers, rocky beach that is practically inaccessible, which is something I know the Sinners counted on.
Too bad for them.
The Second Chance bobs gently on the water, anchored about 50 feet away from the shore. Judah stands at the helm, one hand on the wheel, scanning the darkness. Atticus paces the stern deck like a caged animal.
The second Atticus spots us, he’s off the boat and splashing through the shallows.
His hands are already reaching for Phoenix as if he needs physical contact to believe what he’s seeing. “Is she hurt? Let me see her.”
“She’s okay,” I say, hefting Phoenix higher to keep her out of the hip-high waves as he splashes through the water beside me. “Just crashing from the adrenaline, I think.”
Atticus’s jaw clenches, his green eyes sweeping over the bruise blooming on her cheek, the abraded skin at her wrists. Something dangerous and barely controlled flickers behind his expression before he wrestles it down.
“I’ll help you get her up.”
Phoenix clinging to me limits my use of my hands, so Atticus has to grip under my armpits and pull me up on deck while I try not to slip on the metal ladder. Mason clambers up behind us.
Judah is already hauling in the anchor. “Take her below deck, but I need someone to watch the side as I navigate the rocks.”
Atticus and Mason exchange a look. It only takes a second for Atticus to let out a sigh at the bulldog expression on Mason’s face and volunteer himself to stay on the deck.
I carry Phoenix down the narrow steps into the cabin below. Mason is right behind me, practically pressed against my back in his eagerness to get to Phoenix as we duck into the galley.
The cabin is small and smells like diesel and old plastic. A narrow bunk lines one wall, stacked with the kind of heavy blankets fishermen use during winter runs.
When I try to lower Phoenix onto the bunk, her arms only tighten around me, which is the only sign she gives of still being conscious.
So I sit down on the edge of the mattress myself and reach for a blanket to drape across her shoulders and tuck underneath her so she isn’t sitting directly on my soaked jeans.
Mason drops onto the wooden bench across from us. His hands press flat against his knees, knuckles white. In the dim cabin light, his face is carved from something harder than I’ve ever seen on him.
“Why aren’t we talking to the police?”
“Because the second Phoenix’s name appears in a police report, this becomes a media circus.
” I keep my voice low, one hand rubbing slow circles across Phoenix’s back.
She hasn’t loosened her grip, but her breathing has gone shallow and slow against my neck, which I hope means she has finally allowed herself to relax.
“And do you really want to make her relive this over and over again through a trial?”
Mason’s jaw grinds. “So we just let the Sinners get away with this?”
“I didn’t say that. Aaron and the Sinners will get what’s coming to them.”
Mason’s eyes narrow. “What does that mean?”
I open my mouth to answer, but Phoenix shifts against me. Her legs unlock slightly from my waist as she shifts in my lap, but her fists stay knotting in my shirt, practically daring me to try and lay her down on her own.
I’ll never let her go again if that’s what she wants.
I return my attention to Mason.
“It means that none of them will ever touch her again, I promise you that.”
An hour later, Phoenix’s grip hasn’t loosened.
We rushed to the salvage yard, heedless of the danger of driving the Second Chance right into the rocky beach. Now that the danger has passed and we have her back, the journey back to town is slow going. It’ll be another few hours before we’re docked back in the harbor.
I’d hoped to tuck her into the cot and let her sleep, but Phoenix has other ideas.
Her face is still pressed into the curve of my neck, her breath coming in shallow little puffs against my skin. The trembling has subsided somewhat, a fine vibration running through her like a plucked string that can’t quite settle.
“They’re gone,” I murmur against her hair. “It’s just us. You’re safe.”
I stifle my surprise when a muffled laugh escapes her. She’s given no evidence of being aware of her surroundings since I carried her onto the boat.
“Phoenix?”
“I know I’m safe.” Her voice is barely audible as she burrows closer. “That’s why I can’t let go.”
Christ.
I tighten my arms around her, pulling her closer even though there’s no closer to go. Her body molds against mine, all sharp angles and delicate bones. Equally fierce and fragile.
“You don’t have to let go.”
“Good.” Her fingers twist deeper into my shirt, gathering fistfuls of the damp fabric. “Not planning on it.”
We sit like that for a while. The boat rocks gently beneath us, the engine thrumming a low, steady rhythm that vibrates through the hull. Somewhere above, I can hear muffled voices. Mason and Atticus, probably, keeping watch while Judah steers us home.
Phoenix’s breathing gradually steadies. The tension bleeds out of her shoulders by increments. Her death grip on my shirt loosens just enough that I can feel the individual press of her fingers rather than one continuous clutch.
Then she shifts.
She lifts her head from my shoulder so she can look at me properly for the first time since I found her stumbling through the darkness at the salvage yard.