Chapter 51 Spencer
SPENCER
I could rip her fucking head off.
My blood was still boiling as I heard Dom’s heavy steps trudging down the stairs.
What the fuck is she thinking, hauling that poor girl off like that?
At the thought of everything Kiera had been through tonight — the vast majority of which was my and Leo’s fault — my chest tightened. I couldn’t believe I’d let her see The Gauntlet. She wasn’t supposed to know about any of this.
When Dom reached the landing, Leo was quick to jump down her throat. “What the actual fuck, Dom?”
“What?” Dom growled, evaluating her escape routes. As large as Dom was, hulking even, Leo was just as huge and had a military background. I wouldn’t want to put money on that fight.
“You know what, asshole. You can’t touch a woman like that.” Stepping forward, Leo started to minimize Dom’s exits. She wasn’t going to let her get away with that shit.
Dom rolled her eyes, puffing out her chest as she closed the distance between them. “I’ll do as I please in my house. So long as she’s in my house, she’s my property.”
Even from across the room, I could see Leo’s nose lifting into a snarl. A dog fight was about to break out and someone had to break it up before skulls got crushed.
“What does The Oracle want with her? Why aren’t they letting her leave?” I pushed myself into the conversation.
Based on how Dom had been acting, she would have given anything to get Kiera out of here. God only knows why. But that meant The Oracle had put their foot down. Something Dom rarely tolerated.
“Just be happy they agree with you two fuckers.” Dom whipped her icy blue eyes toward mine.
Something in Leo’s face softened. “It’s not safe for her with Gabe.”
Crossing her arms, Dom stood in silence, letting the two of us work through what was happening.
But I couldn’t make the connection. Something was missing.
“Dom, why is she so important to them? She’s just some girl we grabbed at a bar.” I put my hands on my hips, desperate to understand the woman upstairs — who was almost certainly pacing her bedroom, trying to figure out how to run.
I hadn't known Kiera long, but I could tell from a mile away that she was not one to be caged.
With a shrug, Dom scoffed. “It’s The Oracle. They’re all cloaks and daggers. Who fucking knows what their motive is.”
Liar. Behind her eyes, I saw everything. The Dom I knew, who took me in when I had nothing, wouldn’t let The Oracle tell her what to do. Not if she didn’t agree with their logic, with their reasoning.
Unlike the rest of us, Dom had some way of working around the higher ups. Leo and I followed orders. But Dom? Dom made them.
Leo’s shoulders dropped, disarmed by all of it.
Using her slim opportunity, Dom slipped past us both and headed toward the gym. “She’ll need to be initiated. Properly. Can’t have a stranger skulking around our work.”
“Probably for the best. She saw The Gauntlet tonight.” The words left my mouth before I could even consider whether Dom should hear them. From across the foyer, Leo shot me an annoyed glance.
Oops.
Hissing at us now, Dom’s eyes flicked between the two of us. “Who let that happen? I knew I should’ve made you lock her in here.”
Leo took the heat. “Schedule shift. They grabbed a guy who needed to be tried immediately. Didn’t realize it until it was too late.”
“Better not happen again.” Dom growled.
Still pissed, Leo snapped back. “Better not see you put your hands on her like that again. Or I’ll have to meet you in the pit.”
A laugh ripped through Dom’s chest, the thought of a fight between them some sick joke to her. “Funny. Why don’t you go back to the room I gave you and think about who would win that one?”
Before Leo could make a move, Dom left the room and disappeared into the winding, mysterious maze of this house.
In the silence, reality set in. Initiation was serious shit and after my Bunny’s reaction to the events in The Hollow, I couldn’t be sure she was ready for it.
Especially if she was truly some sort of asset to The Oracle, not the unassuming woman we thought we’d rescued that night but instead some cog in some larger, foggy plan.
Or maybe they just didn’t want us to send her back to that monster.
Breaking the eerie quiet, I sighed. “Now what?”