Chapter 69 Kiera
KIERA
Who does she think she is? My mouth dropped as I watched Dom stride across the shop, trying to disappear through the shadowy office door. No. She doesn’t get to walk away from this that easily.
This late at night, the shop was nearly empty. Only Spencer and Leo hung around the far end, pulling crumpled panels off a Maserati that was somehow in worse shape than the car I’d just cleaned.
“Where do you think you’re going?” I shouted at Dom’s retreating form.
Even with an audience of two, the comment was enough to hit her ego, making her back tense. “Some of us have real work to do around here. Do you need something to do? I can find you another car to clean.”
“I mean that depends. What the fuck did I just clean up?” I crossed my arms over my chest, and even through the fabric of my shirt, I could feel the heat rising there.
“Someone who deserved it.” Dom grumbled.
“Who?” I spat, taking a step toward her. I could feel Spence and Leo’s eyes on me as they set down their tools, but I didn’t care if I was causing a scene, I wanted some fucking asnwers.
“We don’t always get the luxury of knowing.”
She tried to turn away, but I grabbed her wrist, feeling tendons and bulging veins strain beneath my fingers. “I’m sick of this vague bullshit. I can’t keep operating off aphorisms. I need something real.”
For a second, the icy facade cracked as she glanced down at her wrist, but it froze right over the second her eyes met mine. “You need order. Control.”
She wrenched her arm away, flicking my hand aside as she advanced on me. “You need someone telling you what to do until you learn some fucking self control.”
My face screwed up as I stepped away from her, “I don’t need anything from you.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Viper.” She took another step forward and then another, forcing me to back away or risk colliding with her mountainous frame.
“You can deny it all you want, but when it came down to it, you were a good girl, weren’t you? You threw a fit and still did as you were told.”
As I stepped away from her, I felt my back crash into one of the cars. She slammed her hands on the roof, caging me between ropey arms. Any warmth she’d shown me a minute ago was gone now, replaced by a destructive impulse to dominate.
I screwed my eyes shut, shrinking away from her as best as I could. But she was inescapable. Dom stood there for a moment, warm breath washing over my face until a depraved smirk painted her lips. “Maybe we can tame you after all.”
Smacking the roof of the car hard enough to make it shake, she pushed off and strode away toward the office, letting the door slam behind her. My head whipped toward the sound, but when I set eyes on the big glass windows, I saw that she’d already drawn the blinds.
Sickness churned in my stomach in the aftermath. She was completely off base. I didn’t help with the cover up because I’d been ‘broken in.’ I didn’t have a choice in the matter — Dom had made that pretty obvious in her abundant threats.
But… had they really forced me?
I could have walked out. I could have refused. Even if it had resulted in a punishment, that was technically an option. But even if I’d known… would I have walked away?
I knew deep in my gut that the answer was no. As frustrated as I was with talking in circles and the lack of information, I believed my captors. For better or worse, I wholeheartedly trusted that whoever’s blood was in the back of the car did deserve it. And I was fine to cover it up.
But that wasn’t something I wasn’t ready to admit out loud — certainly not to Dom. And I still had a bone to pick with my angels.
“You two.” I barked, setting my sights on a softer target. Spence jumped to attention, but Leo simply crossed her arms and leaned against the Maserati. “How dare you let me walk into that blind?”
If Leo shared any of Spencer’s guilt, she didn’t show it, which only made me more angry.
“Maybe you guys chose this, but let me remind you that this is a fucking hostage situation. I didn’t ask to get pulled into whatever shady shit you guys are doing, I didn’t ask to have my DNA all over a murder vehicle, and I certainly didn’t ask to have Dom fucking blackmailing me while I cleaned up a stranger’s blood. What the fuck?!”
My chest was heaving at this point as I waited for one of them to break the silence with any sort of explanation.
Leo’s eyes were placid as she took me in, not nearly as easy to rile up as Dom was.
I expected her to come back at me with some milquetoast explanation before urging me to get used to it.
But to my surprise, it was Spencer who spoke first, shrugging as she hit me with those deep brown eyes. “Sorry, Bunny. It’s initiation: everyone does it at some point. Us interfering would only make things worse.”
I was shocked to find tears welling in my eyes at the idea of my two saviors doing the same thing.
The reason didn’t matter ultimately. What I really needed wasn’t an explanation, and Leo knew that.
“It’s okay, Princess.” She stepped forward, pulling me into a hug. “You’re okay. It’s a complicated thing, but you haven’t done anything wrong.”
I didn’t realize how badly I needed to hear that until the words left her mouth. I sank into the hug, letting her warmth bleed through me as her firm grip soothed the ache in my muscles.
“Are you sure?” I felt a tear eek from my eye as I pressed my face into her shoulder.
“Absolutely.” She murmured into my hair.
Spencer stepped behind me, rubbing circles into my back. “Hey, I’ve got an idea for a little reward. Might help you feel a bit more like… you. Or at least get your mind off of things for a while. You in?”
Letting out a deep, shuddering breath, I wiped the tear from my cheek and tried to pull my brave face back on. “Where are we heading?”