22. Chapter 22
Chapter twenty-two
~ZED~
I stand under the porch lights of Dom’s house, my chest expanding with a slow, heavy breath that burns my lungs.
Then, I knock.
The silence that follows stretches until the lock clicks.
The door swings back, and a pair of narrowed eyes meets mine.
Dom is still wearing his tux, the collar of his white dress shirt open, his fingers frozen right where he was loosening the black bow tie from around his neck.
What the fuck is written all over his face as his eyes move over me, checking for any sign that would explain why I’m standing on his front porch at one in the morning after nearly choking him unconscious a few days ago.
We don’t say a single word.
Crickets fill the silence neither of us seems interested in breaking.
Eventually, Dom’s jaw tightens. He lets out a slow, rough breath through his nose, nods once, and steps aside into the foyer, leaving the door wide open.
I enter and hear him close it behind me.
“Who’s here this late?”
Jessica’s voice drifts out from the living room before she rounds the corner. She’s already out of her gown from tonight, dressed down in a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, her hair pulled back. The second her eyes land on my face, she halts dead in her tracks.
The sleep evaporates from her face.
If hostility had a human form...
“Oh, absolutely fucking not.”
The look she gives me could liquefy steel.
She glares at me with a protective fury, her posture screaming that she’d happily drag my ass back out to the asphalt by my throat if it were up to her.
I don’t blame her.
My eyes shift back to Dom.
With his collar open and the light catching his throat, the marks are right there. Faint purple bruises spread across his skin in the exact shape of my hands, and my stomach turns as I remember exactly how hard I squeezed.
How furious I’d been.
How convinced I was that he deserved it.
Amazing what time and the outline of your own fingers on someone’s throat can do for perspective.
God, I’m a piece of shit.
The quiet in the room presses down around us, thick with everything Dom and I did to each other tonight and none of the words required to fix it.
“Let’s go outside.” Dom motions toward the patio with his chin.
“No.” Jessica points a finger between the two of us. “Whatever this is, it’s happening right here where I can see it.”
Every muscle in her body locks into a defensive shield around her man.
It’s commendable, really.
But it’s also entirely useless.
Unless she whacks me over the head with something heavy, there isn’t much she can do. If Dom and I actually throw down right now, no amount of protective rage from someone her size is going to stop two two-hundred-and-thirty-pound professional athletes from rocking each other’s shit.
“I won’t hurt him,” I say flatly, shifting my eyes to Jessica.
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t take your word for it.” Her eyes narrow.
Fair assessment considering the evidence is currently wrapped around her boyfriend’s neck.
Dom lets out a long breath through his nose, his hand reaching out to wrap around her waist and pull her softly against his side. He leans down, pressing a gentle kiss to the side of her head.
“Give us a minute,” Dom says quietly, flicking his head toward the heavy glass sliders leading out to his back deck.
Jessica hesitates, throwing me one last warning look before I follow him through the back of the house.
The glass doors slide open, and salt air immediately rolls over us. His backyard is almost a mirror of mine.
Infinity pool. Palm trees. Water stretching out beyond it.
Money seems to buy different furniture and the same view.
The warm night breeze whips off the water, rustling the palms around the edge of his pool as Dom walks over to the outdoor bar and grabs a heavy crystal decanter.
Amber liquid sloshes against the glass while he pours two double shots, handing one to me before moving toward the couch overlooking the pool.
I take the glass and drop into the cushions across from him. Dom clinks the rim of his glass against mine, the crystal ringing softly through the quiet midnight air before we both take a long, heavy sip.
The silence stretches between us again.
Dom doesn’t prompt me. He doesn’t ask what the fuck I’m doing at his house past midnight, and he doesn’t stare at me like he’s waiting for a confession.
He’s finally figured out that if he reaches, I’ll pull away.
For a few minutes, we just sit there in a surprisingly comfortable silence.
“Remember the waffles our housekeeper used to make us?” I ask. “After my mom picked us up from practice?”
Dom’s head tilts back against the cushions.
“To this day, the best damn waffles I’ve ever had.”
I nod, staring down into my glass as my mind slips backward through layers of memories I haven’t touched in years.
The one I’m looking for settles right onto my sternum, a suffocating weight that makes my chest tighten until the breath in my lungs starts to burn.
“Your brother would always join us,” Dom says quietly, a smile edging at the corner of his mouth.
My throat tightens, a hard, painful knot forming at the base of it.
“He always wanted to feel like he was one of us,” I say softly.
The pain behind my ribs expands, sharp and unforgiving, pressing against my lungs.
“I haven’t had one since you left for Miami,” I add, keeping my eyes locked on the blue water of the pool.
“I’m sorry for not keeping in touch, Z,” he says. “No one told me what happened.”
My breathing starts to turn shallow, but I push through it.
I didn’t come here to play defense.
“I removed the construction tape,” I tell him, my voice dropping.
Four words.
That’s all it takes to put me right back there.
I stare into my glass, watching the whiskey shift with the slight tremor in my hand. I’m not sure when or how Dom found out about my brother after so many years, but I’m sure whatever he knows didn’t come from anyone I would trust with Nico’s memory.
“He kept telling me we were going to get in trouble,” I continue, staring straight ahead as that night starts replaying behind my eyes in brutal detail. “But he was so excited.”
I can still see him looking up at me.
He was wearing my old hockey jersey when we snuck into the unfinished ice rink, the sleeves swallowing his hands completely and the bottom hanging past his knees. I was only a teenager, but compared to him, I was already a giant.
“Are you sure we’re allowed?”
He’d asked me that at least six times before we even got inside.
Every single time, I laughed and told him we’d be fine.
I was his big brother.
As far as Nico was concerned, that made my word better than construction tape and a locked door.
I let out a rough breath and finally look at Dom.
“You’ve got a fucked-up way of trying to help people.”
“You don’t respond to anything else,” Dom counters quietly, setting his glass down and leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.
“I’m sorry I hurt you,” I finally say.
“No. I crossed the line.” Dom shakes his head and flicks a thumb toward his neck. “And I got what I deserved.”
I wipe a hand across my mouth, my eyes settling on the bruises around his throat again.
“People always want a scandal. A young prodigy killing his brother to keep the family legacy to himself... it sells.” Dom pauses. “I knew it wasn’t true when I read those articles. I just wanted to hurt you enough to make you fight back.”
I shake my head, unable to keep looking at him.
“I did kill him,” I whisper.
The words feel like they’re being dragged straight out of the darkest corner of my soul.
“And I can’t live with it, Dom.”
His face contorts with pain.
“I took him there,” My throat tightening around every word. “I helped him with his skates and put him on the ice.”
A gust of wind hits my face, cold against the wetness on my cheeks.
I’m crying?
I rub a hand over my eyes and drag my palm down my face.
“I can’t look at those kids on the ice, Dominic,” I grit out, staring into the dark pool water. “I want them to have the space to learn. That’s why I write the checks for your Academy. It’s the best thing you’ve ever done, and I want to support it.”
My fingers tighten around the glass.
“But don’t make me be out there with them. I can’t do it.” I stare straight into his eyes. “Every time I look at those kids, I see him. A little boy with his skates half tied and his jersey hanging off his shoulders, with no fucking idea how little time he has left.”
My throat tightens.
“They get to grow up, Dom—Nico doesn’t.”
The words barely make it out.
“I’m here and he’s not. I get to wake up every morning and feel what it’s like to be alive inside my own body.”
My throat closes.
“And he got to be eleven.”
The words fucking gut me.
I lower the glass before the tremor in my hand spills the whiskey over the rim.
“He should’ve grown up. He should’ve gotten taller. Learned to drive. Had his first kiss. Fallen in love. Maybe played hockey. Maybe hated hockey and done something completely different just to piss me off.”
A broken breath leaves my chest.
“And every year I get older, I get something else he never will.”
“Every game. Every stupid thing that makes me laugh. Every time my heart pounds with adrenaline because I’m driving too fucking fast. Every time something feels good...” I swallow against the knot in my throat. “I get to feel all of it knowing my kid brother doesn’t get to feel a fucking thing.”
A tear slips down my cheek.
“Because of me.”
And now there’s Lilly.
Somehow, she makes it hurt worse.
I shake my head.
“Then Lilly happened.”
My chest pulls so tight I can barely breathe through it.
“Fuck. I love her.”
Dom goes completely still beside me.
So do I.
It’s the first time I’ve said it.
“I get to know what that feels like too,” I whisper. “What it feels like for a man to find his person. To look at a woman and know she’s it for him.”
My voice drops.
“And Nico never even got the chance.”
I drag a shaking hand over my face.
“How the fuck am I supposed to let myself have any of it when I’m the reason he can’t?”
For a long moment, neither of us speaks.