Sweet Salvation (Ruthless Games 3)

“You know you just wrote your own fucking ticket though, right?” I press, grabbing another wipe and starting to clean his wound again. “You don’t know Luca was going to evict you from the game. But once he finds out you helped us? Then you’re as good as dead, just like we are. So why take that risk?”

Dominic’s eyes fly open, his gaze finding mine with surprising intensity. “Because I’m done being their fucking pawn. Luca’s. My parents’. I’m fucking done.”

There’s something in his voice that reminds me of the day he barged into Theo’s house. A bone-deep pain. A wildness.

“They finally admitted it,” he says, staring up at the ceiling again, his jaw clenching. “When the adoption papers got sent out, it wasn’t like there was a lot they could do to deny it. I made them tell me every-fucking-thing.”

He licks his lips, his tongue darting over the small streaks of dried blood that cling to his skin.

“They had a kid once. Their own kid, their flesh and blood. He died when he was three. And instead of fucking mourning him like a normal goddamn family, they decided to replace him. With me. They adopted me, gave me his name, gave me his bedroom and his clothes and his fucking toys. They stole my life and gave me his instead.”

My hand freezes, hovering over his forehead. It takes me a couple seconds to truly process what he’s saying, and when I do, my brows drop.

Jesus. That’s so fucked up.

“Why?”

I don’t want to feel sorry for Dominic. I’ve made it a point not to, even as I clean the gash on his forehead. But fucking hell, I didn’t realize people could be so insane.

“Why do you think?” Dominic asks dully, not looking at me. “For the same reason anyone in this world does anything. Power. My mom—Lillian—couldn’t have any more kids. And they needed an heir. They already had the perfect child, so they found a way to keep that illusion.”

I shake my head, balling up the bloody wipe and dropping it next to the first one. I’ve never met his parents, but I have a feeling if I did, they’d look perfectly normal. Not like two psychopaths at all.

But that’s what they are. Clearly.

“They bought me,” Dom mutters darkly. “They made me their fucking property, and they used me like a pawn.” His lips press together. “So much shit finally made sense after I learned the truth. My dad used to hit me if I ever said or did anything that wasn’t ‘right.’ Anything that didn’t fit exactly what they taught me. They were teaching me how to fill the shoes of their dead kid. They were fucking training me.”

He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.

“I had this stuffed animal called LaLa when I was little. It’s like my earliest memory. My mom took it away and fucking burned it. I never understood why. But now I do. Because it was mine. Not her son’s. It was from my old life, and she couldn’t let me have it.”

He makes a disgusted noise low in his throat, his eyelids drooping again. He seems exhausted by his tirade, but I feel like he just injected adrenaline right into my heart. It seems to have stopped beating, or maybe it’s beating too fast. Blood is pounding so hard in my ears that it’s making me dizzy.

LaLa.

Oh, fuck.

Jesus fuck. No.

I dreamed that name. I dreamed of a little boy calling out to me by that name, his voice scared and desperate.

There’s no fucking way that boy was Dominic. It can’t be. I don’t want it to be.

But how the hell would he pull that odd name otherwise? The only person I ever mentioned it to was Theo, the night I woke up from the dream, jerking awake from the terrifying visions.

My skin feels cold and too tight. Numb and prickly at the same time. I have the vague recognition that this is what shock feels like, but I can’t even process that thought properly.

I just know I have to get out of here. I can’t be in this room with the man with dark, blood-matted hair. The man whose face I despise, who kidnapped me and held me hostage. The man I seriously contemplated killing not that long ago.

Pressing away from the mattress, I rise on shaky legs, abandoning the first aid kit as I turn and stride toward the door.

I think Dominic says something to me, but I can’t hear it. My hand grips the doorframe tightly, fingers digging into the wood to keep me upright, and when I step into the hall, I drag the door closed behind me.

Blocking out the truth I don’t want to see.

Chapter 12

As the door clicks softly shut behind me, something seems to snap in my chest.