Dirty Secrets (Get Dirty 4)

Unwilling to risk action that could further hurt the situation, I offer TJ his drink before reluctantly taking the chair on the corner of the sofa. Settling down, I take a sip of my own scotch before setting the glass on the coffee table.

Allie pulls her feet up, curling her legs underneath her, and I can’t help but read into the fact that she leans away from TJ and toward me.

“Dominick?”

There is so much in the single word, every emotion rushing through her blood buried in its soft plea. I can’t look away, needing to see her, needing her to see me. Instead, I lean forward, placing my elbows on my splayed knees.

“You said no secrets, Allison. Is that still what you want?”

She bites her lip, and I can see her uncertainty, but this is the biggest crux of her concerns. What I do with her brother might be at the top of her mind, but this is the actual key point. She’ll either accept me as I am or not, but I can’t have her halfway.

She’s better than that. She doesn’t say yes, but I see the choice in her eyes.

I clear my throat and lay it all out for her.

“I am Dominick Angeline, head of the Angeline family, The Boss of East Robinsville. I take my job seriously and do everything in my power to make it a safe place. I work methodically to ensure everyone under my rule is provided for. It’s not a pretty job, and there is often ugliness. But it is a responsibility I’ve been groomed for, a weight I bear by virtue of the last name given to me by my father, a future I hold by sheer force and the will to do what is necessary.”

Allie’s heard all these things before, in snippets and snatches, but for TJ, the whole truth hits him like a juggernaut’s charge, and when I finish, he shakes his head slightly.

“Son of a bitch! You really are a fucking Mob boss? I fucking knew it had to be something like that.”

“No TJ, I’m not a boss. I’m The Boss. At least, around here.”

“This is why you had guards on her and were spying on her,” TJ replies, anger coloring his words as he puts the whole picture together. “Because by being with you, she’s in true danger.”

“Yes and no,” I reply honestly. “Months ago, your sister was an innocent bystander when someone tried to wage war with me. It was dealt with, but there was bloodshed, and I vowed that Allie would never come to harm if I could help it. So the guards are for her safety, protection from those who might wish to do me harm by hurting the one person I care most about.”

I look to Allie, who’s holding her breath. “But yes, some of the surveillance was for me. Because long before you knew it, and forever, you are mine.”

TJ jeers, “I think you believe that sounds sweet or some shit, but it’s creepy as fuck. I took down the cameras from her living room, her kitchen, her bedroom. That’s not love. It’s control. It’s obsession.”

Though he argues, the connection between Allie and me never falters. Her eyes never stray from mine. “It is all of those. Love, control, obsession. And insanity. But you enjoy that, don’t you, Allison?”

TJ can sense he’s losing her the same way I can feel her body yearning to come to mine, so he tries a different tact.

“So you had Tony killed? Shot right in the forehead by his own club?”

“No. I merely allowed them to do what they saw fit. Mr. Chambers’s punishment was decided by them and then carried out,” I reply. “He nearly instigated a war between his Eagle Raiders and me tonight, and it was only luck and that you’ve also been on my radar that prevented it, TJ. Do you think he could’ve returned to the fold, having betrayed his President? You know better than that, Specialist Bancroft. Disobeying orders is simply not allowed, not by me and certainly not by Silas. Tony knew that.”

“And what about me? How come I’m not lying dead in a dirty parking lot?”

I sigh, knowing that this might be a decided matter to me, but it’s of paramount importance to him. And through him, Allie.

“As I’ve already told you, firstly, because by hurting you, it would hurt Allie. I would sacrifice anything, anyone, including myself, to prevent that. Though I may not deserve her, my goal is to spend every day for the rest of my life striving to be worthy of her and making her happy. Secondly, your involvement tonight, while your own doing, may have been instigated by my own action.”

“What? The truck was yours?” TJ asks, thinking he’s found a chink in my armor, and I narrow my eyes.