Dominic (Benedetti Brothers 2)

A king needed a fucking queen. And I’d been a fool to let her think she could walk away.I drove into the city, arriving at lunchtime. I knew where Gia worked. She waitressed over the weekends while attending law school during the week. I walked into the restaurant, The Grand Café, and looked around the busy place, spotting her instantly.

“I want a table in her section,” I told the host.

“Do you have a reservation, Sir?” he asked.

I glanced down at the stocky little man and took out my wallet. “Here’s my reservation,” I said, handing him some bills.

He cleared his throat, and I followed him to a table. She didn’t see me when I was seated, and I opened my menu to wait for her. My heart beat frantically. Although I knew she had no boyfriend and hardly any friends, I wasn’t sure how I’d be received. She kept to herself, and I imagined her existence to be as lonely as mine.

She came over, writing something in her tablet as she introduced herself. Then she looked up.

Our gazes locked, and she stopped midsentence. No, midword.

She had her hair pulled back into a messy bun, and she’d let her bangs grow out and had pinned the thick, glossy dark fringe to one side. She wore a white button-down shirt and black pants and the ugliest shoes I’d ever seen, and she couldn’t have looked more beautiful to me.

“Wh…” Her voice caught in her throat.

“It’s been a long time.”

She broke our gaze and glanced around. “I…Dominic…”

“Sit down.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see you.” I needed to see you.

She looked around the café. “I…You… I can’t do this.”

She quickly walked away, untied her apron, and disappeared through a doorway.

I got up to follow her, not caring that I almost knocked a trayful of drinks out of a waitress’s hands as the door swung open and I entered the bustling kitchen.

“Sir, you can’t be back here,” someone said.

I saw the back of Gia’s head as she disappeared out another door. I followed, ignoring everyone, and pushed through the door that led into an alley. The stench of the city and the trash containers overwhelmed my senses, and I wondered how the two standing across the way smoking cigarettes could stand it.

Seeing me, they quickly dropped their cigarette butts and put them out before going inside the door I’d just exited.

“Gia!” I called out, looking in one direction, then the other, where I spotted her leaning against a wall. Arms folded across her belly, the sunshine bounced off the natural red tones in her dark hair as she waited there for me, head bowed.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she said, looking up as I approached.

To be this close to her, to see her, hear her… “I should be right here,” I said, reaching out to touch her, but pulling back, afraid she’d run off, disappear. “In fact, I should never have let you walk away. That was my biggest mistake when it came to you.”

She watched me, confusion in her eyes.

“I made a lot of them, but that was the biggest. Letting you believe Scava, that you were somehow some sort of monster—that was another one. Making you watch that night—” I shook my head. “You’re too clean for that. I should never have let you see—”

“Stop. I don’t want to hear.” She put her hands over her ears like a little kid.

“Gia—”

“You have to go,” she said, cutting me off.

“Gia?” Someone opened the door and called out.

I took Gia’s arms.

“You have customers,” the woman said, her cautious gaze on me.

“Just a minute,” Gia said, never looking away from me.

“You okay?” the woman asked.

Gia nodded. “I’ll be in in a minute.”

The woman went back inside.

“I’ve gone to see Effie,” I said. “And I’m selling the houses—”

“You need to go,” she said, cutting me off. She straightened and wiped her eyes, attempting to clear all emotion from her face. “You can’t be here. You just can’t.”

The door opened again, and this time, the woman returned with two men.

“Gia,” one of the men said, walking out. “Everything okay here?”

“Go, Dominic. I don’t want you here.”

The man came to stand a few feet from us. “You heard her. You need to leave, Sir.”

“Gia.” I reached out for her, but she turned her back and disappeared behind the man and back inside the building.

“Sir,” the man said.

I glared at him, then saw the woman watching me from the doorway. I turned and walked away. But I didn’t leave. Well, I walked out of the alley, but I didn’t leave the city.

If she wouldn’t have me, then I’d make her keep her promise to me.

I drove to her apartment building and rang random apartments until someone buzzed me in, anger and confusion and rejection circling like a hurricane in my head. It was easy to get into 4A, her shabby little place with its single bedroom, tiny kitchen, and living room barely as big as my bathroom. Light almost penetrated through the window, but not quite, not with the shadow of the building across the street blocking the sun. I looked around the space, opening every drawer, knowing I had no right, but feeling pissed off enough to not care. I’d opened my heart. Fuck, I’d poured it out. And she couldn’t be bothered to give me the fucking time of day?