Dominic (Benedetti Brothers 2)

Well, fuck her.

I’d remind her of her promise.

I unscrewed the lightbulb overhead, took my pistol out of the back of my jeans, and set it on her coffee table. Then I sat back on the couch, watched the door, and waited.26GiaI spilled drinks on three customers and dropped two plates of food after Dominic left. I’d never expected to see him again. I’d never thought he’d show up. I didn’t bother wondering how he’d found me. He had resources. He’d probably been keeping tabs on me all these months.

It kind of pissed me off, now that the shock had worn off. How dare he walk back into my life, when I was just getting it back together? Scraping pieces of myself into something resembling some sort of normal.

After the day we’d met with Scava, I’d felt cold for a long time. Cold and empty. My mom and I had mourned Mateo together. I was pretty sure neither of us had really stopped grieving, but it had been time to move on. We sold the house, and she moved back to Italy with her sister. I moved to New York City and decided I would get my law degree and put assholes like Angus and Victor Scava away. It was what I could do to honor Mateo’s memory.

I’d kept the flash drive with the phone recording. I’d only just turned it over a few weeks ago, in fact. I knew if I did it too soon, Angus would know it was me and retaliate. I’d sent it anonymously, and it had worked. They’d gone after Victor, and Victor was now their star witness against the bigger fish: his uncle.

Seeing Victor like that at the restaurant that night, beaten, his uncle threatening to cut out his tongue, it disgusted me. It made me see without a doubt that this wasn’t who I was. Scava calling me a monster? I had believed him. And I guess I would have been one if I’d gone through with what I’d said I wanted.

The bus dropped me off a block from my apartment. It was almost midnight, and my feet and back hurt. I’d worked a double today, but I needed the money. My mom wanted to help me out, but she didn’t have any more than I did so I lived in a shitty apartment in a shittier neighborhood and made my own way.

I climbed the apartment stairs and unlocked the outer door, then went up to the fourth floor. The hallway light was out, again, so I used the flashlight in my phone to slide my key into the lock and turn it. When I reached to switch on the lights in the apartment, nothing happened. I wondered if it was a building-wide outage. But then I saw the light coming from beneath the door of my neighbor’s unit, and my heartbeat picked up. My eyes widened and I strained to see into the dark apartment just making out a shape in front of the window sitting on the couch.

Was it Scava’s men already? Did he know it was me who’d turned over evidence? He wasn’t stupid. Maybe I was for having done it.

“Don’t fucking try to run.”

Relief flooded me when I first heard Dominic’s voice. But then, I remembered that afternoon. How I’d sent him away.

“Come inside and close the door, Gia.”

I stood there as goose bumps covered my body at the sound of his voice. His command.

“I said come inside and shut the door.”

He wouldn’t hurt me. I knew that. But his voice sounded strange. Like it had once before on the night I’d found out who he really was.

“I didn’t know you broke into apartments,” I said, going for casual, walking inside and closing the door.

“You’d be amazed at what I can do.”

He reached over and turned on the lamp beside the sofa. That was when I caught sight of the pistol on the coffee table and took a step back.

He stood. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said.

“What do you want, Dominic?”

He stalked toward me, and all I could do was watch him move, remembering how broad his shoulders were, how much space he took up. How being near him made my body feel.

“You owe me something, Gia.”

He stopped when the toes of his boots bumped against my shoes. He wrapped a hand around my head and twined his fingers into the hair at the nape of my neck, making me gasp, making my heart pound.

“Domi—” But I never got the word out because he closed his mouth over mine and devoured the sound.

I’d forgotten the feel of him, of his lips. I’d forgotten the way he tasted, the way his body felt so hard and powerful, forgot how he tugged my hair and forced my face up to his. His tongue slipped into my mouth, and I closed my eyes, leaning into his hand as his other one slid up over my hip and waist to cup my breast and squeeze the nipple.