Dom wanders back over to them, hefting the gun and aiming it at the first man’s head.
“You need to understand something, Patty. The only thing that’s saved you so far is my unwillingness to go back to the old ways. But you’ve forced my hand. You’ve made me bring the old ways back.”
Bang.
I gasp and almost drop the phone. Only some imploring instinct inside of me keeps my eyes focused on the screen, as though a piece of me knows that I have to make myself watch this, have to make myself see the truth.
The man falls and his blood starts to pool all around him, just about visible in the lowlight of the video.
Dom sighs and walks over to the remaining man, looking at the screen as he lays the barrel of the gun against his head.
He doesn’t look like Dom, like my Dom, the man who laughs and banters and calls me Firecracker, the man who saved my life and who Poppet loves more than the world.
“I’ve got five times the firepower you do. And now that there are no rules, I’m going to fucking annihilate you. You know this, Patty. But I’ll do you a favor and give you the chance to settle this like men. If you think you’re truly a mad dog, then come put this old wolf down. Let’s fight. With fists. With bone. With blood. Let’s fight, just me and you, and the last man standing gets this goddamn city. Unless that is, you’re too scared.”
Bang.
The second man falls onto his face and more thick looking liquid spreads around him. Gun smoke drifts vapor like around Dom’s face.
“What the fuck?” I whisper, voice so frantic that Poppet turns and stares at me, as though wondering if I’ve called her.
I raise my hand and wave at her.
“Good girl,” I mumble, as I fold my hands over my middle and squeeze my phone in my hand, the plastic biting into my palms.
I squeeze harder, focusing on the sting of pain, because at least then I don’t have to see the coldness in Dom’s eyes or relive the way he so casually executed those men, as though he’s done it a thousand times.
Well, what did you think? Mom says in my mind, her voice even more argumentative and supercilious when imagined. He’s a mobster, Dallas, which means he does ten times worse than what you just saw on the video.
I bite my lip, trying to force back the tears.
Poppet has wandered over and is now walking up and down in front of me, stroking my legs with her body.
“Who sent that email, girl?” I muse aloud, the way I often do when I’m writing and Poppet is curled up next to me. “It must’ve been Patty, right? He wants me to see this. He wants to force us apart. But then that doesn’t mean that Dom didn’t do it, does it?”
I shiver.
And then almost leap out of my skin when my cellphone blares in my hand.
Vibrate for notifications, sound for phone calls.
I glance at the phone, both terrified and hoping that it’s Dom.
But its Mom.
I answer, curious because I haven’t heard from her since she started that technology detox with Cillian.
“I thought you didn’t have a phone anymore?” I say, trying to keep my voice light and playful and not let any panicked terror enter.
“We broke up,” Mom cries. “He brought me to this horrible city and then he dumped me. He said I’m too old for him if you can even believe that. So I’m here, Dallas. I’m here and I want to see you.”
“Wait—you’re here? On the east coast?” I gasp.
“Yes,” she says, sounding like she’s been crying.
She sounds strangled, in fact, the way she gets after she’s been drinking. Mom has lived her life on an emotional rollercoaster and it seems as if tonight is no different.
“I need my daughter,” she goes on.
“Of course I’ll come and see you,” I murmur, thinking that I can just tell the guards at the gate I’m going to see my dad in the city.
And if they argue, I’ll just play the spoilt pampered princess to get beyond the gates.
And if they still argue after that, I’ll just ram the fucking gates, because right now the idea of tamely sitting in this gilded cage is flooding me with confusion.
He just killed them. In cold blood.
Oh, Dom, do we even know each other anymore?
“Okay, great,” she says, muffled, sounding typically sulky. Or maybe even worse than usual. “I’ll text you my address. Don’t be long, Dallas. I love you.”
“I love you too, Mom.”
She hangs up halfway through my sentence and I call to Poppet, getting her to follow me back into the house.
I walk into my bedroom and get changed, forcing an eerie sort of calm to fall over me.
I won’t let myself think about what I saw in that video, not now, not yet.
First I’ll help Mom with her latest relationship drama and then tackle my own problems.
Because even after what I just saw, a flame still rages inside of me for Domenico, burning with the possibility of our future, our life together, our children.
But if he’s not the man I thought he was can we ever truly have any of that?
Chapter Twenty
Dom
“He’s out of control now,” I murmur, standing at the end of the closed-off street as groups of mobsters and police officers work side by side, combing the street for any more of Patty’s so-called candies.
The Chief of Police, Clarissa Kerkenwall, turns to me with a deep frown on her face. She’s about fifty-five with deep brown skin and knowing eyes, and when she sighs I can hear the weight of her position in the sound.
“This is the sort of thing terrorists do, Mr. DeLuca. We can’t have this in our city. We’re lucky nobody’s been hurt already.”
“Because my men closed off the streets,” I growl. “Because
