by Kendra Leigh
Dominic? What in fuck’s name was she bleating about?
I was about to sling a caustic remark when a cold, sinister blanket of realization folded around me. Sloane—Dominic Sloane.
Pushing the anxiety out of my voice, I fixed her in a resilient stare. “What has Dominic Sloane got to do with this?”
“Ah!” She laughed excitedly, as if she’d been waiting with bated enthusiasm to reveal her cards. “Poor Dom. Dom, the master of dominance.” She laughed again. “You see, Dom has a penchant for the seediest sex clubs in New York. The stuff he’s into would make even Satan’s toes curl—he was right up my street actually. But you know me, never look a gift horse in the mouth, keep your eye on the goal and so forth. You should have seen him crumble at my submissive feet when I showed him copies of his photos. The guy’s got balls of steel in the dungeon, but Jesus, toss him a few threats of blackmail and he turns into a fucking pin-dick.”
Things were beginning to form into some semblance of coherency. The sly, poisonous bitch had been up to her old tricks again—this time with Dominic Sloan at her mercy. My cell began a new round of relentless buzzing, and I noticed her stiffen with unease before continuing.
“All he had to do was lure you into a compromising position, take the photos, make sure you cashed his check for services rendered, and leave the rest to me. But no, the gullible bastard had to go and fall for your damaged little girl routine. He actually thinks he might have fallen for you, per se.” Her voice dripped with incredulity as she eyed me up and down before shaking her head. “Like I said—pin-dick. Anyway…” she checked her watch and began to move slowly out of the shadows “…long story short—because I suspect we’re running out of time as your phone is ringing off the hook—but poor old Dom has now left town with his pin-dick between his legs. Of course, when the photographs hit the media, they will paint him as psychopathic time-bomb, a violent sexual predator. You see the women in the pictures don’t look like willing participants—but of all people, you’d know about manipulating an image to make it work for you. Obviously, he’s had no choice but to resign from VS Network Solutions. His ex-wife and two beautiful children won’t want to know him anymore. His reputation’s in tatters and he’s pitifully suicidal—poor Dom.” She feigned concern. For a fraction of a second. “So, that taken care of, it leaves me with just one minor detail to worry about before I finally leave this Godforsaken city with my deserved treasure…” She stepped into the light, her pointed features sneering with malevolence, not a perfect hair out of place. “You!” She held her hands out in front of her, and for the first time I saw what she was holding in her grasp.
The clawed hand of fear gripped me by the throat as my gaze locked on to the gun she was pointing at me. My instinctive reaction was to cross my arms over my chest, my hands covering the base of my neck to shield myself.
In an instant, her face contorted with rage, and she took a step back as if I’d shoved her. “What… the… fuck… is… that?”
I realized the cause of her fury when I followed her fiery gaze to the dazzling gem of my engagement ring.
“Noooo!”
Her temper seemed to fulminate from her seething body as it shook visibly, and within seconds she’d covered the space between us and struck me in the side of my head with a force too brutal for her pathetic frame. The pain which lanced through my skull was beyond excruciating. It reverberated through my entire body, incapacitating me so completely that I felt my knees buckle, my body crumple to the floor and then… blackness.
I must have lost consciousness, if only for a few seconds, but the pain of being dragged to my knees by my hair yanked me from obscurity into a spiraling blur. My eyes refused to focus on the shifting room as it tilted and wobbled, and as the blood trickled from the side of my head, down my face and neck, I had to fight the overwhelming urge to vomit. The reason the blow had been so staggeringly painful was because she hadn’t struck me with her hand. She’d hit me with the gun.
I’d foolishly underestimated Rebecca Staunton, and on top of that, I’d cheated death—twice. Something told me I was about to pay for both of those things.
Fighting to think past the swelling mass of pain in my head, or the persistence of my ringing cell phone was virtually impossible, I knew I had to focus if I had any chance. Both Ethan and Jackson would be sure to be on their way by now, all I needed to do was stall her. I could hear her voice breaking through the fog as it cleared, the extent of her insanity being crudely revealed as she ranted wildly about how I’d stolen the only man she’d ever wanted by cunningly fooling him into falling in love with me.
I could feel the barrel of the gun pushing into the back of my head with force, the digs becoming firmer, deeper, as if they were a way to systematically enunciate each word.
Then, without warning, she shifted, the hand with the gun swinging out to point toward the door, as if she’d sensed or heard someone approaching. I tried to move my head to see but it refused, and then suddenly I heard a voice.
“You lay one more fucking finger on my daughter and I’ll kill you with my bare hands.”
My father?
His words echoed loudly in my fuzzy mind. Daughter—my daughter. My father was here and he was protecting me?
Rebecca laughed, but the tremble in her tone was hard to miss. “Oh look, she’s even got Daddy eating out of the palm of her hand now. How does she do it?”
From the edge of my blurred vision I could see her pointing the gun in my father’s direction. I blinked rapidly, trying to see through the red haze of blood trickling into my eye, willing my head to clear as I scanned the space for a potential weapon. But there was nothing other than furniture left since Jackson and I had packed everything away. Shifting the weight on my knees, I tried to stand, but the dizziness caused me to wobble unsteadily. The movement caught her eye and she shifted her attention back to me, shoving the gun viciously into my shoulder.
Then everything happened so fast.
First there was the rush of movement, then my father screaming, “I said, leave her the fuck alone.” And then the raucous sound of gunfire reverberated through the building and he was falling.
The piercing scream which echoed through the room was my own as I stared helplessly at my father’s crumpled form only a few feet away. The blood pumped through his fingers as he clutched his chest, sweat misting his face as his color drained to white. His eyes locked with mine, and in that moment something passed between us. They were swarming with words and emotions that for years I’d longed to hear but knew I never would. His lips parted, moving only barely as he seemed to summon his waning strength. He was trying to tell me something.
A swift, surreptitious glance at Rebecca revealed the madness in her eyes, her tremulous hands still holding the gun as she ranted crazy incoherencies. Lowering into a crouch, I crawled slowly on my hands and knees, covering the meager distance between me and my dying father. Fear pumped through my system, begging my body to freeze, to protect itself, but the need to know what he was trying to say was too great to ignore.
His words came out in sharp hisses of uncontrolled breath, his pain evident in every syllable. “If I’d known… I’m sorry, so sorry… Forgive me, Angelica… You were my little girl, and I… I let you down.” He grimaced, his eyes clenching tight as he sucked in a strangled breath. “I should have loved you all these years… Please…please know… that I love you now.”
The pain and grief that was etched in the deep lines of his face began to smooth, the life behind his gray eyes fading, just as if his power switch had been flicked to off.
“Wait…” I whispered. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say, I just knew I wasn’t ready for him to leave. “Dad…?”
But it was too late. He’d already gone.
My body began to shudder with sudden convulsive sobs, the tears coursing down my face to meld with the blood and sweat that soaked my skin. But I was permitted only a second of grief before a hand was fisting into my hair and
I was being yanked to my feet, the force pulling me backwards toward the breakfast island. Rebecca was wielding her gun again, pointing it at the open door, her fingers clawing and fisting into my hair as she directed me to look at the person standing in its space.
“Put the fucking gun down, Rebecca.” Jackson aimed his firearm with a steady hand, his eyes darting from me to her.
“Where is he?” Her voice was high-pitched and wavering as she turned the gun back to me, pressing it into my temple. “I wanted him here when I put the bullet in her. Then he’ll know. He’ll finally see what I’m prepared to do for him. And when she’s out of the way, he’ll be free to love me.”
“He fucking hates you, you crazy bitch.”
“You SHUT your mouth. You’ll see! When she’s gone, he’ll be on the first plane back to London with me.”
“There’s only one place you’re going and it’s not London. In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a dead man on the floor. These things are noisy motherfuckers…” He motioned at the gun in his hand. “Those sirens you can hear—they’re on their way for you, sweetheart.”
“Then I guess I’d better get the job done.” She shoved me, releasing my hair and moved around to face me, gun pointing in my face, her finger hovering precariously over the trigger. “Say goodbye to dear old Jaxy, sweetie.”
My eyes focused on the barrel of the gun as she shifted her stance, and with cold determination aimed it straight between my eyes. All I could hear was the pounding of blood in my ears, so loud I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak. I clenched my eyes closed and focused on the image of Ethan’s beautiful face that was forever burned into my memory, the words I love you resounding in my head.
Then without warning, I felt something slamming into my side, the impact sending me hurtling to the floor. The crack of gunfire pierced the air once again and as I opened my eyes to take in the scene unfolding before me, I felt a sudden surge of anger and adrenaline scorching through my veins to kick-start my strength.
In seconds, I was on my feet and grabbing the only moveable object within reach. My fingers closed around the goldfish bowl, and swinging it as hard as I could, I smashed it into her face. She staggered back away from me, hands reaching out blindly as she collapsed to the floor, her eyes flickering as she fought to remain conscious.
I watched until they finally closed and the madness quieted. My body shuddered as I heaved in desperate breaths and turned to look at the destruction in what had once been my home, my haven. My father lay lifeless on the floor to my right, but as I turned toward where I’d stood a few moments before, when Rebecca had trained her gun at my head, my heart splintered into a thousand pieces.
Jackson was lying on the floor, blood spatter covering the wall and floor behind him. He’d pushed me out of the way of the flying bullet—he’d saved my life. I fell to my knees and buried my face in my hands, unable to look at the devastation around me, once again caused by my own evasion of death.
“Please no, please no, please no,” I whispered the prayer over and over, and then suddenly I heard my name.
“Angel? I’m okay.”
Daring to believe what I was hearing, I peered through my fingers as Jackson lifted his head and shoulders from the floor, trying to pull himself into a sitting position. The bullet had entered his shoulder and his hand was pressed to the wound in an attempt to stem the blood flow.
Relief flooded me, and just as I was about to scramble to my feet to go to him, I saw his eyes widen and focus on the space behind me. Rebecca.
“I’m not done yet.” Her words were staggered but steeped in unmistakable depravity and cold-blooded evil. “I’m going to finish what I came here to do.”
Angling my head to look, I watched as she pulled herself to her feet, the gun trained with a quaking hand, once again, at my head.
“And what’s that?” The sound of Ethan’s tremulous voice was like that of a divine entity, searing my heart with hope and love.
He entered the room slowly, body tense, hands fisting by his sides, jaw muscles bunching under his pallid, sweat-soaked face. With eyes wide with fear and fury alike, he glanced once at Jackson, before searching the room frantically until he found what he was looking for. He scanned every inch of me, his gaze taking in the injury to my head and my tear-and-blood-streaked face. When his eyes halted and locked with mine, his unspoken words were loud and clear. They were words of reassurance, a solemn promise that whatever happened, he was going to protect me.
A strangled sob racked from my overwrought body as tears of love welled in his eyes, and a fresh wave of terror filled my heart. He would protect me—but at what cost? Would the depths of Rebecca’s depravity drive her to tear us apart by whatever means? Even if that meant taking him from me in cruelest way possible?
“Ethan, you came.” Rebecca’s voice was almost giddily childish, as if his arrival was an unexpected but pleasant surprise. She straightened her posture, her expression and demeanor seeming preposterous in light of the circumstances as she attempted to smooth her dress and hair.
Ethan completely blanked her, his gaze never leaving mine as he began to walk slowly, but with purpose toward me.
“Stay back, Ethan!” Her voice was suddenly filled with panic. “I mean it, don’t you dare go near her.”
As if she hadn’t even spoken, he dropped to his knees before me, folding his arms around my trembling body, and I felt myself sag against him in utter depletion. His presence and his strength and the scent of him were an instant antidote to my fear, gently mitigating the ache of the horror surrounding me and preparing me for what was to come. The steady beating of his heart against my chest slowed the erratic pounding of mine, soothing me, grounding me, and I knew if my time was now, if I died in his arms right now—I wasn’t afraid.
As if sensing the restoration of my strength of mind, he tipped his forehead against mine, hands reaching up to cup my face as he leaned in to brush my lips with a gentle kiss. His searching eyes burned with intensity into mine, and I knew that what I saw was a request for my trust. Without hesitation, I responded, a barely perceptible, single nod of acquiescence.
“What are you doing?” Rebecca demanded, her voice laden with desperation. “Get away from her.”
Ethan’s gaze left mine for the first time, his eyes shifting to look up at her, but instead focusing on the unexpected sight of my father’s body lying in a heap on the floor. The shocking vision caused him to take a sharp intake of breath, his countenance reflecting the stark realization of the irreparable horror and destruction Rebecca was capable of inflicting. His eyes shot back to mine, something fleeting and unnamed passing through them.
“I said get away from her!”
“Nobody… comes… between… us.” Ethan’s voice when he spoke was acerbic, filled with a deep, resolute anger. “Not him…” he motioned to my father before fixing her in a stare “…and fucking unequivocally—not you.”
Rebecca blinked, her fury knocked out of her by Ethan’s murderous tone. “But you don’t understand. All this… is for you. To prove to you that you belong with me. I would do anything, anything to make you happy.”
“It’s you that doesn’t understand, you sick, twisted fuck. The only thing I think about when I look at you is how much I despise you. And if you think I’m going allow you to take away my sole reason for living, you are more fucking deluded than I thought. You’ll have to kill me first before you even get near her.”
The terror of his words sliced through my heart.
Rebecca shook her head, eyes filled with disbelief and panic. “No, you don’t mean that, Ethan, you can’t.”
“Don’t I? Try me.”
“She stole you from me. The fucking bitch deserves to die for what she’s done.” She sounded hysterical now, as if desperate to make him understand.
Ethan’s hand closed tightly around the back of my neck, forcing me to avert my gaze from her as he tucked my head into his shoulder. His arms closed ti
ghter around me, his strong, formidable body creating a shield around mine. “Any bullet that hits her body will penetrate mine as well. You kill her, you kill me.”
“No! I could never kill you.”
“Are you sure? You’d better decide quickly, because the cops are closing in, Rebecca.”
She glanced nervously toward the door. “Leave that bitch here. Come with me, Ethan. I’ll make you happy. I’ll do anything, I promise.”
“You want to make me happy?” His voice was suddenly low and soft, tender almost. She nodded eagerly. “Then I need you to do something for me. Something that will make me happy. Do you understand?”
Again, she nodded. “Anything, I told you.”
“Turn the gun around, Rebecca. Turn it around… and point it to your head.”
“What? No!” I gasped at the horror of his words, fighting to raise my head to beseech him.
But his fingers tightened, his grasp around my neck growing firmer as he pressed my face into his shoulder to prevent me from seeing what was happening. “Do it,” he screamed.
Rebecca didn’t speak, the sound of her uneven breathing seeming to level out into some deep composure, as if the mere suggestion had finally freed her from the agitation clawing its way out of her crazy mind. Out of the silence, I heard Jackson cuss, the expletive hissing from his lips with incredulity.
I waited, my breath held and burning inside my lungs, until finally I felt Ethan nod. His words when he spoke them were a direct order, powerful and authoritative, but barely above a whisper.
“Now… pull the fucking trigger.”
Chapter Nineteen
Six Months Later
It was a perfect spring day. The sun shone from a cloudless blue sky, and a gentle breeze delivered mellifluous wafts of freshly-mowed grass and the promise of summer. The magnificent gardens surrounding Veronica and Richard’s house were inundated with the ever changing colors of the emerging flora. And apart from the muted tones of chatter and laughter coming from the terrace below, it was sublimely peaceful.
