Her arms went slack at her sides. She relaxed her shoulders and turned to rest her cheek against my bare shoulder, sending my pulse into overdrive. Was she beginning to trust me? Her body nestled against mine felt like home.
I wrapped my arms around her and she jerked as if I had broken the spell. Not the reaction I was going for. She lifted her head, looking around the room, and stepped back. On instinct, I reached out to her, but she shifted out of my grasp fast. The stern scowl that showed every time she spoke of Levi was back on. Okay. So maybe she wasn’t ready to trust me, but she’d finally told me the truth about why she wanted to nail her cousin’s husband’s ass to the wall. For the time being, that was good enough for me.
“We’ve waited long enough. Levi has to answer for everything he did to my family.”
“So instead of calling the cops, your mom bided her time. And now she’s decided it’s time for Levi to die and for you to kill him and avenge your dad?” I reached behind me and grabbed my shirt off the chair. My cock couldn’t handle any more of this show and tell.
“It’s up to me.” She donned her blouse, covering the red blotches that appeared on her chest and neck. “I decide.”
“And you’ve decided? Is that what you’re telling me? Emilia, killing a person will, in time, kill you.”
Her eyes welled with tears. She blinked, and a few drops streamed down her cheeks. “I was eighteen. I looked up to Jess like an older sister and even Levi. We were close. Overnight, he chose power over family. He showed up to our house to execute us.”
I’d seen scars like hers before, where the exit point wasn’t leveled with the entry point. Fighting the picture forming in my mind, bile rose up to the back of my throat. I took my glass and downed the rest of the wine. The alcohol wasn’t enough to drown the clear image in my mind.
The night Emilia’s dad died, Levi had known Emilia had to go too. That fucking asshole. She was on her knees when he shot her. During my time with Mickey, I saw all kinds of murder scenes. Emilia’s scar told a vivid story. Levi struck her with a heavy and thick belt, brought her to her knees, and shot her in what he no doubt thought was her stomach. When she fell to the floor, he put another bullet in her back for good measure, letting her die a slow death. I bit the inside of my lip, swallowing the lump in my throat, replacing the horrific scene in my head with a more pleasant one—Levi’s neck between my fingers. He deserved every bit Emilia and her mom had planned for him.
“I can’t even get him for domestic violence. What am I supposed to do?”
“Emilia.” I wanted to wrap my arms around her, hold her tight against my chest. Instead, I thumbed her jawline.
“No.” She slapped my hand away. “The law can’t help us. Mom knew that back then. She waited patiently for me to do things my way. Like a stupid good girl, I went to law school to be the better person, to do things right. Get justice without getting my hands dirty. It took me almost ten years, but I’ve finally caught on. There’s only one way to give Levi what he deserves.”
I placed my hands on my hips. What the fuck do I say to that? How do I stop her from making the biggest mistake of her life? How do I help without putting my own freedom at risk?
“Don’t go against me, Dom. Please.”
7
It’s Not A Job
Emilia
I met Dom’s gaze. His hot blue eyes had a ferocity I’d never seen in them before. Other than my gut and rumors, I never had any evidence to tell me who or what Dom was until now. Why did he show me his scars? Why tell me point blank that he was involved with the mob? It was a risky move on his part. If he’d wanted to gain my trust, he could’ve offered me the continuance I asked for. Why put himself out there? Because he thought he was out?
The details of what the mob put him through didn’t take me by surprise. If anything, it all played out the way it always did. Except Dom had won, and still, he chose to walk away. What made him quit his crew?
For Dad, it was Mom and me. Probably the worst reason to quit the mob or the cartel. If there was anything I’d learned from my family’s experience it was exactly that. For Mom and Dad, and even Jess, love had put a target on their backs. It made them vulnerable. It made them weak.
What happened to Dom? Was he shot at before or after he decided to leave? He sat on his side of the sofa, not bothering to button his dress shirt. His muscled chest strained as he found his composure. I turned my back to him, feeling naked.
Oddly enough, it wasn’t the way he stared at my chest that had me feeling that way, but the way he’d compelled me to tell him my most intimate secret. A few guys at work had tried. Mostly because guys tended to get annoyed when women didn’t act as expected. At twenty-eight, I was supposed to be looking to settle down. Not one of them would’ve been able to stomach or even begin to understand what I just showed Dom. Outside of Mom and Jess, no one knew that a price was put on my head once and that I’d survived. I donned my blouse and tucked it into my skirt.
“Why?” I spun to face him.
“Well, one, it’s illegal.”
“No.” I pointed at his scar. “Why did they…? Did you try to leave too?”
He rubbed the stubble on his cheek. A smirk tugged the corner of his lips. “No.”
“You don’t want to tell me. It’s fine.”
I had no right to ask, but for the first time in the last ten years, I had someone I could talk to about what happened to me. Someone besides Mom, who’d refused to touch the subject since that night.
Soon after the shootout where Dad died, Jess disappeared. Or rather, Levi took her with him and started a family. Mom, on the other hand, turned to stone. Somehow, she managed to put all of it behind and start new. She followed Dad’s plan to the letter and moved us to New York, where I finished my undergrad and then went on to law school at Columbia. From the minute Mom’s bodyguard snuck us out of our house with our clothes soaked in blood, halfway dead, she asked me to never speak of it again.
I don’t remember every detail. Thank God for small favors. Although I remembered Mom holding my hand lying on the bed next to me in the ambulance and telling me over and over that we would survive this. From that moment on, there were only two rules in our household—never mention that night again, and no matter what, survive.
Except now Dom was here. The least likely person for me to trust. And yet, the only one I could trust at this moment, the only one who wanted to talk, who wasn’t afraid of the demons hunting me.
“Let’s just say they made me an offer, and I refused.”
“A test?” I knew the drill. Loyalty was the highest commodity within the cartel. To prove one’s worth, one had to prove true loyalty.
“I imagine you know the details of it. Two friends walk in, only one walks out.”
I glanced down at my hands and swallowed my tears. After ten years of it, I had become a pro at it. By the way Dom’s Adam’s apple bobbed with every breath, I’d say he was pretty good at it too.
“Yeah. So what? You didn’t want the job. You had someone?” Was that why Dom had never taken anyone serious in law school? Why all women were disposable to him then? He’d lost the love of his life?
“No.”
I nodded. This was a secret he wanted to keep, and I had no right to pry. “I’m sorry.”
He reached for my hand. “I know you are. Maybe now that you know I know what I’m talking about, you’ll desist. Once you go down that road, Emilia, there’s no coming back.”
“No coming back?” I squeezed his hand before I released it. “You think I don’t know that? When it comes to…them…there’s never a coming back. I’m done hiding. I’m done swallowing this anger I’ve had in the pit of my stomach since that night. Do you understand?” My breath hitched. Shit. Of course, he understood. He’d shown me that. “You know what I mean.”
“It isn’t your job to avenge your dad’s death.”
“It’s not a job. It’s what I want. I’ve waited long enough.”
He je
rked to his feet, running a hand through his hair in frustration. “I might’ve gotten a few details about you wrong, but this…” he pointed at me, “I was right about this. Your way is the only way. God, you’re stubborn as all hell.”
“What’s it to you anyway? You’re not my keeper.” I rose to my feet and faced him.
“I’m not.” He placed both hands on his hips and flashed me a good bit of his abs again. Jesus. “However, I am opposing counsel.”
“You can’t be serious. Why do you even care if Levi lives or dies?”
“I don’t. I care about you. So here’s the deal.” He sat on the couch and gestured for me to do the same.
I plopped myself next to him. “Let me guess, you’ll give me a continuance in exchange for his life.”
“The continuance is yours. Don’t be the one to pull the trigger, and in return, I will help you nail his balls to the wall.”
Was he really this naïve? “If by balls to the wall you mean dead, you’ve got yourself a deal because that’s the only deal I’ll take. You know how this works. He has to finish the job. That’s me and Mom.”
“If he goes to jail, he’ll be cut off. His boss will be forced to find a new right hand.”
Maybe. But that would leave Mom and me as loose ends, and the cartel hated loose ends. As long as Levi was alive fighting to keep his current position and his family, we would never be safe. It was him or us. Levi showed me that today when he sent his men after me. Even if I had no way to prove he was the one who came after us, I knew it had to be him.
He’d only sent a couple of his men to the bar to deal with his wife’s lawyer. They were there to scare me into backing down, to stop asking questions, but the crew that showed up at Mom’s house had specific orders to get rid of us one way or another.
“What do you have in mind?” I asked.
“I’ll look into his financials. That’s where most people make mistakes. For now, I’ll make sure that all legal communications are either via email or conference call. I have no intention of serving you on a silver platter.”
“You called for a face-to-face to intimidate my cousin, didn’t you?”
“Up until now, I thought this case wasn’t the right case to win a partnership at a new firm. I wanted it over quickly. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, your plan worked brilliantly. Jess recanted and not only that, she outed me.”
I leaned my cheek against the back of the sofa. I couldn’t be mad at Dom. As a lawyer, I’d employed the same tactic many times. Easiest way to close a case was to get rid of a witness. All cases came down to that, but now I’d lost the only advantage I had—the element of surprise.
“You have no idea how sorry I am.” He cradled my neck. His hand was warm and soothing. “Domestic disputes are not my thing. I just don’t have a frame of reference for it.”
“This is more than a domestic dispute.”
“I know that.” He thumbed my jaw as he pulled me toward him. It was a small invitation to lean on him. I closed my eyes and pressed my cheek against his long fingers. He drew me closer, reclining back until his head rested on the decorative pillows, and he held most of my weight.
The pressure on my chest lifted, and air rushed to my lungs. While I was at Columbia, the only thing that kept me going was the hope that one day I’d get a chance to settle the score with Levi. When Jess showed up at our door with a nasty bruise on the side of her face and her daughter fast asleep in her arms asking for our help, I knew my time had come—I had more than hope. I had a plan. However, bit by bit, Levi had stomped out all my moves. He was too powerful.
When Dom showed up at the bar last night, I’d convinced myself the universe had sent me a kindness, a respite, but now, he was more than that. I was running out of choices. Was Dom my only way out?
“I would never do anything to hurt you. You have to believe that,” he whispered against my temple as he massaged the nape of my neck.
I met his gaze. “I believe you.”
He smiled, and I got lost in the depths of his intense gaze. His free hand wrapped around my waist. He held me as if it were normal to lay with him this way. Was it fear that had me running toward this fantasy that was Dom—the bad boy from law school, the one who never once looked my way? I shifted my body, wedging my arms between us. Dom was a bad idea then. That much hadn’t changed.
He took my hand and pressed it against his chest. The warmth from his skin scurried up my arm and down to my core. “I still remember my first day at Columbia. I couldn’t believe my eyes when you strolled through the door and sat in front of me. I thought I was losing my mind.”
“I remember that day. You had this deep scowl across your face. Do you have a problem with female lawyers?”
“What? Not at all. Even now, I can’t explain what I felt that morning. In a flash, I could see us having something. And for a moment, I wanted to be normal. I wanted a family. It was a dumb idea, and you let me know it the first time I asked you out.”
“You never asked me out.”
“Are you kidding me? I sat across from you at the library and asked if you wanted to get coffee. You were so quick to put me in my place. It took me days to recover from the whiplash.”
Did I do that? I scoured my memory for the details of that day. He hadn’t asked me out. “You didn’t ask me out. You asked me to get you a coffee.”
“Why would I do that? That doesn’t even make sense.”
“It kind of did. You walked around campus like you were God’s gift to women.”
“Believe me when I tell you I’m no gift from God. Quite the opposite. You were right to turn me away. That day had been especially bad for me. I’d asked you out in a moment of weakness. I wanted to get close to you so badly.” He gripped my waist tighter, his lips ghosting mine. The same way he’d done after I told him he could get his own coffee. When in my haste to get away from him, I’d tripped over my computer bag and he caught me. I hadn’t imagined it. He’d meant to kiss me, or at least thought about it. His ragged breath brushed against my cheek. “I still do. You have no idea how much.”
I tugged my hand from under his and kneaded the hard ridges on his stomach. He wanted me to make the choice for us. After the last two nights, I didn’t think I had the willpower to push him away anymore.
“Things are different now. There are no more secrets between us. We decide what we do with our lives. So I’m asking again. You and me…why the hell not?”
“We decide.” I echoed his words.
“I want to kiss you.”
I nodded because I’d been dying to kiss him too. He shoved his hand into my hair and crushed his lips against mine. His tongue, laced with wine, urged me to let him in. When I did, he let out a groan that sent a desire-induced surge through my body. I melted into him, letting his hand guide me into his kiss. He switched between treating my mouth to his soft lips, and the expert thrusts of his tongue. My pulse quickened, pumping hot blood through every fiber of me.
“God, Emilia, you taste so fucking good.” He released the grip he had on my waist and skimmed his fingers up my back. Their warmth rushed down my spine and settled at my core. How was it possible to want someone this much? With a snap, he unhooked my bra, while his other hand made quick work of my buttons. Something like a moan escaped my lips. If I hadn’t been so subdued by his heated touch, I would’ve been embarrassed.
“Maybe your battery-operated Dom can make you come, but I can do so much more for you. You and I, we fit so well. I felt it the first time I saw you.” His hand settled on my scars, and I rocked my hips against him, running my fingernails across his chest and his scar.
Yeah, I’d felt it too. The electric charge in the air every time he was near. It was why I’d kept my distance all this time. Dom was so much more than I imagined. The intensity of his words, the hardness of his body, and that sinful mouth of his surpassed any fantasy I’d ever had of him.
Jesus. This guy was so out of my league.
“Wait,�
�� I whispered.
He groaned into the soft spot between my neck and shoulder and sat up, holding me tight. “Are you sure?”
No, I wasn’t sure. I could feel myself drifting. Dom was not part of the plan. If I gave in now, it’d be so easy to get lost in him. Letting my guard down now could cost me not only my life but the lives of the only family I had left.
Not enough had changed between us. Maybe he knew everything about me this time around, but he was wrong in thinking that we had the ability to choose our own paths. Did he really not see that? I buried my hands in his hair and pulled to make him look at me.
8
No One Ever Leaves
Dom
Kissing Emilia hadn’t been my plan when I brought her back to my hotel room. At all. What was I thinking? I nuzzled her neck, drunk off the scent of her skin and the taste of her kiss. She tunneled her fingers through my hair, her chest rising and falling in tandem with mine. Her hard nipples pushed through the silky fabric of her blouse and brushed against me. I ached to squeeze those proud globes, make her moan against my lips again.
“Whatever testosterone cocktail you’re serving, my body is definitely drinking.” She breathed against my lips, and her eyes fluttered closed.
I kissed her before she got to the “but” part of her sentence. Her lips were made for kissing, for kissing me, and that was exactly what she did. She cupped my face and ran the tip of her tongue along my lower lip before she pressed her mouth to mine. A sigh escaped her as she slid her hands down to my abs. I gripped her hips in a silent plea not to give up on this just yet, but she’d made up her mind. And this was Emilia Prado—the most stubborn woman I’d ever met. If my life didn’t totter on the edge of chaos on a daily basis, this goodbye would’ve hurt a lot more.
Ignite You: A Second Chance Mafia Romance (Cole Brothers Series Book 0) Page 6
