I managed another squeak.
“What was that?” The ringleader cocked his head to the side, and I got lost in his eyes. Black again, black on black—and that gave me the clue I needed.
“You mean…Dominick?” The words came out of me before I could stop them, and I regretted it pretty much immediately—you know, when his arm pressed even harder.
“That’s it. Where’s Dominick?”
“I don’t—know—” I choked and thrashed.
“You had a fight with him last night.” His arm loosened slightly over my windpipe.
“How the hell do you know that?” At this point, maybe I should have been scared. I mean, they were spying on me, right? But the truth was, I was furious. Someone had watched me get shot down, and now they had the nerve to come into my apartment in the morning and ask me about where my not-actually-one-night-stand was. I was pissed.
“We know a lot of what goes on in this city,” one of the other men said. He had shut the door neatly, so that no one in the hallway would watch me get choked to death. I was beginning to really hate that guy. He kept watching me like it was mildly interesting to see someone get beat up, but he didn’t really care, and maybe he’d rather go out for a hot dog instead. Screw him.
“That’s nice,” I said savagely, and the first one slapped me.
I made the mistake of spitting in his face. Like I said, I was pissed. The problem was, now so was he. He pushed me down on the ground and my arm was up behind my back before I could say a word. Worse? He’d done some weird thing that seemed to be squeezing all of the air out of my body. There went my plan of screaming loud enough to get someone to call the cops.
“Search the apartment.” His voice was cold, and the two other guys trouped past me obediently, disappearing like wraiths into the shadows of my itty bitty two bedroom. I couldn’t decide whether to be happy my roommate wasn’t here to get caught up in this, or feel sorry that she wasn’t here to call the cops. Mostly sorry. As they went, the first man bent down to my ear, his voice cold as anything I’d ever heard. “You lied to me. You said you didn’t know what I was talking about. I’m not going to forget that, you know.”
“I didn’t say that,” I had shivered convulsively at his voice. Now, I thrashed ineffectually. It didn’t accomplish anything, but it helped to feel like I was trying to get away. “I said you had the wrong apartment.”
He was just shaking me to warm me up for his next witticism when the call came back from one of the other rooms.
“He isn’t here.”
“Told you,” I muttered, and he flipped me over onto my back. To this day, I don’t know what told me to be so afraid of him, but I lay there petrified. He didn’t have a knife, or a gun, or anything. I mean, true, he was ripped, but it was clear that he hadn’t actually tried to kill me so far. Still, I lay there in a total terror. It was like my brain knew, down somewhere deep, what my conscious mind was never, ever going to come up with: this guy looked like a human, but he had claws and teeth I couldn’t see, and he was going to maul me if I didn’t cooperate.
“Then where is he?” he asked, crouching down over me, and I lost it.
“I don’t know! Goddammit, what is your problem? I met him last night, he shot me down—I don’t know where the hell he is!”
They looked at one another, as if assessing whether or not they thought I was telling the truth, and what’s-his-face considered me for a moment.
“Well, then, here you go, sweetheart.” He grinned as though the endearment was very clever. “Tell you what. All we need you to do is give Dominick a message.”
I stared at him, breathing hard, wondering what the hell he meant.
“Are you going to do it?” one of the others asked me. He was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.
“I don’t know if I can find him again,” I said honestly. Apparently, I was still naive enough to think that if they understood the situation, they’d stop trying to involve me.
“Well, you’d better find him again,” the ringleader told me. “See, we’ll know if he doesn’t get the message. Understand?”
“I don’t know where he is any better than you,” I told him a bit desperately. “If you saw us fight, you saw all there was to see.”
“Oh, I don’t think so. I think you might want to track him down. I think he might let you.” His smile was truly frightening. His teeth looked human, but with the strong suspicion of also all being pointed. I don’t know how to describe it, but my dumb animal brain knew what was up. I tried to scrabble away out of instinct and came up against another one of them, standing there to block my escape. He smiled down at me, and it was one of the most terrifying things I had ever seen.
“You have it all wrong,” I said. I swallowed. I was genuinely frightened: what if they came back? What if I couldn’t find Dominick and they thought it was my fault and came back and…what was it, exactly, that they were threatening? The fact that it didn’t seem to be violent rape wasn’t exactly comforting.
“I don’t think we do,” said the first one. “I think you’ll find him. And you’ll tell him that we stopped by.”
“Who the hell are you?” I choked out.
“You know,” said the third guy. He hadn’t spoken up yet, but his voice was just as gravelly and growly as the first two. “I think she might actually be telling the truth. I don’t think she knows where he is.”
“Well, she’s going to find him for us, isn’t she? And she doesn’t need to do anything special, just give him a message.”
“What message?” I just wanted them to get out. “Just tell me the damned message.”
“That’s the spirit,” he said encouragingly, like he had just managed to convince me not to do something incredibly stupid. “Here’s what you tell him: that James stopped by.”
“That’s it?”
“That we’re going to find him soon, and that he might as well bring himself in.” He smiled again. “You can remember that, right?”
I nodded furiously, and then from their expectant silence, I realized they were actually waiting for me to repeat it back. Were they in some kind of gang? Was this The Godfather or something? Did the Mob only employ people with black eyes?
Oh god, was Dominick in the mob? What had I gotten mixed up in?
I tried not to sigh.
“I’ll tell him James stopped by, and that you’re going to find him soon, so he might as well bring himself in,” I repeated tonelessly. My throat really hurt, and I could only hope it wasn’t going to bruise. Being a cocktail waitress isn’t exactly a skill-based profession so much as a looks-based one, and my rent wouldn’t take kindly to it if I was sent home without a paycheck until the bruises faded.
“There you go.” They had the nerve to step over me to get out of my apartment. They didn’t offer to help me up or anything; not the Mob, then. The Mob had manners, I was given to understand. At the door, their ringleader turned back to look at me.
“Remember now,” he said, almost pleasantly, “if he doesn’t get the message in three days, we’ll come find you.”
Chapter Three
But I didn’t go find him. This might seem stupid—in retrospect, it definitely was—but the fact was, even within an hour of them leaving, it was kind of difficult to believe it had happened at all. I mean, three men burst into my apartment to ask me about a guy I’d only talked with for an hour in my whole life and gave me some cryptic message to give to him? It sounded a lot like a nightmare. Like maybe New York had just gotten to me and I was dreaming about scary things people might do, like march into my apartment and choke me until I agreed to bring nonsensical messages to people I didn’t really know.
In any case, by the time I saw Dominick again, it had been two and a half days and I’d almost convinced myself none of it had even happened. I hadn’t forgotten it, of course, but I was presently telling myself that I just needed to make it to three and a bit before my subconscious would calm down and understand that it had j
ust been a dream and there was really nothing to be all that worried about. Because honestly, who worried about that sort of crap? It was stupid and childish.
But then I saw him. I was off work, just dumping the last of the day’s trash into the bins, and kind of swearing a lot because I was wearing sky-high heels and I’d forgotten to bring any backup shoes. This wasn’t Oregon. I couldn’t afford a car here, there was sure as hell no way I could park one in the teeny spots they had, and I took the tube everywhere—and anyway, all that meant was I didn’t have flip flops in my car. My feet were killing me.
But there he was, just passing by the end of the alleyway. I said I’d only met Dominick for about an hour? Well, there was no mistaking him. I knew those shoulders, that nose, the way he walked. I knew, and dammit, he was just as sexy this time as he had been the first time.
“Dominick?” I called his name tentatively, and there was just the faintest hesitation. “Dominick!”
He looked over at me and I saw him take notice. The first time maybe I’d been dressed up like a schoolgirl, but it had been late and I’d been sloppy and I’d only had on lipgloss and my heels. This time, my makeup was freaking perfect, my hair was all blown out, and my v-neck went down almost to my belly button. I was a knockout, and I knew it—my tips attested to the fact.
He appreciated it, too. Which was the same look from the night before, and dammit, why hadn’t he wanted to come home with me? Of course, I fought a chill. The fact that he was here meant that…well, no. It wasn’t true. It had been a dream, right? A way to rationalize my sore throat when I woke up the next morning. I’d met Dominick and my brain had come up with some weird dream.
And then everything on his face flickered away. He looked like a mannequin.
“I’m sorry, do I know you?” he asked.
“We met at the bar the other night.” I didn’t even bother giving my name. I wanted to get this game over with as soon as possible. “And you just recognized me, so don’t even pretend.”
“I think you have the wrong guy.”
“A guy who looks just like you and also answers to Dominick, you mean?”
“Look, I’m sorry, you seem really nice, but I don’t remember you at all.”
“I don’t seem really nice, I’ve been a bitch since you stopped walking.” I had been, too, but he’d started it. “Look, I have to talk to you.”
“And I have to go.”
“It’s not about that!”
“Bye.” He turned around, and I blurted out the only thing that came to mind.
“James came by my apartment.”
At that, he froze. He turned around, narrow-eyed, and something shot through me like ice. He knew that name. He knew it, and he was here, and unless I’d just dreamed a whole shift of cocktail waitressing, I was awake. And that meant…
Shit.
“James?”
“Yes, James,” I said impatiently. “And two other dudes. They came and almost broke my door down to look for you, and then they told me to give you a message: they’re going to find you, and you might as well just turn yourself in.”
He stared at me for a moment. He was getting angry. His chest was rising more rapidly, and I didn’t mind that—it made his pecs stand out under his shirt, and I could just picture making him breathe that hard myself—but something told me that I didn’t want to see this guy angry.
“He…” His hands clenched. And then his black eyes looked at me, anguished. “Alicia, I am so sorry.”
I stared at him, open-mouthed. He remembered my name, I thought stupidly. And then I couldn’t manage to think about anything else, because he stepped closer, and his fingers came up to trail over my neck, where James had tried to choke me. It was like he could see the bruises that hadn’t ever showed up.
I couldn’t breathe. All I could think was that he was touching me, and I felt frozen. His fingers were gentle, tracing over the skin of my throat, brushing my hair back over my shoulders. I watched as he stepped closer, tilting my head up to look at him; even when I was wearing those ridiculous heels, he was still tall enough that I had to look up. And then one of his hands slid around the back of my neck, gently, and held me in place as he bent to kiss me.
Then I remembered how to move. My arms came up around his neck and I pressed myself up the length of his body, hearing him groan. His other arm came around my waist, possessive, holding me in place as though he expected me to run. And he was right, I should have—but I had absolutely no intentions of letting him get away, not when I could slide one palm down over his pecs and feel his abs hard against mine. His lips were soft, unexpectedly so, and he kissed me sweetly, like a summer romance with hard lemonade and strawberries. I forgot we were in some dingy alleyway in New York. I forgot about James. I forgot about the way Dominick’s eyes seemed to go blacker than black when he was angry. I just kissed him.
“You swear you’re all right?” he asked me softly, leaning his forehead against mine. His hand was still holding my neck.
“They didn’t hurt me.” I took ahold of his sweater and kissed him quickly on the lips, giving a little laugh when he held me close and let the kiss deepen.
And then his face went blank again.
“I have to go.”
“Whoa! Hey, wait!” But he just kept striding away, and I had to click after him in those ridiculous heels. I knew very well just how dangerous the ground was here. I wasn’t giving myself broken glass in my feet just to chase him down. “Dominick.”
“I can’t stay to talk to you.” He turned and gave me a Look, capital L.
“Why the hell not?”
“Has it occurred to you that I’m trying to save your damned life?” he snapped at me. “We talked once and I told you not to push it, and you got in the middle with James. Well, if you’re lucky, now that you’ve given me the message he’ll leave you alone. If you’re very, very lucky.”
“How is he going to know I gave it to you?” I had the sudden memory of James looking back over his shoulder: we’ll know if you don’t.
“I’m going to…” His voice trailed off. “Get inside.”
“What?”
“I said get inside.”
And he was gone, so fast that I couldn’t even see him go. Like I said, werewolves are fast. At the time, though, it just seemed like a man in a nice sweater disappearing in a puff of air, which was really pretty annoying when I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to tear the sweater off or tear him a new one with a rant. But more on that later. I looked over my shoulder and saw just what he had been looking at: three men, advancing down the alleyway towards me.
Dominick, you bastard. The man had straight up abandoned me. I yanked the door open to the kitchen—thankfully, packed with people—and tumbled inside just as the three men shot down the alleyway and after Dominick. James gave me a look as they went past, and something told me that they’d been following me just to see what I did. That was how they’d known whether I was going to give him the message.
I did not like this. Not at all.
It took me about thirty minutes to calm down enough to go home, and then I felt miserable. I’d left Dominick to fight off three other guys, maybe he was right and I should have left it alone that first night, and it sure as hell wasn’t my issue…but it still felt cowardly. How could I do that to him? I hunched over myself in the back hallway, trying to decide what to do. Even if I wanted to, though, I couldn’t find him—I didn’t know where they’d gone.
It turned out that I shouldn’t have worried about leaving him to fend for himself, though, because just as I came out of the restaurant, still miserable, I saw them waiting for me.
Chapter Four
I didn’t wait to see what they would do, I just took off, wobbling slightly on my heels and praying they were somehow tired out from their exertions with Dominick. Turning and running, it turned out, gave me the element of surprise, but in retrospect, that probably bought me all of two seconds. I careened out onto Eighth and hung a left,
hanging onto my purse as if my life depended on it, because apparently my brain only understood mugging as a potential danger. People obligingly got out of my way, which is what passes for polite in New York City, I guess.
I don’t know if anyone tried to stop the guys chasing me. I’m guessing so, because I heard a crash and a yell from behind me, but I kept weaving between people and I never looked back. Some old guy yelled that I looked “…real nice in that skirt,” and I flipped him off.
New York. I was getting more used to this than I thought.
I should probably mention that I was going on dead instinct at this point. When you’ve gotten caught up in some Mob hit thing? Your brain doesn’t really get it the first time around. I mean, I knew that I was in danger, and that was about all I had. I just kept running and running and hoping they wouldn’t catch up. Which was stupid, because they were clearly in fantastic shape, I hate running and I was wearing heels, but I can’t account for my mind. I can say that I went farther than I had any business going before I ran out of steam, though.
Panic’ll do that to you.
I leaned over in the shadow of a doorway, gasping and clutching my side, which sure felt like something was going to burst. I hadn’t heard any crashes behind me in ages, which I figured meant they weren’t following me anymore. And I was kind of right about that—they were in front of me, advancing down the sidewalk like they were going to push me back into the lights and the crowds. I’d stopped, stupidly, in an area of the street where there was almost nothing.
I gave a look over my shoulder at all those people, and knew I was never going to get that far. Goddammit.
“What the hell do you want?” I asked them. My voice was shaking. “Look, I told him your message. That’s it. I don’t even know the guy.”
Jocked Up: Sports Romance (A Secret Baby Second Chance Romance) Page 19
