Dominic (Made Men Book 8)

by Sarah Brianne

  Maria couldn’t see a patch of pale skin other than his face.

  “Like what you see?” Matthias’s playboy façade had returned.

  “No,” she told him truthfully. Even her voice made it clear that she wasn’t staring from lust but curiosity. “I just didn’t take you as a masochist.”

  Matthias’s mask slipped at her words, shocked that Maria had called him out with one look.

  “I can understand Angel being able to take pain,” she continued, still staring at all the ink that covered every inch of his skin. They were beautiful but … looked very painful. The amount of hours he’d had to sit in a chair as a needle constantly beat into his skin was almost unimaginable for a person his age, which was maybe a year older than herself. That kind of ink took a lifetime, not years. “But not you.”

  Matthias smiled. “Then you’ll be shocked to find out it wasn’t Angel who first wanted them, princess.”

  She drew her brows together for a second, then her curiosity disappeared. “Don’t call me that,” Maria hissed

  “Why?” Matthias’s smile remained with his gloat. “You let Dom call you that.”

  “Yeah, not for long.” She took a step closer to the end of the bed so she could go around and snatch the device from him. “Now, hand over the phone.”

  “Don’t do it,” Cassius told him, standing by the door, watching it all unfold. “Dom doesn’t want her leaving.”

  When Matthias seemed happy about that, Maria gave him a final warning. “Last chance ….”

  Matthias practically laughed. “Or what?”

  “I wouldn’t—” Cassius’s warning stopped the second Maria moved.

  Taking a shortcut, Maria jumped on his bed.

  Fear set in Matthias’s eyes, but before she could cross the bed and jump him, he shoved the phone down the front of his shorts.

  Maria was about to take a flying leap, but watching that action, she had never stopped so fast in her life.

  “If you want it, you’ll have to come and get it,” the fully tatted brother teased her.

  “Ew, no.” Maria jumped back off the bed and in the direction she had come, realizing Dominic was right—there were scarier things that went on in this house with three brothers. That was fucking saying a lot coming from her. She’d been raised with three brothers of her own, but they were nothing compared to the Lucianos. She was about to rip her hair out from having to deal with them. At home, it was her three brothers that had to deal with her.

  Maria suddenly realized she had whipped her brothers into shape, for the most part. They knew not to be gross around her and had learned the hard way not to get their disgusting germs anywhere near her food.

  Boys were gross, teen boys were even grosser, and young men still were. Lucca’s, and especially Nero’s, girlfriends should be thanking her for her handiwork, because God knew how much worse Nero would have turned out where girls were concerned if it wasn’t for her. These Luciano brothers were proving her to be right.

  Matthias looked offended as he watched her leave the room.

  Seeing stairs, Maria made a run for them, deciding to try her luck for a phone up there. Getting to the top of the old creaky steps, she found it strange that there was only one door when she should have found it stranger that Cassius and Matthias hadn’t followed her up.

  Maria turned the rusty doorknob. Creaking open the door, the room was dim and only lighted by a single, odd-shaped window. The room was canted due to the roofline angling down, but that wasn’t the only thing strange about it.

  There was an unavoidable feeling that emanated from within the room; she felt it the second she walked in. There weren’t many things in there—only a bed and nightstand—but the energy was insurmountable. Standing in the center of the room, it was like being right between good and evil.

  Or heaven and hell.

  Turning away from the eerie feeling, Maria went back to trying to get the fuck out of there. With nothing around, she reached out for the nightstand, hoping to find something ….

  The door coming to a creaky close behind her had her quickly dropping her hand and turning around, seeing Dominic’s back. Instantly, she knew whose room she was in.

  It didn’t feel like it would be Dom’s, as the only warmth in the room came from what she had missed seeing, but now the fiery smells enveloped her.

  After shutting the door, Dominic reached above the doorframe, grabbing an old, intricate silver key that was resting on the lip. He pushed it into the doorknob, then turned it. Taking out the key in the now locked door, he placed it back.

  Maria was tall but not tall enough to get it from its spot, even if she were wearing heels. Not wearing heels gave her absolutely no fucking chance.

  When Dominic slowly turned around, her breath caught in her throat—his presence telling her that she just might’ve pushed him too far. Dom had clearly reached the end of his rope. The slack he had given her had run out. The moment reminded her of the night he came to her house and confronted her about Kayne.

  “I-I …” Her words came out breathy at first, but she quickly righted herself. “I want my phone back, Dominic.”

  Dominic took an intimidating step forward. “Tell me why you came here, Maria, and I will.”

  Crossing her arms, she wasn’t going to let him intimidate her. “I told you, it was stupid.”

  “It only became stupid to you when you saw me with another woman.” Dominic gave her an incisive look. “So, that means it had to do with your feelings … for me.”

  Maria shot him a cold look. “What feelings?”

  “My father is the only one of your kind that I’ve seen truly heartless.” Strolling into the room, he stood a foot in front of her. “Lucca somehow loves Chloe.”

  “And Cassius?” Maria asked with a raised brow.

  Dom didn’t try to hide the fact that his youngest brother was touched by darkness. “I know Cassius cares for Kat, but I’m not sure if he will ever feel love.”

  Maria wasn’t sure Cassius would either.

  Putting distance between them, she turned, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. “Well, I hate to break it to you, but you were right; I don’t have feelings.”

  “I know you are capable of love. I’ve seen it.”

  Maria looked back toward Dom as he caught her emerald eyes and held them captive.

  “You want to know how I knew you were heartless, princess?” Dominic stalked toward her. “I watched a fourteen-year-old girl watch her mother get buried, and she didn’t shed a single tear.”

  How did he …? Maria tried to avert her eyes, hiding her lie, but the hold he held on them made it impossible. “That doesn’t mean anythi—”

  “It does … when Lucca did.” Dominic stepped in front of her, making her crane her neck to look up at him as he towered over her. “Tell me, princess. When you were told she was dead, did you even cry then?”

  That was a secret she wanted to keep from the world.

  A little Maria had stared at her shoes for half the funeral, trying to look sad. At one point, when a single tear had fallen out of the corner of Lucca’s eye before he quickly wiped it away, she had known just how fucked up she was. There was a type of guilt she carried for not being able to shed a tear for her beautiful, dead mother. It had proven just how inhuman—no, monstrous—she truly was.

  Maria forced her eyes from his, looking at the ground as she whispered her admission, “No. Like I said, you were right.”

  “I thought so, too”—Dom took a seat beside her on the bed—“until I saw you cry for Leo.”

  She didn’t say anything, continuing to stare at the old floorboards, not wanting to be reminded of that wretched day.

  “And Kayne …,” he continued with a brokenness in his voice.

  Maria looked over at him strangely, wondering why he had suddenly changed his mind from when he had told her, What you felt with Kayne wasn’t love, princess.

  Getting up, she’d had enough of this game. “Dominic,
give me my phone and let me the fuck out of here. I want to leave now.”

  “No.” Dom lazed back on the bed, making himself comfortable. “I said I would give you your phone back after you tell me why you came.”

  “Fine,” Maria simply said, going to find something to knock the key down from its place. She opened a door to see a little attached bath.

  Dominic suddenly sat back up. “What are you doing?”

  Snatching a toothbrush, she hoped he liked the taste of dust.

  “I know you feel it,” he taunted, standing in the bathroom doorframe and blocking her from leaving. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t have walked out after seeing me with Bristol.”

  Furious, Maria ducked under his arm and squeezed past him.

  “You’re just fucking scared because seeing her with me made you realize you do have feelings for me.”

  Using the toothbrush, she quickly tried to swipe down the key, being forced to still, listening to his words.

  “Hurts, doesn’t it?”

  The key fell off the ledge and onto the floor. Dropping the toothbrush, she picked up the little old key with shaky hands, trying to manage to get it in the lock.

  “Hurts to see the person you love with someone else, and there’s nothing you can fucking do about it.”

  The key slipped into the lock.

  Dominic’s rough voice became strangled. “But I promise you this, Maria, whatever it made you feel will never fucking compare to the pain you caused me by choosing Kayne.”

  Maria snapped. Letting go of the key, she violently spun back around and stomped back toward Dominic, who stood in the middle of the room. Giving his chest a hard shove, she spat her words at him like venom. “You expect me to know how to fucking feel when you said it yourself—my heart is dead. Every time I’m around you, Dominic, my body screams at me to touch you, to choose you … but I never feel a single thing here.” Maria placed a shaky hand over where her heart was supposed to be. “But I did with Kayne.”

  In his eyes, she could see his hope turning to heartbreak all over again in a split-second, but she kept going.

  “But what I didn’t know was that the little twitch I felt in my cold, dead heart was trying to tell me he wasn’t the one for me.”

  Maria’s breaths were heavy from being forced to share her feelings that she didn’t want to admit, but she needed to finish. “I have never done anything with my heart. My gut has led me to the decisions I’ve made in my life, and I haven’t regretted a single fucking thing until Kayne. So, you and Lucca were right; I didn’t love him. But how the fuck was I supposed to know that?” she cried angrily up at him.

  Dominic stared back at her, stunned, not knowing what to say.

  “I came back to tell you what I should have done yesterday. To tell you I’m sorry, Dominic. I’m sorry for anything and everything I did to hurt you. For choosing Kayne, and especially the horrible things I said to you. You didn’t deserve that … but I don’t deserve this either.” Going to the bedroom door, she turned the lock before looking back at a dazed Dominic, needing to say one last thing as she opened the door. “This game we’re playing was fun at first, but I’m done.”

  Running down the steps quickly, going through the house, she was afraid that, if she looked back or Dom caught up with her, she wouldn’t leave—and that was the one thing she needed to do.

  They were doing nothing but trying to hurt the other, and she knew if they didn’t stop soon, Dominic would be the one to get hurt. When that happened, she would never be able to face him again. It was already too hard to look at him after what she’d done.

  She was never going to fucking forgive herself for picking Kayne. Not because Kayne had hurt her for deceiving her, but because she had hurt Dominic.

  Walking into the living room, she saw a dressed Matthias. “You want to see Angel?”

  Matthias nodded.

  “Then get your keys now and let’s go,” Maria told him, throwing open the front door.

  Matthias wasted no time, meeting her at the car with his keys in hand.

  Throwing herself into the car, she took a long, deep breath as relief came over her. As the bellowing emotions tried to burst through her iced core, like the day Leo had gotten hurt, she felt on the verge of a breakdown after the events of the day.

  Turning the key in the ignition, Matthias threw the car in Reverse, knowing he’d defy Dom’s orders.

  Maria watched Dominic appear at the front door, watching her leave.

  “You don’t deserve him,” Matthias told her, throwing his car in Drive.

  Looking away from Dominic, she couldn’t watch his heartbreak any longer. “Why do you think I’m leaving.”

  Thirty-Two

  One Thing We Don’t Fuck With Is Ghosts

  “Can you slow the hell down?” Maria gripped the oh-shit handle in the car, her long, almond-shape nails piercing her palm from holding so tightly. “You might have a death wish, but personally, I like living.”

  Matthias shot her a hot look before adjusting his speed to just above the legal limit.

  Releasing her death grip, Maria let him know she hadn’t missed that look he gave her. “Quit acting so shocked that I’ve figured you out. You’re not as hard to read as you think you are. Everyone you and Angel fooled are just idiots.”

  Gripping the wheel, Matthias’s jaw flexed. His voice was quiet when he spoke, and Maria no longer saw the mask he usually put on around her. “You don’t know me.”

  “I know you can’t sleep at night, and you’re obviously not scared of the dark, since your room was pitch black, which means what you fear is in your dreams. You’re codependent on your twin and have deteriorated since Angel left. So, my guess is, whatever you’re scared of, Angel protected you from. Just like how he’s protected you your whole life by letting everyone believe he was the weaker twin when, in fact, you were all along.” Maria looked over at him pitifully. “How did I do?”

  Matthias continued staring at the road, the sadness in his dark gray eyes visible. “You really are a cold-hearted bitch, aren’t you?”

  Not offended by the jab, she answered what he was clearly thinking—how did I know? “People often mistake the quiet ones for being weak, when it’s the ones who are the loudest and appear to be the happiest who are trying to overcompensate.” Maria took her eyes off a sad Matthias to look out the window at the passing surroundings. “I’ve had to hide my evilness; you hide your depression.”

  It was quiet for several, long moments before Matthias finally spoke. “And you don’t try to hide that anymore?”

  Maria knew it was a question, that he was honestly curious. It was clear he was trying to find an answer to help himself. She told him the truth. “No, not anymore.”

  “Why?”

  “The only reason I ever hid who I was, was because I had to. People are scared of those like me, and they should be. You, on the other hand, are scared of people finding out who you really are because you’re afraid of being judged and being treated differently.” Maria bore her emerald eyes fiercely into the broken gray ones. “Not everyone is born with armor, Matthias. Being weak is only a bad thing when you’re too stubborn to ask for help.”

  Having to turn back to the road, his silence said a thousand words.

  “It’s not your fault, you know.” She started to strangely feel for him again. Afraid she might’ve been too harsh, she felt the need to make him feel better. “It’s the stigma society created that makes it hard for you to talk about.”

  Matthias’s continued silence made it clear that he wasn’t ready to talk about it, so Maria gave it up for now. He knew where to find her when he was ready.

  “Slow down,” Maria said, looking out the window. She hadn’t been to Blue Park a lot, but she didn’t remember seeing those gates before. “Stop the car.”

  “Here?” Matthias looked at her like she was fucking crazy but still pulled over. “Why would you—”

  Maria got out of the car, taking a few steps
toward the huge, vine-covered gates that had the letter B written on them in iron. You could tell they didn’t used to be that color of rust, but years of dirt had coated the cursive letter.

  “I wouldn’t go any farther …,” Matthias warned behind her, taking a seat on the hood of his car.

  “Why?” she asked, not turning to look at him, but instead trying to look through the vines. She could see the long drive and the old, overgrown stone fountain that no longer spit water. Far behind that, at the end of the drive, she saw the massive, gloomy house that had been boarded up.

  “Because it’s haunted.”

  Maria looked at the gray home closer for another second before turning back to go sit beside Matthias on the hood of his car. “And you believe that?”

  “I mean, it looks pretty fucking creepy to me,” he told her. “What? Have you never heard the story about Blue Manor?”

  Shaking her head, she continued to stare at the home that sat right before the line that separated Blue Park from Kansas City. A couple more seconds in the car, and she would have been in Caruso territory.

  “The story goes that the last family who lived there were all brutally murdered one night by a man who went in to steal a trunk of money the house was built on. Some think the murderer was successful and others think he never found it. But the legend is, anyone who goes in to try to find the money never comes out alive, because the ghosts of the murdered family are guarding it.”

  Maria curiously stared at the bit of the spooky home she could see. “Do you know anyone who’s gone in it?”

  “Hell no.” Matthias continued to look at her, wondering if they were staring at the same place. “No one in Blue Park is dumb enough to try it.”

  Maria brought her eyes to Matthias. “So, you’re telling me all of Blue Park are scared of a little ghost story?” Most of Kansas City’s hardest criminals came from here.