DEFENSE

by Glenna Sinclair

  I wanted him to rescue me like some knight on a white horse.

  I turned on the water in the sink and washed my face, trying to shock myself into stronger thoughts. The clothes Dominic had provided for me were folded and waiting on a shelf. I shook them out, somewhat pleased to find that it was simple pair of jeans and a soft pink blouse. I pulled them on, glad to be rid of the smelly sweatshirt.

  I wanted to curl up on the floor and hang out in the bathroom for a while. But I knew Dominic would send his goons to come get me if I waited too long. With a deep breath, I slipped out of the bathroom and carefully made my way down the aisle to the captain’s chairs where Dominic was waiting.

  “You look so much more comfortable,” he said.

  “Where are we going?”

  He shrugged. “We’re going. That’s all that matters.”

  I sat back in my chair and turned to stare out the window. I felt Dominic move closer to me; I felt his nearness before he touched my shoulder with just the tip of his fingers.

  “You are beautiful,” he said softly.

  “I’m married.”

  “Yes, well, you said yourself it was an arranged marriage. So what does that matter now?”

  I shrugged my shoulder away from his touch, but he just moved closer. But now he wasn’t just satisfied with a fingertip on my shoulder. Instead, he pressed his lips to the bare skin there. I bit my lip, trying not to let him feel the shudder that rushed through my body. I closed my eyes, trying to think of something—anything—else. In my mind’s eye, I saw Miles standing in the bathroom of our suite, a towel wrapped around his waist, that alluring smile framed by shaving cream. I imagined that moment going differently than it really did. I imagined him folding me into his arms and tasted the kiss we should have shared. I imagined a warm, happy reunion—instead of the one that was so clouded by hurt and anger and more hurt.

  I would do almost anything to be back there now, to be in Miles’ arms.

  Tears burned my eyes as Dominic’s lips moved up the curve of my throat. I couldn’t hide my shudder this time. But Dominic didn’t seem to care. He slid his hand over my jaw and tugged my face closer to his. When his lips touched mine, I jerked back without really meaning to.

  “You can fight me,” Dominic said softly. “I don’t mind. It actually makes it a bit more interesting. But it would be easier for you if you didn’t.”

  Tears spilled over, running slowly down my cheeks.

  “I didn’t do anything to you,” I said. “Why do you have to do this?”

  “You married into the Thorn family. You had to have known that would come with consequences.”

  He grabbed the back of my head. My muscles strained as I tried to pull away, but he was much stronger than I would ever be. He dragged me close to him and pressed his open mouth to mine, the unpleasant feel of moisture rushing over me as he buried his tongue in my mouth. I bit down. It was instinct. Something unpleasant touches you, you react. But it wasn’t the reaction Dominic wanted.

  “Bitch!” he cried out as he jerked back. And his fist flew, slamming into the corner of my jaw with enough strength to force my head to snap back against the wall of the plane. My vision went dark around the edges, bells instantly ringing in my ears. He leaned close to me, burying his hand in my hair, wrenching my head around so that we were eye to eye.

  “Is that the way you want it? You want it rough? Because I can do that. In fact, it might be fun to see how far I can push you before you break.” He moved closer to me, running the tip of his tongue—which was now bleeding—over the center of my cheek. “We’ll still have plenty of fun. You just won’t be going out in public much. Can’t raise eyebrows with the bruises you’re going to sport.”

  He started to kiss me again even as I pressed my hands to his chest and tried to force some distance between us, but then his goon came over and whispered something over his shoulder.

  Dominic sat back and glared at the guy. “Now?”

  The guy nodded.

  Dominic groaned. Then he looked at me and said, “Well, I guess you get a short reprieve.” He stood and looked pointedly at his goon. “Make sure she stays put.”

  Dominic disappeared through a narrow doorway at the front of the plane. The goon took a seat across from me, his attention focused on a cell phone, but I was pretty sure he would notice immediately if I tried to stand up. I turned back to the window, using it as a mirror to rub away the blood trail he’d left on my cheek. I was calmer than I might have imagined I could be under such circumstances. Maybe it was shock. Or maybe it was something like acceptance. Either way, I was calm even as my thoughts were a jumble of chaos.

  Well, not chaos. I was mostly thinking one thing:

  No, no, no, no…

  ***

  The plane landed a little over an hour later. Dominic was back at my side, pulling me up from my seat with a hand under my upper arm. I shivered at his touch, trying not to let my mind go to what came next. I could imagine it: another black SUV, another long drive to some secluded house somewhere, probably a nice house on a cliff—money could buy things like that—and a well-appointed bedroom and then…I wouldn’t let my thoughts go beyond that. I tried to focus on the details, like the leather of the seats in the SUV, so that my mind was too busy with the inconsequential to focus on the nightmare.

  We stepped out of the plane into a hot summer afternoon. The plane had stopped not far from a set of hangars with signs written in two languages. One was English. I was pretty sure the other was Italian. And, just as I had imagined, there was a large, black SUV waiting for us on the tarmac. The chauffeur opened the back door as our feet touched the asphalt. And then chaos erupted around us.

  Cars with flashing lights suddenly sped up to the plane, people jumping out of them with guns pointed before they’d even stopped. I just stopped. I didn’t know what else to do. They were yelling in a foreign language—again, I think it was Italian—and gesturing with their guns. Then a man spoke in English.

  “Get down!”

  Dominic threw his hands up into the air.

  “We are American citizens,” he called.

  “We know who you are, Dominic de Luca. You are under arrested for suspicion of trafficking an illegal substance.”

  “You have the wrong man,” Dominic said with all the charm of a criminal. “You may search my plane. You won’t find anything.”

  The man who spoke English gestured to some of the others. They immediately holstered their guns and boarded the plane.

  “We were given an anonymous tip saying that you have over a hundred pounds of cocaine hidden on this plane.”

  Dominic laughed. And it was a gleeful laugh, almost as if he found this situation amusing.

  “Why would I do that? Why would I fly a plane with that much cocaine in it to a foreign country? That would be suicide.”

  The man shrugged, lowering his gun, but keeping it clearly at the ready. Then he gestured to another set of men who also holstered their guns and then approached us.

  “We need to handcuff you while we search,” the man said. “For our safety.”

  Dominic held out his wrists, his eyes closely observing the cop who approached me.

  “Be gentle with her,” he said.

  I found myself wondering if I should be flattered that he would care so much.

  The cop snapped the cuffs on my right wrist, then twisted it behind my back, jerking my other arm back. Pain burst through my shoulders, but I felt oddly relieved. If I was going to spend the night in jail, Dominic couldn’t hurt me tonight. It was like a short reprieve from the inevitable.

  “Fuck! Do you have to be so rough?” Dominic groused as another cop cuffed him. His goon also complained with a quiet expression of curses under his breath as they cuffed him, too.

  We stood and waited for the search to be completed. Dominic smiled when the cops came off the plane with nothing in their hands and a defeated look in their eyes. But then another car arrived with a couple dogs. A la
rge, burly cop followed the dogs onto the plane. I saw a flash of fear in Dominic’s eyes as the dogs immediately began to bark.

  I wasn’t surprised when the burly cop came back out with a huge brick of cocaine in his hands.

  “Looks like you chose suicide, Mr. de Luca,” the cop in charge said, as he grabbed his arm and led him to one of the cars.

  Dominic looked back at me. “If I find out your husband’s behind this—”

  Icy fingers danced up and down the length of my spine. If there was one thing I’d learned about Dominic by now, it was that he didn’t make idle threats.

  They put me into a different car. I didn’t see Dominic, his goon, or anyone else associated with him again. The car I was in pulled into an underground garage, and I was led into a nondescript room that held only a narrow table and a couple of folding chairs. I was told they would come talk to me in a few minutes, but it felt like hours passed. I don’t really know how long I was there. Probably less than an hour. Time seemed to have changed for me, at least, the way I perceived it. I sat there in one of those chairs and picked at the thin glaze of polish on my thumbnails, my mind blank.

  Again, I think it was shock. So many things had happened over the last few days. I was supposed to go on a nice, relaxing cruise to get over my broken heart. But this adventure had been less than relaxing.

  It kind of put things into perspective though. My struggle to find a decent job was suddenly trivial. Starbuck’s wasn’t such a bad job. My boss suggested a few weeks ago that I might be management material. It wasn’t the executive job I’d dreamed of in college, but it paid the bills. Money wasn’t even an issue, really. I still had that bank account with a little over a million dollars in it, thanks to interest. I hadn’t touched it in the months after Miles kicked me out—just like I’d left the car he bought me, the cell phone he gave me, and the list of job prospects he’d arranged for me. But now…I’d held up my end of the bargain. I should get over myself and use what he gave me to make a better life for myself and my aunts.

  And then there was Miles.

  My heart hurt when I thought about him. I loved him. I’d known it before he kicked me out, and I knew it now. The memory of the pictures Dominic showed me made the pain a little more intense. And the realization that he could still end things at the drop of a hat, that he could push me away once I was no longer helpful to him, left me a little weary of trusting him. But I loved him. All the logic in the world couldn’t make that basic reality go away. I loved him, and I wanted whatever he was willing to give me. Even if it was temporary.

  If I ever saw him again.

  It suddenly occurred to me that I could be going to jail. After being handcuffed and transported to this place, after sitting there for however long, it finally occurred to me that I might be facing years in an Italian jail for simply traveling on that plane. How many years do accomplices serve? Would I ever see my aunts again?

  I shivered as I imagined what jail would be like. I was pretty sure it wouldn’t be like Orange is the New Black. But how much darker would it be? Would I survive?

  Panic was beginning to build in my chest, as a knock sounded on the door.

  “Mrs. Thorn?” a soft, female voice asked.

  I looked up. Joan Tarek, Miles’ office manager and family friend, was standing just inside the doorway. And behind her was Miles himself.

  I don’t even remember moving. All I remember is the feel of his arms around me, the sense of safety that infused me as I buried my face against his shoulder and burst into tears, letting go of all the fear and pain and confusion I’d barely kept under control since the moment those goons confronted me outside the dining room.

  “It’s over now,” he whispered, as he ran his hand over the back of my head. “It’s all over.”

  Chapter 25

  There were questions.

  Questions the police wanted to ask about Dominic. Questions I wanted to ask Miles. Questions Miles wanted to ask me. But Joan stepped in, along with a team of lawyers she’d procured from somewhere, and arranged for it all to take place later. And then she looked at me, a sad smile on her face, and said the words I’d been waiting to hear all evening: “You’re free to go.”

  Miles took me to a hotel nearby where someone had already arranged a room for the two of us. The shock, or whatever, that had settled over my mind when Dominic forced me onto that plane, was still in full force, making it impossible for me to pay attention to anything around me. I had no idea where the hotel was, what city we were in, or even what country. I was still pretty sure everyone around me was speaking Italian, but I’m not that great with languages, so it could have been some other Latin-based language for all I knew. If not for Miles, I might have gone wandering through the streets without benefit of money, a sense of direction, or even knowledge of my own name.

  He carefully directed me into the bathroom as soon as we were in the room and ran water in the tub. My hands shook as I tried to undress myself. Without saying a word, Miles helped me with buttons and snaps, careful not to touch me where it was not necessary. Tears welled in my eyes as I watched him, all these thoughts spinning through my mind.

  Did he think I’d gone with Dominic willingly? Did he think that Dominic did something horrible to me? Should I tell him what had happened? Should I tell him about the goons and the guns and the threats? Did he know what Dominic had planned? Did he know what Dominic told me? What would he think when he found out everything that had happened between Dominic and I? Would he still want me?

  It all spun so quickly that I could hardly catch a single thought and hold onto it long enough to examine it as it required. Tears fell and fear—a different sort of fear from what I’d felt when Dominic touched me—burned in my chest.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, as Miles slid the shirt I was wearing from my body.

  His eyes widened slightly, the dark cloud that had been in them from the moment I first set eyes on him at the police station spreading and growing darker.

  “You have nothing to apologize for,” he said, his tone deep and full of emotion. “I should have protected you better. I should have…” He shook his head, his hands stilled just inches from my bare ribs. “This is not your fault.”

  I just nodded, not sure what else there was to say.

  When I was naked, he helped me into the bath, once again being careful not to touch me in any way that might seem even remotely sexual. It hurt to see the control he was exercising. It made me wonder if we would ever move past this. And then I wondered if there was an ‘us’ to move anywhere.

  “Why did you bring me on that ship?” I asked, as Miles poured body wash on a washcloth and rubbed it into a fine lather. He studied the washcloth for a long minute, apparently fascinated with the bubbles he was creating. And then he looked up, his face so full of emotion that it hurt to meet his gaze.

  “I thought Dominic was under control. It never occurred to me that he would show up on the ship.”

  “What do you mean, ‘under control’?”

  He just shrugged. Then he lifted my arm and began to wash me as though I were an invalid, or a helpless child. He grunted when he saw bruises on my upper arm that I hadn’t realized were there, perfect fingerprints from where Dominic and his goons continuously grabbed me over the last few days. They didn’t hurt. Not like the bruises on my face from the blows both Dominic and his goon had delivered. I’d caught sight of myself in the elevator door. The bruises were angry, dark marks that made my already pale skin seem ever paler. Maybe that was why Miles couldn’t quite look me in the eye.

  Or maybe it was something else. Something deeper.

  “He told me about Rebecca.”

  Miles nodded, as he reached for my other arm, sliding the washcloth over my flesh there.

  “I kind of thought he would.”

  “He told me you took the blame for the accident.”

  “It’s a complicated story.”

  “But it’s true? Robert was dating Rebecca,
and she died as a result of an accident in his car?”

  “Yes.”

  I nodded, tears burning my eyes again. “And you stood up for Robert and he paid you back by marrying your fiancée?”

  “There’s more to it than that.”

  But he was clearly uninterested in telling me the rest. He seemed more interested in running the washcloth over my legs, though he was very careful not to move too high up on my thighs or to touch anything that might be hidden by a modest pair of panties and a low cut bra. I sat up and took the washcloth out of his hand, finishing the job myself. I couldn’t stand to watch him try so hard to be respectable, no matter what his reasons might be.

  I scrubbed my body until my pale skin turned a bright red, then lathered my hair with shampoo—twice. I felt like I couldn’t quite get the smell of that dirty sweatshirt off of me, or the heavy spice of Dominic’s cologne. Miles sat on the toilet and watched, staring at his hands as they twisted over and over. When I stood, he jumped up and grabbed a towel, wrapping its heavy warmth around me like a hug.

  But, still, he backed away, clearly unwilling, or uncertain, about crossing some line I hadn’t drawn. He watched as I brushed my teeth—three times—combed my hair and used nearly an entire travel-size bottle of mouthwash. I couldn’t quite get the taste of Dominic off my tongue, either. I knew it was mostly in my head, but…I just wanted this thing to be over.

  Miles pressed his hand to the small of my back and led the way into the bedroom. It was a lovely room, dominated by a king-sized bed, my familiar suitcase open on the valet. I walked to it and rummaged through it for a soft t-shirt I could wear to bed. I heard the door open and turned, a part of me expecting to see Dominic standing there. But it was only Miles trying to sneak away.

  “Don’t go.”