The smell of stale cigarettes and beer assailed his nose as Dom stepped inside the dimly lit building. He stood just over the threshold, blinking furiously to get his eyes to adjust to the darkness of the room. As it came into focus, he made out a small bar to his right with a limited assortment of bottles and a sprinkling of tables. Farther back, a set of lights shined down on the green felt of a pool table. A loud crack broke the silence, and the multicolored balls scattered. James moved around the table, a pool stick in hand. He leaned over the table, lining up his shot. Another crack sounded as two balls hit, sending the solid orange three ball into the far corner pocket.
They’d loved playing pool as teenagers. It was one of the few times they’d appear in public together, though Dom was usually under a hat to hide his hair and partially shield his face from view. They’d joke and talk about their next score as they sent the balls flying across the table and into the various pockets. And then if they got truly bored, they’d hustle a few people, raking in several hundred dollars before leaving the hall. Those had been the good nights.
Now, James didn’t look up at Dom as he continued to play, but that was just James’s way of showing Dom that he wasn’t concerned with his brother’s presence. James loved playing with a person’s head, and Dom had years of experience being both his target and his accomplice. It was just whatever suited James’s mood.
Dom continued to glance around. It looked as if they were alone in the bar, but he knew that at least one or two of James’s crew were lurking around somewhere close by. James might be insane, but he also knew how to take calculated risks. He always had a plan, an escape route ready in hand.
Taking a step toward the pool table, Dom abruptly stopped as he caught a hint of something else in the air. Possibly blood. His heart skipped a beat. Had they already killed someone here to take control of the bar? Very likely. But there wasn’t much he could do about it until he was out of there.
With a frown, Dom walked over to the wall and selected a pool cue. He stood off to the side, watching as James lined up his next shot and pulled back the stick. James wore a plain black T-shirt that hugged his broad shoulders and thick biceps as they flexed with each movement. His face was blank, green eyes coldly locked on the table. A queasy feeling shifted in his stomach. He couldn’t believe he was standing there with James again. There was a tiny chunk of his heart that was joyous to see him again. This was his brother. His own flesh and blood. They’d run the streets and hustled crowds up and down the coast of California for years. Together, they’d been unstoppable. Those early years had been free and fun because he always had James. And when he’d been young, he’d been sure that he’d always have James.
The balls on the table shot in different directions, and Dom followed the white cue ball around to where it came to rest at the far end of the table. Dom leaned down, lining up his shot. James’s last shot had put in a striped ball in the side pocket, so he aimed at a solid. He hadn’t played in years, but the stick felt surprisingly comfortable in his hands. With a semi-light tap, he sent the white ball smoothly across the table to just kiss the side of the dark-blue two ball, sending it into the top corner pocket.
“Dominic Walsh,” James murmured. “Not a bad name.”
Dom stepped back and rested the end of the cue on the floor while James circled the table, looking for his next shot. “It’s worked for the past decade.”
“Surprised you didn’t dye your hair.”
“Did for a few years in the beginning.”
James stopped in the middle of taking his shot and smirked, though he still didn’t look up at Dom. “People start to notice the carpet didn’t match the drapes?”
Dom fought the urge to roll his eyes. There might have been a few blowjobs he enjoyed in those first years when people commented on the differing hair colors. He hadn’t been ready to be remembered as a natural redhead. Someone of his stature was automatically recalled when he had flaming red hair to match, and he was trying to stay hidden. “Something like that.”
After a few years, when he’d settled in the Cincinnati area, Dom let his natural hair color through, confident that James truly believed he was dead. What were the odds that James would ever come to Cincinnati? Apparently, they were pretty damn good.
James took his shot, but for the first time, the ball bounced around outside the pocket and didn’t go in. The butt of the cue hit the ground with an angry thump and James straightened to glare at Dom from across the table. The overhead lights cast shadows across his face, carving in lines Dom hadn’t seen before, aging his brother more than his thirty-two years. Life had been hard for his brother, but Dom had to believe that he’d chosen for it to be that way.
“You look good for a dead man.”
A chill swept through Dom at his brother’s words. They held cold rage and betrayal. And he had betrayed his brother. Abandoned him. Turned his back and left him to the life he’d chosen. The thing that Dom kept telling himself was that it was the life that James had chosen. Dom had wanted something else entirely.
“I didn’t want that life.”
“That life? You mean our life? The life that we had built. The one that we were meant for. That life? The one that you were suddenly too good for.”
“You were taking it too far.”
“Bullshit!”
“You killed that man, James! You killed him for no good reason and you know it! You went too far,” Dom roared back at his brother.
It was as if they’d picked up exactly where they left off more than ten years ago. One of the last jobs they had pulled together had been a heist at a small jewelry boutique. It didn’t have a huge collection of gems, but enough to make it worth their while. James had started carrying a gun—something he’d never done in the past. James had promised Dom that it wasn’t loaded. He’d just flash it if he was trapped, and it would scare away any potential heroes. James had been running out of the store with the goods and a customer was walking in. The poor fucker was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. James fired two shots into his chest and ran over the guy. Dom later saw the report on the news. The customer had been half the size of James. His brother could have simply plowed through the guy and gotten away, but instead he shot him.
“It was about showing them that they need to fear us! It was about sending a message!” James lifted up the pool cue and pointed it toward the entrance of the bar. “Those people out there…they’re just sheep. They’re content to just stumble along through life and let the wolves of the world feast on them. We were not made to be sheep!” James lowered the stick and grinned slowly at Dom. “We’re wolves.”
Around him, one voice after another lifted up in a chilling howl from the deeper shadows of the bar. They came from all around him, proving that James’s crew had circled them while they played pool. He took a sliding step backward, jerking his head around to try to spot the others in the bar, but his night vision was shot after staring at his brother across the bright light of the pool table.
“You crossed the wrong pack, John.”
The sound of a shoe scuffing the rough concrete floor of the bar was Dom’s only warning. With fists balled, he swung around and smashed his fist into someone’s face before his vision adjusted enough for him to actually see his attacker. The person stumbled backward and crashed into one of the tables spread around the bar.
Another ran at him, lowering his shoulder so that it hit Dom straight in the gut. He staggered back several steps. Pain blasted across his stomach and ribs. The air rushed from his lungs and Dom struggled to keep his feet. Lacing his fingers together, he brought his joined hands down once, twice on the back of his attacker’s neck before finally getting him to release his hold around his waist. Dom immediately grabbed a fistful of greasy hair and held his head steady while bringing his knee up. The man cried out and Dom tossed him aside in the direction of his first attacker.
Pivoting on the balls of his feet, Dom took a ready stance as the same man he met at the
nightclub started to approach with his own fists raised. The handsome bastard’s smile grew wider and his gaze focused over Dom’s shoulder. A chill slithered down Dom’s back before he could even turn around.
“You got this, babe?” the man asked.
“Wolves, John,” James coldly repeated before pain exploded in the back of Dom’s head, sending him straight to his knees. He tried to push through the gathering darkness, but a second hit sent him careening straight into nothingness.
Oh, fuck, his head.
Dom groaned and tried to shift, tried to reach for his aching skull, but he couldn’t move his arms. He blinked slowly. His eyelids fought him just to raise even the littlest bit. Blinding light shot through his eyeballs and straight to the source of the pain in the back of his head. Nausea roiled his stomach and for a moment, he was sure that he was going to lose everything. Clenching his teeth, he forced in slow, short breaths, fighting back the pain and the queasiness.
After nearly a minute, the worst of it had passed and Dom slowly tried to open his eyes again. And the first thing he saw was James straddling a chair opposite of him, a wicked grin pulling his lips wide.
“There you are,” James practically purred. “They even managed to knock the shit out of you without messing up this handsome face.” James reached out and grabbed the sides of Dom’s face, turning it right and then left as if he was inspecting it. “Except for this bullshit,” he snarled when he caught sight of the long scar streaking down the left side of Dom’s face. “What the fuck were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that I really didn’t want to get blown up,” Dom mumbled in a rough voice.
“See! This is what you get for going into this bodyguard bullshit. You have to worry about getting blown up for some little shit that isn’t worth a tenth of our life.”
“First, it was my life. Not our life. You don’t risk shit for anyone but yourself,” Dom said. “And second, I was there to save the life of a friend. Do you remember what those are? Friends? People you help and sacrifice for because you care about them.”
“Who gives a fuck about friends when you’ve got your own pack? A family that will do anything for its leader?” James rocked back, cackling.
Dom took a second to look down at the chair he was tied to. He frowned to see that someone had chosen zip ties over regular rope. There wasn’t a centimeter of give in the ties. The chair might have been wood, but it felt sturdy as fuck. Hell, it could have been made by Abe—it felt so damn solid. There was no wiggling his way out of it. He needed to be left alone so that he could work on his restraints. Shifting his legs, he nearly sighed in relief to find that they’d left them untied. He remained still. No point in giving them a reason to tie his legs.
Of course, that was all assuming James didn’t just put a bullet in his brain and call it a day.
“What the fuck do you want with me, James?” Dom demanded.
“You lied to me!”
“Only because you gave me no choice!” Dom roared back. His head throbbed and his stomach lurched, but he ignored both. Anger put fire in his veins, dulling the pain. “I didn’t want to kill people. I wanted out. I wanted a normal life. Normal job. Normal fucking relationship. How the hell were we gonna have that as crooks? Always on the run, always hiding.”
“You betrayed your family!” James jumped from his chair and tossed it aside so that he could get right in Dom’s face. “You left us.”
“Yeah, I left you and Dad because you wouldn’t listen. I wanted something better.”
“Nothing better than family.”
“This is a waste of time,” Dom muttered.
He knew it in his heart—there was no reaching his brother. They were both too hardheaded when it came to their ability to see no further than the idea they were clinging to in their brains. Growing up, they’d always been in sync. But by the time they were teenagers, he and James were constantly at odds. A part of him had hurt when they lost that closeness. James was his fucking twin. His identical twin. They should have always been in sync, thinking the same thing, feeling the same thing.
James sighed heavily, and Dom looked up to see him shaking his head. He walked over and grabbed the back of the metal folding chair to drag it back where he had been sitting before. “Dad was right.”
“What?” Dom snapped.
“Dad said you were a sheep, but I didn’t want to believe him.”
“Oh, fuck Dad.”
James’s hand shot out, crashing into Dom’s cheek and sending his head to the side. “Dad said you were soft. That’s why I always pulled the hard part of the job. That’s why you skipped around town, showing off that pretty face of ours as cover. You couldn’t be trusted to handle the dirty parts, to make the hard decisions.” James paused, his features twisting in disgust for a moment. “To pull the trigger.”
“People aren’t disposable, James.”
“I didn’t want to believe him,” his brother continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “My brother couldn’t be a sheep. He couldn’t be weak. He was my brother. My half. I believed that you were a wolf. I thought you were just waiting for that perfect moment to prove it to Dad.” James shook his head and plopped back down on the chair. “But you didn’t. You turned out to be a sheep and you ran.”
“I didn’t want your life. If I stayed, I would have been miserable and then dead.”
James grinned a bit wildly at Dom and his heart gave an ugly lurch in his chest. “Then tell me, John, have you been happy?”
“Yes,” he said without hesitation. Even without meeting Abe and falling for the man, he’d had a happy life in Cincinnati. He loved his job and he loved the men and women he worked with each day. He’d been incredibly happy…and now he hated to think it was all about to slip away from him. He really should have fucking called Rowe.
James chuckled and slapped Dom on the other side of his face. “Don’t worry, brother. I’m not done with you yet.”
“I’m not helping you with whatever the hell you’ve got planned while you’re in town.”
Winking at him, James stood but didn’t step away from his seat. “Oh, I think you’re going to be happy to help me when the time comes. But first we gotta take care of that mess you made of our face.” Dom opened his mouth to ask what he was planning, but James was shouting across the room. “Slaney! Get your sexy ass back in here and bring that mirror you found.”
A few seconds later, heavy footsteps echoed across the room. Dom looked over his shoulder as best he could to see the man he’d beaten up in the nightclub bathroom with a large mirror in his hand.
“You sure about this, babe?” Slaney asked as he came to stand next to Dom.
“Yeah, this dumbass went and got himself hurt. But we can fix it up easily enough.” Reaching into his back pocket, James pulled out something black and gave it a flick with his wrist. A long silver blade slid easily out of the matte black handle and caught the light hanging over the pool table. With his free left hand, James dug a lighter out of his front pocket. A spark from the flint caught the fuel and a teardrop of light burned in front of Dom. His heart was pounding so hard in his chest; he could barely swallow.
“You can’t fix my fucking face, James!” he desperately said. He struggled against the bindings holding him in the chair, but there was no getting free. Digging his heels into the floor, he pushed backward, trying to shove the chair farther away from his brother, but Slaney moved just enough sideways that his body was blocking his path. There was no escape.
“Grab his head and hold him still,” James said.
Large fingers threaded through Dom’s hair, getting a good grip before tightening. Pain lanced through his scalp and brought tears to his eyes. Slaney pulled back and to the right, forcing Dom to turn his head to a particular angle or risk having a huge chunk of his hair ripped out.
James moved the flame back and forth over the edge of the blade, heating it while staring at Dom. “Sometimes we have to make sacrifices if we want to keep our edge,�
� James said.
He looked over to the mirror that Slaney was holding up in his free hand. James’s wild green eyes jerked back and forth between the mirror and Dom’s scarred cheek. He took a couple of deep, ragged breaths before tossing the lighter to the ground. Lifting the blade to his own left cheek, he dug in deep, cutting from his temple, across his cheek, to his jaw. Flesh hissed and burned under the hot knife. Spittle ran from his brother’s open mouth, but his hand never wavered in its course as he copied the long, ugly scar Dom had acquired in the service to his friend Sven.
Dom couldn’t draw his eyes from his brother’s madness. His heart ached, and his brain shied away from what he saw. How had it come to this? Why couldn’t he just leave? Pretend he’d never seen Dom?
James lowered the blade to his side and smiled at his handiwork. There was only a little blood running down his face from where the knife had cooled too much to close the wound again. While the wound was angry and fresh, it was nearly the same shape as the one on Dom’s cheek. In a short time and with a little makeup, the wounds would be completely identical.
Looking back and forth from Dom to the mirror, James frowned. “Keep holding him,” James ordered as he wiped off the knife on the leg of his pants and brought it back to the flame.
Dom tried to jerk his head, hissing when Slaney’s hand dug harder into his scalp. The man put the mirror on the floor and clamped down on Dom’s chin, holding his head tilted up toward the light.
Sadistic Sherlock (Ward Security Book 4) Page 11
