Dominic (Made Men Book 8)
Page 17
He hadn’t needed to see him sitting beside Maria at the church wedding to know they were siblings. Every Caruso sibling wasn’t only gifted a perfect last name, but they came with perfectly good looks, as well.
“You good?” Dominic asked the youngest Caruso when he reached him. It was a question he hadn’t yet asked his own brothers, but he knew instinctively they were fine and capable of protecting themselves.
Leo looked at him, confused for a moment, before he answered, “I’m fine.”
Dominic nodded, able to see instantly that he was nothing like the other Carusos. It was no wonder Maria asked him to check on him. The kid was the same age as Cassius yet the complete opposite. He would guess Leo had taken everything but his last name from his mother.
“Go through that door.” He pointed to the hidden kitchen door. “Maria’s hiding in the deep freezer in the back of the kitchen.”
“Maria? Hiding?” Leo looked at him with even more confusion, not believing the words he spoke.
“She had a lot to drink.” Dom tried his best to explain but gave up. “Just go let her know it’s safe to come out.”
“Mmmhmm … sure.” Leo clearly had his doubts. “I’ll believe my sister is in a deep freezer, hiding for her life, when I see it.”
The kid was lucky he was cute.
Twenty-Two
This Part Is Going To Hurt
Lucca sat in his smoke-filled, blacked-out Escalade outside of the big building, watching the hundreds of people leaving. Bringing his cigarette to his lips, he searched every human who walked out, thinking he’d either missed them or it wasn’t true after all …
When his blue-green depths landed on the couple exiting the coliseum, there was absolutely no way he could’ve miss them, as one of them looked so out of place compared to everyone else.
His hand unconsciously squeezed the steering wheel in a tight grip before he let it go to grab his cell phone. Bringing it to his ear after he hit the contact, he listened to the phone ring, his eyes never leaving his mark.
bRRing.
It wasn’t hard, considering the blonde in the big fur coat stood out like a sore thumb, surrounded by hockey jerseys.
bRRing.
He lightly blew out the smoke that he held in mouth when he brought his gaze to the man walking beside her. He might’ve been wearing a cap, but it was shit at concealing his identity.
bRRin-
“Dominic.” His cold voice greeted him before the Luciano boss could even answer.
There was a moment of silence on Dom’s end, already sensing the bad news to come. “Yes?”
Flicking the butt of his cigarette out the window, Lucca looked to the hands that swung between the couple … together. “We got a problem.”
Storming into the Caruso family home, Dom shoved right past Lucca, who had opened the door. “I have to see for myself.”
The underboss only sighed while closing the door.
Dominic ran up the foyer steps two at a time, making his way toward that sweet scent that led the way. By the time he reached the door, his body temperature was raging hot, but it wasn’t until he flung the door open to see it for himself did he see red.
Maria was standing there, looking at her perfect reflection in the mirror, and it only took him half a second to see the happiness that had never been in her emerald eyes before.
Lucca was right; the woman who he was in love with and who was supposed to be in love with him … loved another.
Turning to face him, she looked like she almost didn’t believe he was there. “What are you doing in here?”
Dominic thought he would have turned around and never speak to her again, but something possessed him to enter the room.
Quietly shutting the door behind him, he wanted Maria to realize the mistake she had just fucking made. The blonde stomped her stilettos into the thick carpet as she walked toward him, getting pissed that he’d had the audacity to come into her bedroom unannounced. “What the hell are you doing in here, Dominic?”
“Lucca gave me permission,” he promised her coldly, blocking her from exiting the room before he could say his peace.
That clearly only enraged the independent Maria more. “Then I’ll scream if you don’t leave.”
“Scream.” Dominic’s dangerous hazel eyes glowed in a dare. “But you won’t ever get ten minutes alone with me again, princess.” When she didn’t open her mouth, he took a stalking step toward her. “I didn’t think you would.”
Maria’s green orbs slightly grew wider as she took a single step back. The girl had never backed down from anyone, but Dominic wasn’t just anyone. Clearly, he had led her to believe he was, thinking the self-righteous man-hater would have loved the part of him that cared for Katarina. So, he had only shown her the part of himself that he was around Kat, but he was much more than that …
Dominic Luciano was also the devil’s son.
And if Maria had shit taste in men then, by God, he would show her the worst one.
“What do you want?” Her voice held a sliver of alarm.
“To see you, and to see if it’s true.” When she backed up against her bedroom wall and there was nowhere else for her to go, he continued, “If you really were falling in love.” The last word was hard for him to say. His chest constricted in a pain that was almost as unbearable as the day he had to watch his father beat Katarina. There had been nothing more he could do that day to save his sister, and he felt that exact same hopelessness now as he stared at the beautiful Maria. “I suppose it is true.”
“I don’t know what you’re ta—”
“Don’t. You. Dare,” Dominic cut her off with the same slice she had made to his chest. “Don’t you dare play the fucking stupid blonde with me.”
He knew she liked to do it around the Caruso men, so she could trick them and get her way. Her harmless flirting was actually a dangerous game that most likely costed Todd’s life, and Dominic wasn’t going to have any of it.
Something flickered in her emerald eyes as she watched him carefully.
He had let her see just how different he was from his father, from Lucca, and from her. Dominic had a fucking heart and felt full-heartedly, and that was exactly what made him more dangerous than all of them.
“How many dates did it take? Two? Three?” he asked, letting her see the pain his face and his voice.
Maria clearly had been shocked to see that he had such passionate feelings for her, but Dom knew better. She had either fought them or didn’t understand. He knew, because he had done the same thing.
“I told you what would happen, Dominic.” Her voice came out in a whisper before it turned to show her own hurt. “But you locked the door.”
“You don’t know me at all.” Dominic’s words came out in a growl as he punched the wall beside her. It closed her in, making her unable to run from the monster she had created.
Looking down at her, all the feelings he held for the beauty suddenly turned into utter disappointment. “And you’re not the woman I thought you were at all …”
Maria’s face and body tensed, her wondrous green eyes searched for the answer of why he felt that until he spoke it from his lips.
“… not if you’ve chosen Kayne Evans.”
Maria Caruso could have chosen any other man in the country, and he would have understood. Dominic would have bowed the fuck out graciously, because he himself didn’t think he deserved a woman like her. No one did. But anyone was better than a Luciano. Except for one.
Kayne.
“You know him?” she quietly asked, confused.
“I own Blue Park, princess … or did you forget that the second you left my worthless home?” He didn’t wait for the pretentious blonde to spew the bullshit that his home wasn’t worthless. “Kayne and I went to the same high school, and I know the real him. I know him more than you’ll ever know.”
Dominic didn’t know what effect Kayne had over women, but he had thought Maria was smarter than that.
It would hurt, but Dominic let himself finally touch her. For one second, he let himself sickly pretend she was his, that she had allowed him to touch her. With his hand in a relaxed fist, he reached up to run the back of his fingertips over her flushed cheeks. He began quickly memorizing her perfect face, as it would be the last time, which made his heart break when he gave her the answer her mind valiantly tried to deny. “I know I am.”
A part of him prayed she would see it before he walked back out that door forever, but he doubted it. Maria wasn’t the kind of girl who changed her mind.
Letting his hand drop from her cheek, he picked up the strand of spun gold that rested on the top of her breasts, that beckoned for him to touch, to feel because he wasn’t going to get the chance again. Rubbing the silk between his fingers, it felt just how he had imagined it.
“You’ve haunted my dreams every night, Maria.”
He knew she had the same dreams by the way she looked up at him and had yet to detest him.
Dominic could see the pleading in her eyes, and he was going to give her a taste of what she wanted ….
Leaning down, he brought his lips to her throat. Inhaling deeply, he smelled that sweet scent of vanilla up close, letting himself bathe in it for once, finally understanding why he had been so drawn to her scent—it held a little secret. A single drop of bourbon that you could only get straight from the source.
“For weeks, I have dreamed of you …” Dominic let his lips hover over her skin, careful not to touch as he neared her lips. With his hand holding her face in place, he could feel the silent little push that she tried to make for their lips to meet, but he didn’t let them, keeping his a whisper away. “And you didn’t even give me a chance to show you what we could be.” Dominic let his lips dance along hers for a split-second. “Now …” This part is going to hurt me just as badly as you, he silently spoke before pulling away. Taking a step back, he finally had Maria Caruso right where every man in Kansas City wanted her. “… you will never know.”
Giving her his back, he didn’t dare look back as he disappeared out of her door and her life for good, without remorse.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Leo standing there, but he simply turned to go in the other direction. Going back down the long steps, Lucca stood waiting in the foyer, but Dom just headed for the front door.
“That’s it?” the underboss taunted him.
With his hand on the doorknob, Dom paused for a moment before he violently spun back around on his heels, going right up to the boogieman to spit in his face, “What do you suggest? Drug her, take her back to my house, and lock her away until she falls in love with me?”
Lucca’s blue-green eyes glowed.
“Yeah.” Dominic laughed mockingly. “You’re not the only one who knows secrets.”
Lucca spoke through gritted teeth, “I didn’t force Chloe to fall in—”
“It’s called Stockholm syndrome. You should look into it sometime.”
“Dominic …” Lucca warned him that he had better tread fucking carefully, his voice coming out in a harsh whisper. “You know exactly why I had to bring Chloe here! Lucifer had already made one attempt to capture her in a mall full of witnesses, and if I had been five minutes later the day I took her, then your father would have shown her what Stockholm syndrome really fucking was.” Pausing for a moment, the boogieman then gave him a warning, “Now, I get that you’re pissed, but you better watch it.”
Running a hand through his hair, Dom tried to take deep breaths to get the scent of Maria out of his mind. “Sorry.”
“I am not saying what I did was right,” Lucca admitted a truth softly, one that he had never said before, but he wasn’t the least bit sorry. “But I did what I had to do, not only to protect her from her worst nightmare … but to get the woman I love.”
“Maria is not Chloe,” Dom reminded him the bit of information that he was clearly missing.
“No,” Lucca agreed, his voice going dark. “But Kayne still bleeds the same as Lucifer.”
Hearing footsteps hit the top of the stairs, both men fell silent when Maria graciously walked down the steps with Leo.
It took everything he had to hold his tongue when she flipped the lock he had held in his hands.
“Please don’t stop on my account.”
Sensing the tension that continued from upstairs, Leo excused himself out the front door. “I’ll be in the car, waiting with Jerry.”
“I was just leaving,” Dom snapped, turning from Lucca, who had yet to be of any help in their fifty-fifty agreement, making him wonder when the hell he was going to hold up his end of the deal.
“Me, too,” she retorted after flipping her gold hair that he loved so much into his face when he came up behind her.
She was fucking lucky Lucca’s ass was here, otherwise he would have made her regret it.
Mumbling under his breath, his words were for him alone. “Try that when your big brother’s not around, see what the fuck will happen.”
Shaking his head, Dom saw that Lucca might have heard it as he went to close the door behind them. He watched as Maria took a step closer to the car that Leo was just a couple of feet away from now.
The world slid away, and all he could hear was the sound of the strange engine of the car …
Every fiber of his being knew what was coming before it even happened. His instinct to save Maria overwhelmed him as he ran to close the distance between them.
The engine suddenly clicked, shutting off. Then there was a single moment of silence …
Dominic wrapped his arms around Maria.
BOOM.
Dominic stood outside the hospital, letting the pouring rain beat at him. It had been one week since …
“Leo!”
Dominic had held her tightly as she screamed her baby brother’s name with a pang that went through him.
It hurt him to the core that he could only save one, that it wasn’t simply a choice he made, but it was one he made without a single thought. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway, since Leo was too close, and the blast would have only killed them.
Both Maria and he tensed at seeing Leo slowly stand. He had felt the sheer relief that washed through her body as he’d begun to turn, but Dominic had known better. You didn’t experience hell without coming back with a few scars.
Even though Dominic knew that, it still hadn’t prepared him for the damage he saw.
Turning to show his once-perfect face fully, the left side of Leo’s face was no longer immaculate. A shard had impaled itself into his left eye socket, leaving the right eye in perfect physical shape, yet it was filled with pain and sheer terror—a vision that would scar Dominic for life.
The cry from the woman who still lay in his arms would somehow cut even deeper. “No!”
Watching Maria exit the hospital, it was the first time he had seen her since that wretched day. Dominic could still feel the heat that burned on his back from the explosion when he managed to shield Maria’s body with his, the same way he could still feel the break in his heart that she had put there.
For not giving them a single chance.
He had been furious that day, his anger getting the best of him, but that explosion put things into perspective. And not seeing her beautiful face until right now only solidified it.
Maria took a step under the awning. It might’ve protected her from the rain, but it didn’t protect her from the violent winds as her beautiful gold hair spun. She still looked perfect, but only almost. A part of her looked broken or lost, most of all, she looked tired.
Dom understood, as he felt it too. He had waited every day out here for her, knowing she needed space from him…
“Maria, I’m so sorry,” Dominic whispered to her, holding her tightly when she began to shake
while the paramedics drove away.
Something in Maria had snapped then. Pushing him back, she hit his chest. “Don’t you dare act like you care or give a fuck about me after how you just talked to me.”
All he could do was stand there as he watched her first tear fall … then another as she continued to hit him. It would be the first time the princess, made of ice, would cry.
That was the thing about ice …
It eventually melted.
Dom waited there to give her one last shot to see what he saw. Both were too worn down for a fight with each other, and all that was left for him to do was hold his hand out for her and pray that she’d take it ….
A car pulled up between them. Dominic didn’t have to look inside the navy blue Charger to know who it was. He had clocked the car waiting for her for the last thirty minutes. He knew because he had been standing out here for the last seven days.
Staring into her emerald eyes as her the hair whipped her face, he prayed for her to stop when she reached for the car door.
Please, Maria, don’t do this.
“You never finished telling me how you knew I was heartless.”
Hearing her beautiful voice yell out at him gave him an ounce of hope, something he hadn’t felt for a very long time.
“Don’t get in that car, princess, and I’ll tell you,” Dominic begged her, praying that her soul, that was a match to his, would hear it and come to him. She had to feel it—how much he fought going to her right now. Her body had to scream out for her to come to him too.
I beg of you, Maria … don’t do it. There will be no going back from thi—
“Maria,” he heard her name being called from inside the car.
No! His soul cried out for her when she dropped her eyes from his to the man inside the car.
He knew it the second she looked away that he had lost her … when he almost had her. He didn’t watch as she got in the car, looking instead at the man who had just stolen everything from him.