A Dominant Salvation (A Dominant Series Book 3)

by Lena Black

  When I glimpse down quickly, I notice the call has been answered and say in a clear, steady voice, “What are you going to do to me, Dante?”

  “No questions,” he growls. “Drive.” With the tip of the barrel still smashed into my ghost-white flesh, he leans in to whisper in my ear, “And if I were you, I wouldn’t do anything rash. I won’t think twice about using this on you.”

  He caresses my cheek tenderly and kisses it. I shudder, vomit fluxing in my throat.

  “Pity,” he murmurs.

  I’m so terrified. How I’ve managed to move, to breathe, to speak is beyond me. I just want to wake up from this nightmare. I want Hunt.

  “Take a left at the next street and head north out of the city.”

  He shoves the barrel of the gun into my temple, reminding me of its presence, as if he needed to. I hesitate, and the snapping click of him cocking the piece reverberates down my back, as a bullet is placed in the chamber, ready to take my life.

  I pray Maya hears my dire situation and calls Hunt.

  What am I going to do? How am I going to get out of this?

  “Where are you taking me, Dante?” I ask with a nervous tremble as we drive the wet, busy street. It’s raining hard, coming down in thick, blinding sheets, and I turn on the windshield wipers.

  He removes the gun from my face, jamming it into my ribs, and says with his eerily cool demeanor, “We’re going to go somewhere you and I can get nice and cozy. Then I’ll finally take what’s rightfully mine.” He sweeps his finger over my cheek in a tender gesture.

  I cringe, but do what he instructs, and turn left once the traffic allows me to do so. I head up the road, gripping the steering wheel firmly, fighting the overwhelming urge to heave chunks. I’ve never felt this level of terror, with nauseating surges of panic. My heart pounds in my chest so hard, the thunderous pumps thump in my ears. It’s so deafening I’m afraid I may miss his next direction.

  The mingled smell of his pungent cologne and potent testosterone is dense, filling the closed-up car with a sickeningly sweet aroma.

  “Turn right on Van Ness,” he orders, harshly jabbing me in the ribs with the barrel of his gun. It angers me. Unable to hold it back, I snap at him, “Don’t fucking do that again.”

  I glimpse over at him, glaring at me with utter contempt.

  When we come to a stop before the turn, his hand makes eye-popping contact with my cheek, leaving behind a hot, throbbing imprint of his hand. I feel the outline across my stunned face. I set my hand over it, trying to rub away the after burn of the blast.

  “Never talk to me in that tone, baby,” he says, as if he didn’t just completely lose his cool. “Now drive.”

  The light turns green and I turn the corner, heading up Van Ness toward the bay.

  “What do you want with me?” I ask with a calm voice, hoping to catch this fly with a little honey, which I manage quite well considering I’m petrified on the inside. But I need to keep him talking, keep him distracted. He digs the gun into my ribs deeper.

  “Well, once we’ve had our special time together, I will blast your brains out the back of your skull. You see, your pathetic excuse for a husband and ex-lover aren’t the only artists. I am as well,” he boasts proudly. “My art, death. And you will be my masterpiece. I can picture it now. He’ll eventually figure out where I’ve taken you, but of course, I will have been long finished with my work. He’ll arrive, walk into the bedroom, and discover your pretty pink brains sprayed across the wall over your lifeless body on the bed. He’ll admire my work of art, so deeply moved by its poetic beauty.”

  He smiles at the thought, an uneasy peace settling over his face.

  “It won’t end there however. Oh, no, no, no. Next, I’ll drain the last of his money. Since we’re starting a new family. Nessa and I, I mean. Clearly I’m not referring to you and I because you’ll be dead, which is why those twins will need a loving home. Their mother’s murdered and their father’s gone insane with grief. You don’t need to worry, though. We’ll take excellent care of them, raise them as our own. I’ll let my dear brother simmer in his anguish, let it spread and fester in him, and then when he’s broken and penniless, I’ll place the barrel of my gun against his head and finally put him out of his fucking misery. By the time I’m done with him, he’ll beg for me to take his life.”

  Something inside me snaps.

  I can handle losing my own life to this monster, but not my Damian, not my babies. He will never lay a fucking finger on them. My foot turns to lead, weighing down on the gas pedal until we’re hauling ass up the street. I zip through traffic, weaving in and out at dangerously high speeds.

  “What are you doing? Slow the fuck down,” he commands. But I only go faster.

  “What do you want with us?!” I shout. “Why won’t you leave us alone?”

  Feeling my tires skid slightly, I regain control and gun it. He grabs for the door, fear suddenly taking him as he realizes he’s no longer in control of the situation.

  “Slow down,” he commands, trying to maintain order, but I hear the sheer fear in his voice.

  “Tell me what you want!” I scream back.

  He turns to me quickly, pressing the gun into my temple. “I said, slow the fuck down.”

  “No, this ends now,” I respond, glancing at him for only an instant. When I look back, as if everything’s in slow motion, an eighteen-wheeler appears out of a parking lot. Dante lets out a blood-curdling scream, like something out of your deepest, darkest nightmares. I slam on my brakes, but it seems pointless as we come increasingly closer. One last thought enters my mind before we collide with the truck, Hunt.

  Hunt

  I’m heading out of my office when my cell goes off for the hundredth time this morning. I recognize Maya’s number, finding it odd she would call my mobile, and answer it. Her panicked voice screams through shitty reception, “Da…ian, Elle…in trou...”

  Elle’s what?

  “Hello, Maya?”

  “Dan…took her…threaten…”

  “Maya, I can’t hear you. What happened to Elle?!”

  “Kill…was screaming…”

  I run out of my office and head for the stairs, bolting down to the first floor. “Who was screaming, Maya? Was it Elle?!”

  “She…ing too fast…screeching…went silent…”

  “Goddamn it, Maya! What went silent?”

  “Dead…” I freeze at the foot of the staircase as paralyzing fear captures me.

  “Who’s dead?!” Nothing. “Maya, answer me…! What happened to Elle?!”

  The call is lost.

  Did she say dead? No, no I refuse to believe that. She can’t be… Everything falls away, my world suddenly uncertain.

  My phone goes off again and I pick up without looking. “Maya?”

  “Hello,” a concerned female voice says. “Is this Mr. Hunt?”

  “Yes,” I bark, irritated. “Who is this?”

  “Mr. Hunt, I’m calling about your wife.”

  Elle.

  “What about my wife?”

  “Sir, she’s been in an accident.”

  My heart, which has been pounding out of my chest, halts and seers as if I’ve just been stabbed by a scorching poker.

  I can’t breathe, and I begin to shake. “What happened to my wife?”

  “Sir, I am not allowed to divulge more information over the phone. We need you to come down to the hospital immediately.”

  Why won’t anyone tell me what’s happened to my wife?

  I become infuriated.

  “Which hospital?” I snap out.

  “Sacred Heart. We’re…”

  I don’t wait for her to finish. I hang up and run across the main room, grabbing my motorcycle keys off the coffee table where I tossed them the night before. I snatch my leather jacket and helmet off the couch heading to the elevator. I pound the call button repeatedly, commanding it to come faster.

  Where the fuck is it?

  After an eternity of an
guishing torture, it finally fucking appears, and I jump on. Riding it down into the depths of The Artemis, the doors open, and I run toward my bike. I climb on and start her up, revving her a few times before I take off.

  It’s pouring out, unsafe for my current mode of transportation, but it’s also the fastest. I zip through traffic, weaving around breaking cars. I can feel my back tire start to hydroplane a few times, wobbling slightly until I let off the gas and regain control.

  A million thoughts rush through my head. What if she’s seriously hurt or worse? What would I do if she…? What if this morning was the last time I ever saw her? How could I go on never hearing her voice, seeing her face, touching her skin, smelling her sweet scent? What would I do without her? What would be the point in existing?

  Grayson and Skylar, our babies, I’d have to be here for them. I couldn’t abandon them. I can’t allow them to lose both their parents like I did. How would I raise them all on my own? How would I ever explain who their mother was, how wonderful she was, how much she loved them?

  I can remember being terrified like this only one other time in my life, more so than with my parents or my uncle. As horrific as all that was, it never compared to the raw fear of the night she left me.

  …

  “I don’t understand why you’re doing this. Why are you running from me?”

  She yanked her face away from me, distancing herself even further. Not just physically but emotionally. I felt her slipping from my grasp like sand between cracks in your fingers. “I told you already. I can’t do this anymore.”

  “You’re a coward,” I growled, feeling out of control. I’d never been more petrified than that body-numbing moment. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like not being able to fix the situation. I can talk anyone into anything I desire, except for the one time it truly counted.

  Her face snapped back with scowl.

  “Coward? I’m a coward?”

  “Yes. You know what we could be, and that terrifies you. You’re running just like you always do. That makes you a coward, Elle.”

  The elevator came to a dead stop, same as the broken heart in my chest. I prayed the doors would remain shut, keeping her in there with me. Unfortunately, they didn’t.

  “You don’t know anything,” she mumbled softly, quickly turning away and practically running into the large lobby. It was silent except for the echoes of her footsteps moving further from me. I began to panic, heart-gripping panic. I felt like I would throw-up from this unfamiliar emotion.

  “Then make me understand,” I demanded. She stopped immediately, the rubber from her shoes screeching against the marble floor. But, as if she was willing herself not to, she didn’t turn back to me. “How can you go from accepting a future together to saying it’s over? Explain it to me.”

  She stood silently, halfway between me and her escape route leading to the appropriately stormy weather outside. Nothing else would’ve suited the hopelessness I felt.

  After what felt like a lifetime, she tensed and turned back to me with an emotionally blank face. The anxiety was overcoming as I waited for her to say something, anything.

  Nothing could have prepared me for what came out of her mouth next.

  “I saw who you really are, and I don’t want anything to do with it. I don’t want you.”

  “Elle, I love you,” I pleaded. “And whether or not you’ll admit it, you love me, too.” I honestly wasn’t sure in that moment. I’m always sure. But not when it comes to Elle. She’s something entirely different, too unpredictable. Like a storm I could never tame. “I can see it in your eyes, in your body.” I couldn’t. “You want me as I want you.”

  I could have sworn I saw her crack a little, the almost yearning on her face to come to me. But something kept her back. It quickly faded, her eyes hardening, posture stiffening.

  “How could I ever love anyone as fucked-up as you?”

  The sharp words sliced through me like razorblades, shredding me into ribbons.

  Her hands splayed on the glass of the door, ready to swing it open and exit my life when I insistently avowed, “Gabrielle, I won’t let you go. This isn’t over…We’ll never be over.”

  She hesitated and glimpsed back at me before mumbling something I couldn’t make out and disappearing into the storm.

  The two weeks after she left, I held up in my penthouse to avoid running into her. I didn’t trust myself around her. I tried to work from my home office, but it was pointless. No matter where I looked, I was reminded of Elle. She had invaded every part of my existence in the short time we’d had together.

  When I wasn’t sitting around wallowing in pitiful misery, wondering why she’d left me, I thought of ways to get her back and make Dante pay for what he’d done to Gabrielle. Just thinking about his hands on her made me enraged. But truthfully, I was relieved to feel anything but the excruciating bleakness I’d been experiencing. It was the only thing that reminded me I was still alive.

  …

  I’m speeding past late afternoon traffic, desperate to get to her, when I spot the hospital in the near distance through the curtain of rain. I haul ass for it, parking in the drop off zone out front. I jump off the bike and head for the door.

  “Sir, you can’t park there,” an employee states, but I ignore him, running past, and he calls out to me again, “Sir!”

  I rush up to the front desk and give them her name.

  Suddenly, a young Asian nurse walks up to me. “Are you, Mr. Hunt?”

  I look at her with a cocked brow. “Yes,” I bark out, not meaning to be crude, but I want my wife. I want them to tell me where she is.

  “Sir, would you please follow me?”

  “Where’s my wife?”

  “Sir, if you would please just follow me.” The look on her face chills me to the bone. Is it…pity?

  She turns and I follow close behind, heading into the elevator. But, instead of pressing a button for the upper floors, she presses the down button. What the fuck?

  As we ride down into the depths of the hospital, I become ill. When the doors finally open, I’m hit with a sign, staring me right in the face, taunting me. It reads, Morgue.

  No, no, no, no, no. No, this isn’t happening. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. We’re supposed to grow old and gray together. I was supposed to go first.

  “Sir, will you please follow me?” The small nurse watches me, as I remain frozen in the cab.

  “Why have you taken me here?”

  “Mr. Hunt, I’m not allowed to…”

  “Don’t give me that shit. I want to see my wife.”

  “Mr. Hunt, please, follow me.” She doesn’t argue further. She turns and heads down the hall toward double doors with clouded windows.

  I step out and move toward them, every step I take harder to make than the one before. I feel myself turn white, the color fading from my flesh as my heartbeat slows to almost non-existent. The air is thick, stale, making it nearly impossible to take air into my lungs. My fate lies behind these doors. With every stride, I move closer to the inevitable.

  She doesn’t look at me as she opens the door and steps aside, gesturing her hand inside.

  I enter, greeted by a sheeted body lying on a metal embalming table. My breath is shallow. My hands start to shake as tingling adrenaline rushes through my icy veins.

  “Are you, Mr. Damian Hunt?” a man in a surgical getup asks.

  “Yes, that’s me.”

  “Sir, we need you to identify the body. Your wife…”

  “No, please.” I can’t stand to hear the details, not now. “Don’t. Just let me see.”

  “Mr. Hunt…”

  “Lift the damn sheet,” I growl, clenching my fists at my side, eyes clamping shut.

  I glare up at him. Even though I know this isn’t his fault, I can’t help but feel anger towards him. This man was about to negatively affect my life forever. He nods and takes a moment before drawing back the ominous cover.

  Chapter Twenty-Five
>
  To the Grave

  I’m met with a sight that both disgusts and relieves me. Dante’s cadaver lays before me, a gapping gash across his neck, and his face nearly obliterated. If he had one, the coroner turns him facedown so I can examine the only distinguishing marker on his body, a nightmarish rendering of the seven levels of hell from Dante’s Inferno tattooed across the entirety of his back.

  “Sir, is this your brother, Dante Montgomery?”

  “Yes, that’s him,” I nod, “but he’s not my brother.”

  The man gives me a perplexed look. “You’re sure this is him?”

  “Positive.”

  “Thank you, sir.” He clasps his hands in front of him, his expression mimicking sympathy. “And I’m sorry for your loss.”

  I snicker.

  “This is a victory,” I murmur under my breath then turn around and walk out. My phone goes off as I exit the human storage facility.

  Maya.

  I answer on the second ring, “Where are you?”

  “Upstairs, third floor.”

  I jump into the elevator and hit the button, riding the cab to her floor. Joyful relief and petrifying fear overwhelms me as questions hang over my head like an anvil ready to crush me.

  If Dante lies in the morgue, what condition will Elle be in?

  Is she fighting for her life?

  Is my world about to crumble apart?

  The doors slide open to a long corridor. At the end, Maya’s slumped against the wall, Chase standing at her side, his arm wrapped about her shoulders as two police officers talk to them.

  Oh God.

  On approach, they look up at me, faces pale and wet with tears.

  “How is she?” I ask without waiting for an answer before entering the room.

  My world begins to spin again when my eyes set on the most beautiful vision, my wife, alive, breathing, moving. She sits on the end of the bed, fiddling with the back of her hospital gown when she spots me in the doorway. My heart shatters at the image of my wife’s flawless face blemished with bruises and tiny scratches. Above her right brow, a long, stitched gash, covered with thin strips of white bandages. An overwhelming sense of relief floods me until a lone tear breaks from my eye and rolls down my cheek.