Part of the Family

by Cristina Grenier

  He was dreaming. This had to be some nightmare that he would soon wake up from to find Makayla sleeping serenely beside him.

  “Mom…” He ventured, his head swimming with confusion. “Why? Why the hell would you investigate her like this?”

  “Don’t be naive, Dominic. I love you. You’re my only son - and I want to make sure that you’re safe, even if it’s from yourself.”

  He barely heard the rest of what she said. Dominic honestly expected - he hoped that he would wake up at any moment. By the time he hung up, he was leaning back against the wall his mind whirling.

  Makayla? A criminal? The very idea was laughable. She was the victim, not the perpetrator. She had never been anything but completely honest with him - at least, to the best of her ability.

  The girl has a history of extortion - of cozying up to moneyed people, taking them for all they’re worth, and then disappearing.

  Makayla had only been living with him for three months. Did he really know her as well as he thought?

  The moment the thought entered his mind, he felt guilty. His mother had to be misinformed. Kayla couldn’t be capable of extortion. Not when she didn’t even like to use his credit cards when he wasn’t around!

  ...Unless it was just a ploy. People had certainly pretended for far longer to get what they wanted.

  Dominic did his best to convince himself to go back to bed. This was ridiculous. His mother was clearly just overreacting, and she’d call back soon to apologize.

  If that was the case, however, then what were the documents she’d sent him?

  Almost as if in a trance, he found himself walking down the hall to find Brett, who was tidying the living room. All it took was one look at the expression on his face to bring a frown to the elder man’s face. “Are you alright, sir?”

  “Brett, where’s the mail?” He didn’t answer his question, choosing, instead, to get to the meat of the matter.

  Brett looked completely surprised. It was rather late for him to be looking through the mail, after all. He usually got to a day’s post twenty to forty eight hours after it arrived. Everything important got sent to his office. “It’s in your inbox sir, as always.” Almost before Brett had finished speaking, Dominic was headed to the office. The moment he entered, he saw it - a thick manila envelope in his inbox.

  He paused, hesitating slightly before he picked it up.

  Did he really want to see what was inside?

  Dominic sank down behind his desk and slit the envelope open, emptying the contents over his desk.

  His mother was right - there were reams and reams of information. The more he read, the harder Dominic’s expression became. Makayla had, indeed, come from a problematic family, but, according to these documents, she contributed to the problems far more than she let on. From a young age, she had been caught several times stealing and, after being removed from her home at ten years old because of unfit living conditions, she returned only six months later, having robbed the family that had taken her in. As there were no other families that wanted to take her - and shelters in her region of California were few and far between, Makayla had been returned to her family.

  At thirteen, she was arrested for juvenile drug trafficking, and the only thing that saved her from serving time was that she’d turned in all of her friends as well. Her parents had given her up for adoption again when she was fifteen, and this time she had only lasted three months before she was caught with fifty thousand dollars’ worth of jewelry.

  The last time she had served time on record was when she was eighteen years old - she had stolen a car and been caught trying to sell it, whereupon she had admitted to the crime and ended up serving six months in a minor woman’s prison.

  Dominic read through the documents over and over again in disbelief.

  Makayla had been thieving for almost as long as she could walk - of course, she had neglected to mention this in all the time they were together. She had hurt people - been taken into their loving households and then run off with as much as she could carry, betraying their trust and breaking their hearts.

  All this time, she told him that she was following her dreams - that she made this deal for the sake of her schooling and her future, when really, all she was doing was biding her time.

  God, he was such a fool.

  Every look...every touch...every fucking kiss...he had to wonder: had she even been abused by her parents, or was that just another ploy to make him pity her? Had she just been pretending to be traumatized? He wouldn’t be surprised, not after all of this.

  Dominic felt sick - betrayed and weak.

  For what felt like hours, all he could do was look over the papers that laid Makayla’s past out starkly before his eyes. She had lied to him - lied about everything, and he let himself be taken in by it. After priding himself on his decision-making - being so certain that she was just what he needed, he’d made a mistake.

  And now he was going to have to correct it.

  Chapter 9 - Past Demons

  Makayla didn’t know if she’d ever slept better. She snuggled deep beneath the mountain of blankets in Dominic’s bed and knocked out for a solid twelve hours. It was around six in the morning when a low series of bangs woke her, and she found herself swimming drowsily back into consciousness.

  God, she never realized how much she missed sleep until she had deprived herself of it for a few days. Her last days of studying for her exams had been a struggle - she’d hardly eaten and had more than a few nightmares where she failed everything - but it would all be worth it when she saw her scores. She knew she’d done well, and she couldn’t wait to share the news with Dominic the moment her marks were posted online. It was something she could speak to his mother about - It was the one thing she could impress the older woman with.

  A louder bang brought her back to consciousness with a start, and Makayla clawed her way out from underneath the blankets to gaze around the room blearily. Dominic wasn’t in bed - she assumed he had already woken up for work - at least, until another loud noise drew her attention to the closet.

  There was someone inside, methodically tossing out things so they hit the opposite wall, marring the immaculate, deep blue paint. For a long moment, Makayla stared, completely confused, until another object hurtled from the doorway to strike the wall with a loud smack - it was a single red-bottom high heel - one Dominic bought for her in Paris.

  It had cost at least seven hundred dollars, and though she knew the man wasn’t wrapped up in his own riches, she couldn’t help but think it slightly irresponsible for him to fling it around like that - especially at this hour of the morning. Frowning, she rose from bed with a stretch to pad, barefoot, over to the closet and peer inside.

  She narrowly escaped being hit by the second shoe of the pair, and dodged with a sound of outrage. “Dominic, what the hell are you doing?”

  At the sound of her voice, he straightened, turning to stare at her with eyes so cold she felt she had been doused in ice water. “Helping you pack.” His words held not the slightest bit of warmth, and the young woman merely gaped at him in shock.

  “Pack?” When she finally found her words, her voice was tentative. “Where are we going?”

  “We’re not going anywhere,” he returned savagely, continuing to toss her things out of the closet. “You’re going back to California for the holidays. For good, I think.”

  Makayla felt as if the floor had been yanked from beneath her. A sour taste rose in her mouth as her heart stumbled in her chest. Going home? Why on earth would he want her to go home? Just the previous night he had carried her to bed and stroked her hair as she fell asleep? What was going on?

  “Dominic...I don’t understand.” She tried, trying to slow her racing heart. “If I’ve done something to upset you…”

  He barked a harsh laugh that made her flinch. “Oh, it’s not what you’ve done.” He finally marched out of the closet to face her directly, six and a half feet of pure, solid rage. Makayla shra
nk back from him, her mouth dry in shock. “It’s what you were planning to do.” With absolutely no warning, he thrust a manila folder at her. Though Makayla scrambled to catch it, it slipped through her fingers and hit the floor, strewing its contents all over the floor. She immediately dropped to her knees to try and gather them up, only to freeze as her eyes landed on a yellow printed form.

  It was her arrest record.

  All at once, her body went cold. Slowly, she picked up the paper between two fingers, as if it would bite her. “Where did you get this?” She could hardly draw the breath to speak.

  “Surprised?” Dom all but whispered, his voice dangerously soft. “I was.”

  “Dominic…”

  No. No, no no...this couldn’t be happening. “How long was the longest you ever made it?” The man above her asked silkily, his eyes glittering in judgmental rage. “Three months? So how much longer did I have before you started skimming off the top? Before you quit the innocent act and showed your true colors?”

  Every word he spoke was like a dagger piercing her heart agonizingly. “Dominic, please…” She tried, drawing all the papers beneath her together as she looked over them in horror. It was like a reel of her sordid past in flagrant color - every petty crime she’d ever committed - a compendium of her pain and regret.

  This was what she always ran from - what she was terrified would catch up with her and bring memories reeling back to the surface. “Let me explain.” But she didn’t know if she could. If she had the strength to tell him when he was staring at her as if she were something on the bottom of his shoe.

  “You don’t need to explain anything.” He replied darkly, kicking open a nearby suitcase to drop a handful of her things into it. “All you need to do is get out.”

  She felt tears welling up in her eyes as her breathing increased. Images swirled beneath her eyelids as she remembered the pain she had endured - the screaming, the threats and the constant fear for her own safety. She thought all of that was over - and now she realized how naive she’d been.

  “Oh don’t.” Dominic snarled, refusing to look at her. “Don’t fucking start. How much have you already gotten out of me? I’d say you did pretty good, didn’t you? You can sell all the clothes and shoes off - that should tide you over until you find your next mark.

  Mark.

  Makayla stumbled to her feet and across the room until she could cling to the edge of the bed. She felt as if she was going to be sick. As if, any moment, her father’s large hand would come hurtling down and the pain would bloom, relentless and blinding….

  When Dominic’s arms wrapped in a steel like grip around her waist, her reaction was immediate. She screamed, struggling and panicking in an attempt to get away from him. She could let him hurt her. She wouldn’t let him hurt her. “Don’t touch me!” She shrieked, near hysterical. “Don’t fucking touch me!”

  “Fuck, Makayla! Stop it! Stop fucking around, it’s over!”

  She scratched and shoved at him, doing everything in her power to get out of his grip. He was touching her - she couldn’t stand him touching her!

  Dominic’s arms clamped around her like a vice, and the next thing she knew she was being carried down the main hall of the penthouse. She dimly saw Brett and Sophia’s horrified faces as they watched Dominic manhandle her all the way to the elevator before dumping her on the floor before it. Within moments, he returned to his bedroom and brought two suitcases, coming back to her as the elevator doors dinged open.

  By now, Makayla was almost hyperventilating. Her vision had blurred and every breath was an effort.

  Dominic, however, was monolithic in his rage. He forced her into the elevator, and her bags along with her before glaring down at her trembling form. “I assume you can handle a ticket back to where you came from - it should be a nice change, paying for something yourself, for once.”

  And then, the elevator doors shut, and she was travelling down, down into an abyss of sorrow

  and pain.

  Her past had come back.

  It always came back.

  Maybe it was time for her to accept that, and stop running from it.

  Her parents, Makayla realized dismally, had always been right. She would never amount to anything. All her struggles had been for nothing - all she was good for was getting them what they needed.

  God knew she couldn’t even do that for herself.

  **

  Melody had called out of work for the third day in a row.

  She sat, silently, in the living room, her breakfast untouched, as the clock on the wall ticked away the seconds.

  She wanted, with every fiber of her being, to go to Makayla’s room. To force her way inside and snap her out of the haze she’d been in ever since she returned, but after several attempts over the past few days, she was beginning to get worried.

  No, that was a lie.

  She’d been worried since she heard Makayla’s voice on the other end of the line - all the way from New York.

  “I’m sorry, Melody, but I need a favor.” There was nothing especially out of the ordinary about the words - unless you counted the fact that Melody could count the number of times Makayla had asked her for favors on one hand. It was how she said the words - they were hollow and emotionless - and she could barely heard Makayla in them.

  She had been terrified almost immediately, and when her friend told her that she needed a ticket back to California, Melody had almost fucked up her credit card with the speed with which she’d purchased the damn thing. She got to the airport an hour early and waited with bated breath to receive her friend, but the woman who met her at the welcome gate wasn’t the Makayla she remembered.

  She had dark circles under her eyes and looked as if she hadn’t slept in weeks. She barely spoke, and when she did, there was little to no emotion in her voice.

  Makayla - the strong, proud, stubborn woman she knew was completely gone. She operated like a robot -finding not the slightest bit of pleasure in the life she led. There were no more girl’s nights, no more movies and laughter. After Makayla secured both of her jobs at the diner and medical center, she took every shift she could get, and when she was home, she sequestered herself in her room, shutting everyone and everything out.

  Melody was unsettled, to say the very least. She had to wonder what the hell had happened that the young woman had walked away from everything in New York. The last time she talked to her, Makayla sounded happier than she ever had. Vibrant and in love with life.

  And most probably, Melody soon realized, in love with Dominic West. It was the most probable explanation for Makayla’s sudden change - for the way she smiled and laughed and even talked sexy things with Melody like she had never been averse to them…

  But she did none of that now. Now, she barely functioned. If she didn’t need it, Makayla didn’t engage.

  Taking a deep breath, Melody prepared herself to face her friend again. Kayla had a shift at the medical center that evening, so if it she was going to talk to her, it was going to have to be now or never. Tentatively, she knocked at Makayla’s door. “Kayla? Are you awake? I just want to talk.”

  There was no answer.

  Her mouth turning downward, Melody grasped the doorknob and pushed, revealing the darkness in which Kayla sat. She was settled on the edge of her bed, unmoving, as she stared at the wall.

  Her body was taut and trembling, and Melody rushed to her in shock. “Kayla!” When she tried to put her hands around her friend, Makayla jerked away, her expression hard.

  “Don’t!”

  Melody’s mouth dropped open. While she knew Kayla tended to be pretty hands-off with other people, she hadn’t flinched away from her since the very first months they’d known one another.

  This couldn’t be good.

  Carefully, she sat on the edge of the bed, a good foot away from the young woman. “Kayla, I’m sorry. I just came to check on you.”

  “I’m fine.” That same emotionless, cool voice that made Melody
’s insides curdle.

  “I think it’s pretty obvious that you’re not fine,” Melody replied, her tone cautiously neutral. “You barely even come out of your room. You’re not eating.” A beat thick with tension passed between them. “Makayla, talk to me. What happened in New York?”

  When at least five minutes of quiet passed, Melody was almost certain that her friend wasn’t going to talk - but then, Makayla surprised her.

  “He threw me out.”

  Melody inhaled sharply, her eyes wide with shock. “He what?”

  “He knows, Melody.” For the first time since she’d returned home, Makayla’s voice cracked with emotion. “He knows, and he doesn’t want me anywhere near him. He sent me away and...he was right, wasn’t he?”

  “Oh honey…” Horrified, Melody reached for her again without thinking. This time, when Makayla reacted, it wasn’t nearly as violent. She stiffened in the blonde’s arms a moment before her trembling intensified. “No. No, he wasn’t right. That asshole doesn’t know anything about you.”

  “But he does.” Kayla returned on a whisper heavy with pain. “He’s knows everything I did...everything they made me do…”

  “That wasn’t you.” Melody returned fiercely. “You’ve paid for their mistakes enough. All that’s behind you now.”

  Slowly, Kayla shook her head and Melody felt her own throat thicken as tears pricked at her eyes. Wordlessly, she pulled Kayla’s curly head against her bosom, feeling the hot moisture of her tears as she finally let them come. “I thought…” Makayla’s breath hitched as she clung to Melody as if struggling physically against her grief, “I thought I loved him.”

  Oh God.

  Melody held her close, her heart breaking for her friend. No one deserved pain like this, but Makayla deserved it least of all.