“Johnny! Daddy, you can’t let him take me. Please! Help me!”
“Dominic is a good man. He’ll take care of you. You belong to him now, be a good moglie and behave for him.”
Aw shit, it’s a match tossed on a stack of dynamite. Regina starts struggling like a demon possessed. “Wife? Have you lost your fucking mind? Fuck you! I hate you! You’re a horrible father, the shittiest father in the Western Hemisphere! When you die, I’ll spit on your grave.”
Damn it, she’s struggling so much she’s going to hurt herself. I bend over and toss her over my shoulder. It has an added benefit of shutting her up. I grab her bag from the floor.
The woman who opened the front door comes running. Her eyes wide, she backs away as I leave.
I hit the elevator button and let Regina down. I’m pretty sure there are cameras covering the elevator as well as the garage I’m going to. The last thing I need is someone seeing this. I had driven the car over to show Johnny, and now I’m glad I did. “You’re going to behave or I’m going to make you behave.”
“You get off on hurting women, throwing them around, showing how big and strong you are? You’re disgusting.”
The elevator opens, it’s empty. Thank fuck. “My dick doesn’t get hard hurting a woman. You were hurting yourself.”
“When I don’t show up tomorrow Richard will know it’s because of my father. He won’t believe I just won’t show up. Richard will go to the police.”
I laugh, I wonder if she still believes in Santa Claus. “There is no way in hell Richard is going to the police.”
As we get to the car she tries to trip me. That’s it. “Are you claustrophobic or afraid of the dark?”
Her brow creases in confusion. “No, why?”
It clicks for her too late. Now she really starts to struggle. I’m done though, she’s getting on my damn nerves. That and she’s making my dick hard with all her panting, which makes her breasts heave and sway. “You could have sat in the front like a normal person. Now you get to ride in the trunk.”
“No, please, Dominic. I’ll be good.”
I ignore her and pop the trunk. At least it’s clean and roomy. Hell, you could fit four or five people in here. I go to pick her up and she tries to kick me. It’s a good thing she annoyed me. I can focus on that instead of how she feels in my arms, because fuck me does she feel good. She lands with a bit of a thump as I let her go quickly. Her eyes go wide when I slam the trunk closed. The second it’s shut she starts kicking the trunk. She’d better not put any dents in it.
I make the drive back to my hotel in less than ten minutes. In the elevator I hit up Valdez and let him know my problem. I’m grateful he only pauses for a heartbeat before giving me what I need. He texts me the address of a safe house not far from the city and lets me know he’ll have someone meet me there with what I need within the hour. It only takes fifteen minutes to pack up and check out.
***
Regina
I can’t believe this. I cannot fucking believe this. This is a nightmare, a complete fucking nightmare. Johnny not only didn’t try and stop Dominic Sabatini from kidnapping me, he told me to be a good girl, that I belong to Dominic, that I’m to be his wife. What in the actual fuck? Dead, Johnny is dead to me, this is too much, too fucking far. Dominic Sabatini is going to wish he were dead when I’m done with him. I’m going to kick his balls in until he’s choking on them. Stupid, how the hell could I have been so stupid as to let those dimples blind me to the fact he’s a psychopath?
The car brakes hard, damn it, and he’s a crappy driver. I take a deep breath, I’m in the trunk of a car, bound with a silk tie around my wrists. Focus, Regina, try again. It’s only seconds before I give up, the man can tie a knot. The more I try to get out the more it hurts. And my shoulder aches from when I tried to get away in the condo. Dominic’s grip was unforgiving. I just couldn’t believe it, I was sure any second he would let go, Johnny would tell him to let me go.
Another lurching stop, then the car is shut off. The drive didn’t take long. Where are we? I tense, ready to kick up the minute the trunk opens. After a few minutes I give up. We’ve stopped but he’s leaving me in here. He’s leaving me in the trunk. I still can’t wrap my head around it, any of it.
Closing my eyes, I go over the last few hours trying to figure out how and why this happened. I refuse to think about the moment in the hallway, it was stupid and obviously didn’t mean a damn thing. Dinner had gone on forever, with Johnny and Dominic trying to include me in the discussion of local politics and issues. Johnny wasn’t even trying to be subtle about getting me interested in Dominic and vice versa. It was embarrassing having my accomplishments listed as if I was a prized cow for sale.
Escaping to my room, I was congratulating myself on getting through the evening. Then Dominic was there in front of me. He was too close, too big, too gorgeous, too overwhelming.
I couldn’t believe him when he started talking, saying all those horrible things about Richard. None of it made any sense, he was talking about someone else. He didn’t know Richard. How dare he say such awful things? I refused to look at his stupid phone, refused to believe what he was saying.
Angry, I send another hard kick into the metal, needing to do something. This was Johnny trying to control me all over again, and I was done. Except he wouldn’t stop, and he was so close he scared me. When he said my name, those dimples flashing, I forgot everything around me; he was all I saw, and it terrified me. It happened without me even thinking about it. I’ve never hit another person in my life. The moment my palm met his beautiful face, I instantly regretted it. The look in his eyes terrified me, for a heartbeat I was sure he was going to kill me.
When he walked away I don’t know how I stayed standing. The moment he was gone all the fight drained from me. I felt hopeless as I thought of what Johnny was willing to do, how far he was willing to go. It was then I knew I was doing the right thing. Once I left tomorrow, I would never see him again.
I had barely managed to lock the door when it was kicked open, and in seconds I was on the floor being tied up.
The car starts again. Dominic told me Johnny cared about me. Obviously that was a lie or he wouldn’t let me be tied up and tossed into the trunk of a car. Where are we going? How far are Johnny and Dominic willing to go to keep me from Richard, and why does it mean so much to Dominic? Is he trying to make a move up in the mafia by taking me as his wife? Wife...god, I shudder at the idea of Dominic as my husband. Liar, my body whispers, it was a shudder not of distaste, but of desire. No. No, I love Richard. There is no way I will marry Dominic, no way I will let him touch me.
Dominic had laughed when I told him Richard would call the police. It reminds me of a few different times when we were in the vicinity of a police officer. Once when we were in a coffee shop Richard made me leave before I had even finished my coffee. He got anxious, refused to look the cop’s way, made rude comments about them below his breath. I tried to brush it off, in New York city cops didn’t have the best reputation, but now...no, stop it. That’s what Dominic wants. He wants you to doubt Richard.
I shake my head, I love Richard, he loves me, and he cares about me. Nothing Dominic Sabatini says is going to change that.