It feels like we’re driving forever when the car finally stops. Okay, knees tight against my chest, when he opens the trunk, kick out hard against his chest.
The trunk opens and nothing goes to plan. He brushes my legs away as if he were waving off a fly. As he sets me down I take the opening and bring my knee up to his groin. Yes! He growls, oh shit. His hand turns into a vice around the back of my neck as he growls again. “It’s obvious you were never spanked, little girl. Don’t think I have forgotten that slap. You’ll pay for it...soon.”
Oh god, I should be afraid of him, but no, my stupid body comes to life all over again at his touch, at the way he purrs the word soon. Why the hell did that one word make my nipples hard?
A motorcycle roars up beside us. It’s dark, I can’t see much of the figure beside us except he’s big, maybe an inch shorter than Dominic but as wide, maybe even wider. Hope dies out when the guy nods to Dominic.
“Sabatini?”
Dominic nods.
“Kane Morgan, Valdez sent me.”
“Thanks for coming.” Dominic marches me in front of him. It’s a small house, with a wide porch. Kane presses his hand where the doorknob should be, and a scanner comes on. A click sounds loud and the door swings open. He raises his hand to keep us where we are, and keys in a code into a large box beside the door.
“Name and access, please,” a woman asks.
“Kane Morgan, wildflower.”
Kane hits a button and the place lights up. We’re in a living room with a leather sofa and a recliner in the corner. In the light Kane is any guy you would see on the back of a motorcycle with long brown hair, beard, leather jacket and chaps. He moves like Dominic though, smooth, lithe, muscles rippling beneath his clothes. Dominic pushes me forward after Kane. Kane unzips his leather jacket and
pulls out a thick blue file folder. He tosses it with a smack onto the small table with four chairs in an eat-in kitchen. Pulling out a chair, he turns it around and sits down.
Dominic unties me, pressing me down into a chair. It’s hard plastic and uncomfortable. I focus on trying to get blood back into my hands, doing my damnedest to ignore the frissons of electricity still running through me at his touch. Bruises are forming around my wrists.
Without a word Dominic opens the file, then turns it around for me to see. I blink at the sight of a woman beaten so badly in the face and upper body there is barely any skin not darkened from the bruising.
“This is what Richard Taylor did to Katrina, the missing stripper. He’s a regular at the club so she thought she was safe making some extra money hooking for him at a party at his place. Taylor is into pain. Six BDSM clubs in the city and into New Jersey have barred him from entering because he doesn’t respect safe words or women.”
Dominic fans out pictures, oh my god, a woman’s breast has—oh god, my stomach revolts.
“These are the women who have come forward,” Dominic growls.
“There are at least four other women who refuse to go on the record because they are scared of him. He tells anyone who will listen he’s mobbed up and can get to anyone who crosses him.” Morgan’s face is filled with disgust.
I can’t believe this. This isn’t Richard, not the Richard I know.
Dominic flips a page, it’s a mug shot of Richard. “He’s coming undone, he was picked up on a drug charge two months ago. He lost his job and he’s about to be evicted.”
“No, he owns his condo.” Richard assured me his condo was all but paid off. How when it was time we would sell the condo, and the profit would be more than enough for a significant down payment on a big home in the suburbs where we could raise our children. I’ve met Richard across the street from his office, the last time just two weeks ago. This doesn’t make any sense.
Dominic lifts an eyebrow, doesn’t say a word, just turns the page. It’s another mug shot and the charges listed are stark, simple, brutal. Shaking my head, the words swim in front of me. He turns the page again, holy shit. It’s a bank statement and the numbers are insane, negative balance after negative balance. They can’t be real. A bank would have closed the account—then there’s a massive deposit...from Lusso Imports. I know what Lusso Imports is, it’s a front for Benny Bruno. No, no, Richard was Benny’s friend, but they didn’t do business together.
Richard told me although he was friends with Benny, it was only because they had gone to NYU together. How they became friends before Richard knew what Benny did. Richard swore he wanted nothing to do with the mafia. He said he had doubts he needed to overcome about us because of who my father is. I blink fast at the tears that rise at the mere memory of that long week Richard took to consider if we should continue. I had been so relieved when he told me he loved me so much he couldn’t stay away. I didn’t want anything to do with the life, so he felt he could be with me.
Another page turned, more bank statements, more deposits from Lusso Imports, another page, more deposits, charges at hotels, charges at clubs. No, Richard is a workaholic. He was always at work or at home working. He’s apologized dozens of times for it. Once we are married he promised he would cut back his hours.
A flick of Dominic’s wrist turns over pictures now. Screenshots of Richard with a woman on her social media, dated from a month ago. She’s beautiful, blonde, thin, blue eyes. Another screenshot of a different woman who could be the twin of the first woman, but her breasts are huge. This one is dated three weeks ago, another screenshot of another woman, it’s too much. Fake, these pictures have to be fake. I push them away.
But all of it? How could all of it be fake? Why? I want to scream. I want to cry but I can’t, not in front of these men. My thoughts are frantic, ping-ponging around my head at a thousand miles an hour. At the base of my skull pain is building and spreading. “I need to talk to Richard. I have to see his face, if I can just talk to him...I can know for sure. I want to talk to Richard.”
Dominic’s jaw works. “Richard Taylor is an evil, dangerous piece of shit. You aren’t getting anywhere near him, not now, not ever again.”
Doesn’t he get it? I have to talk to Richard. “Richard won’t hurt me. He would never hurt me.”
Shaking his head, Dominic looks to Kane. “Do you have cuffs or something? No zip ties, they cut into the skin.”
Kane nods. “Be right back.”