Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 69945 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69945 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
He needed to tell me everything I was sure of that, and I wasn’t going to keep him from talking. I would do anything to help him heal. “Go on. Tell me the end.”
“She smiled at me as she lit the place on fire, then she and the man walked away. I dragged myself toward the door. She’d shot me in the left leg, so I lay on my right side as I made slow progress. My left side caught fire as I moved through the flames. I rolled over and over once I made it through the door, trying to extinguish the flames. I was barely conscious when the men I’d called for backup arrived. Lisa and her minion were long gone.”
When he’d told me the basics the night before, I’d never imagined anything that horrific. That she’d been the one to cause his injuries. I took his hands in mine. “How could anyone do that to another person?”
Dom sighed. “Don’t imagine for even a minute that what she did makes her worse than me. I’ve done things just as gruesome.”
“To someone you were married to? Someone you were supposed to care about?”
He shook his head. “She didn’t care about me.”
“But would you… Could you have done that to her?”
“No. Even if I’d known, I would never have left her like that. I don’t want to draw things out. I don’t want to torture her. I just want her dead so it will all be over.”
He took a deep breath. “I spent months in rehab, getting myself to where I could function. It was days before I could even tell anyone what happened. At first, I only remembered pain. By then, she’d disappeared. Other people were running her business interests, but they weren’t the ones I cared about. She’d gotten a huge payout, and I stupidly assumed she was gone for good. I could barely think, and I didn’t have my sons to defend me then. My brother Frank, Lucien’s father, made sure I was physically taken care of, but he was busy, and I wasn’t close to Lucien yet.”
I shuddered at the thought of how much pain he’d experienced, and to do that without anyone to comfort him was unbearable. “I can’t imagine the hell you went through.”
“My family did search for her while I recovered. Frank put his best men on it, but they didn’t find a trace. I might have if I’d been in shape to, but by the time I could walk again, the trail was cold.”
I’d never been a violent person. I’d wanted to save people from violence—that was how I’d ended up going to law school. But if I could find Lisa right then, I could kill her myself for what she’d done. She was hurting children who needed medicine, which was vile in and of itself. She had put contaminated drugs on the streets, and she’d hurt Dom. She literally left him to burn.
I laid my head against his thigh as I wiped away tears. “I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to express how horrified I am that someone would do that. I know you say you’re not any better than her, but you’re wrong. You wanted to stop her from selling weapons then and you want to get these drugs off the market now. You don’t hurt good people.”
“I can’t promise you that. I can’t promise you there hasn’t been collateral damage from what I’ve done.”
I looked up at him. “Lisa is a monster.”
“I’m a monster, Corey. Don’t you get that? And now I even look like one.”
I shook my head. “Do you know what I thought the first time I saw you?”
“What?”
“I thought, ‘Damn, I didn’t expect my bodyguard to be a Zaddy.’”
He rolled his eyes. “You’d only seen the scars on my face.”
I lifted my hand and rubbed my thumb over his cheek. “None of that matters to me. I thought you were sexy as fuck, and I was sad when I thought you were straight.”
“But I am straight. Or….”
I raised my brows.
“All right, fine. I guess I’m not. I just don’t know how to process this.”
“Do you need to right now? I won’t tell anyone about what happened last night if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“No. Yes. Fuck. I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
I tried not to take that personally. He was trying to be my protector only, and I’d begged for more. “I pushed you into it, but I’m not sorry. Are you?”
“No.” He answered immediately, and the pain I’d felt dissipated.
“I don’t regret anything except how hard I took you. I meant to be more gentle.”
I shook my head. “I loved the way you lost control. I want that. I wanted to see the heat I knew was inside you.”
Dom frowned. “I’m more dangerous when I’m not controlled.”