“Some details stay the course of time,” I muttered, forcing myself to look away. If I kept looking at him, I was going to cross a line.
“Some stick. Like the fact that when shit used to get real, this was always the place you went to think and get your shit together,” he said with a snort.
“Uh-huh, because you would somehow know that shit got real for me. Are you assuming that my seeing you is that big a deal?”
“You definitely took off like you’d seen a ghost. But you know what? I also did a bit of light reading yesterday, and wanna know what I found?”
I sighed. “You ask that as if I have a choice; we both know you’re going to tell me.”
“Well, we both know you took off for Seattle years ago, and that was fun for both of us, I’ll admit.”
“Uh-huh.”
“But from what I could find, you pretty much stayed up there if the records are right. I know, those aren’t accurate when you’re trying to track a crime lord legally.”
It was only my years of experience dealing with Augustine that allowed me to hold back my reaction. “Crime lord? That’s putting me high up the hierarchy, don’t you think? Or did your ‘light reading’ tell you what I’ve been up to?”
“Well, no. I just thought it was odd that you were suddenly back in the city, so I wanted to check that you had stayed in Seattle. But then I remembered some big news about a month ago, and I looked, and yep, a big name in the Marelli family had been taken down by the cops and FBI. They made a fuss about it, saying it was a big deal that they’d taken down such a big guy and crippled what the Marelli family was doing in Oregon. And get this, that they’re ready for anything the family might do to retaliate...or recuperate their losses. And then I put the timeline together and thought, you know, this doesn’t feel like a coincidence.”
“You said that to yourself, huh?”
“I did actually, smart ass. And I figured that if it wasn’t a coincidence, then you’re down here because of that. Part of the team that was supposed to help get things back on track without going up to Portland, where the place is swarming with the boys in blue looking for just that sort of team.”
“An interesting theory,” I said with a wrinkle of my nose. I did not believe Dom was stupid; I knew better. Didn’t change the fact that it was unsettling that he’d needed less than twenty-four hours to piece together the story. It wasn’t the whole story or even entirely accurate, but it was close enough. “But you couldn’t know I’d come out here on this day at this exact time.”
“Yeah, well, I decided I’d drive out here once in a while and see. And look what I found on my first outing!”
I wasn’t fooled by his laidback, easygoing speech. I could feel the anger radiating off him. The unsettling thing was...I didn’t know how I knew that anger was there. Nothing about him gave off anything more than frustration, but I could sense it, bubbling and boiling under the surface of his light words and his casual smirks. The obvious answer was that I had enough experience and knowledge of Dom to know he was pissed at me after everything that had happened...and hadn’t happened. Another part of me whispered, quietly but incessantly, that it was because some part of me, despite the years, despite the distance, was still attuned to him, even if I didn’t have direct access anymore.
It was a stupid, pointless, and utterly paranoid thought that unnerved me. Paranoia in my world was one of the guaranteed paths to self-destruction. Every shadow hid a threat, every whisper became a plot against you, and every twitch of a finger was someone preparing to go for a weapon. There were many things someone in my position couldn’t afford, weakness being one of them; paranoia was another. And yet in the course of our brief and charged conversation, I discovered I felt weak and paranoid around him. It wasn’t world-changing or debilitating,but I could feel the threat in my chest, and knew I needed to get away from him as soon as possible.
I froze when he laughed, and I turned toward him with a question on my brow. He glanced at me and snorted. “I was just thinking...you’re like this city. So much has changed, and yet so much hasn’t. I can tell you’re getting ready to bolt. It’s like looking through a window that’s been broken and glued back together. Everything’s put together all weird, but I can still see through it in places; I can still see the guy I used to know.”
“Used to know,” I repeated as I stood up. It didn’t matter if he knew I was trying to leave. Just as he’d known I would come here at some point and had got lucky at the first attempt, so too I knew he wasn’t going to try to stop me if I really wanted to leave. “There’s been a lot of time, Dominic.”
I froze when he grabbed me, and I didn’t know how to feel about the fact that I didn’t instinctively reach for my gun as his fingers closed around my upper arm. Stiffening, I turned to glare at him, hating the hitch in my chest as I met his dark eyes, searching my gaze. There were too many emotions moving too quickly behind his eyes for me to track, but they made my stomach turn with a surge of nerves. I could pick out fear, worry, pain, anger, and a bunch of other emotions that blended, then broke apart and merged, all in the span of seconds. It was a dizzying amount of feeling for one person, and I hated that I could feel the same experience echoing through my own head.
“If you want to be free of me, you’ll either find time in that busy schedule of yours to talk to me...or you leave Cresson Point.”
“That almost sounds like a threat.”
“Take it as one if you want, doesn’t matter to me. And call me Dominic again, and I’ll break a finger.”
“No...you won’t.”
“Yeah, I won’t,” he said with a smirk, letting go of me. “At least now you know what I sound like when I’m threatening someone.”
Would it be strange to point out that that was...very attractive?
Yes, you’re my mother.
No, I’m not. You just play like I am.
Well, I don’t need my not-mother’s voice to talk about how hot that was, thanks.
Fine, but at least it means you have to acknowledge that you thought it was hot.
Damn it, she had a good point. I was turned on.
