"Oh, Dom! I'd love to!" Mia told him as she threw her arms around him.
The lift in her mood and brightness in her voice meant she must be feeling better. Our lack of interaction had been in part because she was sick. Mia needed rest, not another argument. But seeing she had her strength back gave me the courage to attempt a conversation with her. Clearing my throat, I asked, "Am I interrupting?"
Mia regarded me warily and Amber's words filled my head again. Everything with Mia felt like one step forward, two steps back and I wasn't so sure I could keep talking my way out of it.
"I invited Mia to the wedding," Dom announced.
I tensed at the sentence. What did he think he was doing?
"And I asked her to walk me down the aisle," Dom grinned, oblivious to my anger.
Mia beamed at him and I bit the inside of his cheeks. "Mia, I need to speak to Dom."
"Actually," Mia started, ready to put up a fight.
"NOW!" I boomed. This wasn’t negotiable. It wasn’t a discussion. Mia looked taken aback but gave Dom a kiss on the cheek before she brushed past, not once looking at me, and it made my heart tug painfully.
Dom stood up from the floor and I walked over to him, the coppery taste of blood in my mouth from where I had broken the skin. The underlying anger from Marco's visit hadn't subsided and little things tipped me over the edge.
"Have you lost your mind?" I hissed at him.
"You want to leave her here when we head off to Brazil?" Dom asked me in return.
"She'd be safer here."
"I'm sure she'll love you for that."
I’d had enough of his smart mouth, and in moments Dom was against the wall with my forearm pressed against his throat. He struggled against my grip. Dom may have been a fighter but even he wasn't stupid enough to take me on right now.
"She. Can't. Be. There." I emphasised every word by increasing pressure on his windpipe.
"She's family to me," Dom rasped, his voice constricted as he struggled to breathe.
"So you should want to keep her safe!" I yelled.
I let go of Dom, who dropped to the ground and heaved in deep breaths. "What's your problem, Luc?" he finally asked, eyes watery from the pain.
"I'm struggling to keep her under wraps here and you want to take her out—in Brazil," I said. "With Marco on your guest list."
Dom flinched. I had always been hard on Dom for his connection to Marco, but it wasn't his fault that his fiancé did the books for the club. Rodrigo wasn’t the smartest tool in the box and in my humble opinion, Dom could have done better.
He rubbed the back of his neck as he got to his feet. "You can't keep her hidden. She's going to have to be a part of all this shit eventually."
"Not if I can help it," I said. With Mia, I had developed a part of my life that was separate from the violence and danger I dealt with every day. She was kept safe at home, away from the chaos, and had become my sanctity.
"How's that going to work, boss?" Dom asked me. "Because you kind of pulled her into it when you decided to keep her here."
I lunged for Dom, but he moved quickly to get away from my assault. Dom was right, of course, I had no one to blame but myself. If I wanted to embark on something with Mia, then I couldn’t keep her hidden for the rest of her life, and yet I wasn’t sure that I had the strength to truly introduce her to my world. Images of Isa filled my head and I forced them away with effort. I would never let that happen to Mia.
Dom was now clear of me at the other side of the room.
"Go tell her she isn't coming," I ordered him.
"No way," Dom said defiantly. "I want her there. I want her with me."
Of all the family Dom had lost when he came out, I knew that the loss of contact with his sister was what had hit him hardest. Mia had managed to make an impact on more than just my life. Dom had found in her a sister that accepted him for exactly who he was.
"Fine! I'll tell her," I decided.
