My breath hitches as he sets his mouth into a thin line. But the feral look in his eyes tells me his words are more than a statement. They’re a threat…a promise, one that he’ll follow through ferociously.
Sparks buzz through my head when he tucks a stray tendril behind my ear, then feathers a light trail down the side of my face. His mouth opens, and he looks like he wants to say something when a knock sounds from the room.
“Fuck,” he grits, fingers clawing into the wall before he steps back and starts toward the room. After gathering myself, I follow him and see him opening the door for a…doctor.
They talk briefly for a while before the man approaches me gently, a briefcase in hand. He’s tall, a little hunched and looks to be in his mid-fifties.
“Good day, ma’am, I’m Doctor Jeremy. I’ll tend to your wound now.” He smiles politely. I return his smile and instinctively return to the bed, sitting on the edge.
Jeremy unpacks some equipment and almost immediately, I’m plunged into the clinical world. But I don’t fail to notice how Dominic’s piercing gaze never leaves mine.
My heart races and somehow, in that moment, I recall the latter part of yesterday, how Dominic had stitched me up while I rambled nonsense endlessly.
I feel my cheeks heat up as the memory replays in my head. Oh fuck…and now I’m stuck in the same room with him.
Could today get any worse?
Chapter eighteen
Dominic
I pull into an empty lot beside a rundown bar on the outskirts of the city. The building looks abandoned… with paint peeling from the walls, windows patched with plywood, and a neon sign that’s missing half its letters.
My chest aches with a memory I can’t shake off…Isabella was bleeding in my arms because I’d been so fucking distracted I didn’t notice the fucker aiming at me. I failed to protect her.
It dredges up emotions I buried the day my mother died. I swore I’d never feel that guilty, that helpless again. But with her, I do.
And then there’s the part that messes with my head even worse. Letting her sleep in my bed. No woman has ever been there. Not once. That space has always been mine alone. It’s easier tokeep women at arm’s length...to fuck and forget, than to have someone in my space, in my bed, in my head.
My teeth grind together, but I shove it all down, telling myself it isn’t about her. It’s guilt. Nothing more. She’s hurt because of me...because I fucked up. That’s the only reason I care. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.
Matteo waits near the door, shoulders squared. He doesn’t speak until I kill the engine and step out, forcing myself to breathe through the guilt.
Focus, Dominic. She’s alive. She’s still alive. Don’t fuck this up.
“Capo.” He dips his head.
We’d successfully traced the fucker who rammed into Isabella’s car. A street CCTV caught the truck’s plate number, and Matteo sent it to a contact in the precinct. He ran it through the state’s database, which gave us the information we needed.
The truck was registered to a hauling company on the west side, and their logs showed that same truck had been signed out under one name: Frederick Ramirez. The bastard had a long list of arrest records—petty thefts, bar fights, trespassing, and resisting arrest. A mugshot accompanied the file sent on him. It was grainy, but clear enough to show the tattoo on his forearm, which matched the tattoo on one of the bodies cleared from the accident scene.
When we pulled up to the address in his file, the place was empty. The neighbor said he moved out a week ago, and claimed he didn’t know where we could find him until Matteo slipped a hundred-dollar bill into his palm.
The door groans when Matteo pushes it open...and the smell of stale beer and cheap cigar hits my nostrils instantly. Light leaks in through a grimy blind.
Behind the counter, a woman is drying glasses with a rag. Her blonde hair is packed into a messy bun, and the shirt she’s wearing leaves half her breasts on display. Dark eyes track us with lazy interest. “Well, hey there,” she drawls in a thick southern accent. “Ain’t often I get gentlemen droppin’ by this early. What’ll it be?”
Matteo clears his throat, taking the lead as I lower myself onto the stool.
“We’re looking for someone. Man with a tattoo. Skull inside a wheel, with the initials F&E just under it. Have you seen him around?”
She quirks a brow. “Mm. Lots o’ men walk in here with ink. I don’t keep track of every little picture on their skin.” Her tone is light, but her eyes are assessing. They move over me, like she’s deciding what kind of man I am.
I lay a stack of bills on the counter.
She snatches it quickly, folds it once, and tucks it down her blouse. “That mark is trouble. Belongs to the Lupi boys.” She leans an elbow on the counter. “Y’all friends of them? Or enemies?”
“Enemies,” I say flatly.
