I’m crouching behind a car, waiting to run. I think it’s safe and sprint across the road, but a car engine is getting closer and closer. I turn to the car, thinking the driver will save me.
But then I’m floating through the air, and it feels like it lasts forever until I hit the ground with a thud and everything goes black...until it doesn’t.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Footsteps get closer as a shadowy figure stands and watches me before turning away.
I want to scream out for help. I’m hoping they’ve gone back to their car to get their phone. To get me help. I don’t know though, because that’s when everything goes black.
“Tap. Tap. Tap.”
Not the heavy stride of Dom’s Italian leather shoes, but something lighter, sharper.
“Fuck!”
32
Caleb
It’s been over aweek since I saw Amara, and I’ve tried to keep myself busy, to stop myself from going to her. I have to wait and cross my fingers so that eventually we’ll be together. But it’s so fucking hard.
I stare at the pile of student papers waiting to be graded on my kitchen table. Just fifteen more to go before I can reward myself with a beer.
The doorbell rings, interrupting my academic purgatory.
Dom stands on my doorstep, looking like he just stepped out of a GQ photoshoot in his tailored suit. The contrast between us couldn’t be more stark—me in my faded university sweatshirt with reading glasses perched on my nose, him exuding power and wealth from every pore.
“Come in,” I say, moving aside.
He follows me to the kitchen, where I return to my modest table. My house is comfortable but nothing like his modernist palace by the sea.
“Coffee.”
“We need to talk about Amara,” Dom says, declining the coffee with a slight shake of his head.
“We do.” I set my red pen down, giving him my full attention.
“I think it’s time we sorted this out, once and for all.”
I lean back in my chair. “I’m not giving her up, Dom.”
His eyes narrow. “Even though you know what I am and what I am capable of?”
“I’ve known what you are for years. It changes nothing.”
“She’s my stepdaughter.”
“And she’s a grown woman who can make her own choices.”
Dom’s jaw tightens. “We’ve been friends for a decade, Caleb. Best friends.”
“Which is why this conversation is happening in my kitchen instead of some warehouse with your men holding me down.”
A ghost of a smile touches his lips. “She wants us both. Did she tell you that?”
This catches me off guard. “What?”
“I was going to give her up. Let you have her.”
