XXX - 145 Enslave: The Taming of the Beast (15 page)

Chapter Thirteen
He’ll be fine. Isn’t he always? He’s the most untrusting, paranoid, lethal man you know
.
Nadia’s foot still pushed the accelerator of Jelena’s BMW to the floor. When she got to his house, the gate was open, and she felt a pulse of panic hit her in the stomach. She zoomed up the driveway. There was a champagne-colored Hummer, complete with spinning rims, sitting in front of the door. Dominic would rather be dead than drive such a gaudy monstrosity.
The front door was wide open as well. A terrible, terrible sign.
She headed up the steps cautiously, her brain shifting instinctively to the same ice-cold rational mindset that she’d clicked into the first night she met Dominic. She crept through the front door into the dark, cavernous foyer.
There was the sound of raised voices, a woman’s screeching orders in particular. “What will it take to get you to cry, big man?”
“Nothing you’ve got,” came the slurred reply.
Dominic
, she thought, her heart pounding frantically in her chest. She headed toward the living room, hiding behind one of the stout maple beams. She peered around quickly, carefully.
What she saw made her stomach clench. Dominic was on the floor, tied at the hands and ankles. A blond man with what looked like a pipe was cracking on Dominic’s tied legs with slow, deliberate precision. His expression was bored. With each heavy thud, Dominic winced, but did not make any sound otherwise. His eyes were swollen, turning black…blood seeped from his hairline. He looked like a trapped animal.
“So fucking tough,” the woman—obviously Alexis—said with scorn. “Markus?”
A short, Mediterranean-looking man stepped out of the shadows, a scalpel in his hand and a look of unholy anticipation in his eyes.
“Tell me, was it worth it?” Alexis said, as the man approached Dominic’s prone form.
Dominic grunted. “Which part?”
“Screwing me over,” she said, and Nadia heard the edge of madness crackling in the woman’s voice. “I loved you.”
“No,” Dominic said sadly. “You didn’t.”
It only infuriated Alexis more. “What the fuck would you know about it? Who the fuck have you ever been in love with, besides yourself?”
He was quiet.
“Ah, so you think you were in love with that Nadia bitch, huh?” She kicked him in the forehead. “How many times do I have to tell you? She
betrayed
you. She sold your sorry ass out for a couple of grand!”
“She didn’t.” Dominic’s voice was low, but the certainty in his voice was enough to warm her heart. “I know.”
“Idiot,” Alexis muttered. Then she stepped back. “I guess it’s your turn, Markus. Carve him as slowly as you like. Nobody’s coming to save him.” She turned to go.
“Don’t you want to watch?” Markus said, sounding disappointed.
“Tell me if he starts crying or begging,” she said. “Until then, I don’t care. I’ll be in the car.”
Nadia was quiet as the tall woman swept past her hiding space, her face contorted with bitterness and rage. Nadia heard her high heels clicking like machine-gun fire on the granite tiles of the foyer. She waited until Alexis was outside, the door slamming behind her.
Nadia made her move.
She picked up a small, solid bronze statue. The blond man was closest. She could smell the smoke wafting from around the post. The other, Markus, had the scalpel to Dominic’s back, muttering gleefully under his breath.
Limit your targets
.
Silently, she moved around and clocked the blond man with all her strength, the statue’s base hitting his temple. He let out a garbled, infuriated yell as he fell over. She kicked him in the balls, viciously, then hit him in the head again, harder. His eyes rolled back, and then his eyelids closed. She took the gun from his limp hand.
Dominic let out a snarl. When she looked up, the man had sliced into his shoulder. She held the gun on him.
“Drop it,” she said.
He smiled. “Or what?”
She fired at him, deliberately missing, the bullet whizzing past his ear and embedding itself in the wall. She adjusted her aim, goading him.
He grimaced at her, putting down the scalpel. Then, almost too quickly to see, he drew a tiny gun out of nowhere, shooting at her. She shot back, nailing him in the shoulder. Yowling in pain, he fled, dripping blood.
She rushed to Dominic’s side. “Are there more of them?” She was all but shaking with the overload of adrenaline in her system, but the small, sane part of her forced her to be practical. She’d break down later. Once she knew Dominic was safe.
He was staring at her. “I must be hallucinating.”
“More of them?” she prodded.
“No,” he chuckled softly. “You’re real. Only my Nadia would get pissed at me for not staying focused.”
She sliced through the cords with the scalpel. He rolled to his back, groaning with pain.
A shot rang through, and she held her gun up to meet the new threat. Alexis was back, this time with her own weapon.
“Don’t tell me,” she said sourly. “You’re the infamous Nadia.”
Nadia kept her gun trained on the tall woman, and stayed silent.
“You don’t look a bit like your sister,” Alexis noted. “Do you have any idea what she did, to get me here?”
Nadia still didn’t answer. She kept the woman in her sights.
“If you leave now, you don’t have to get hurt,” Alexis said. “I don’t give a shit about you. I just want him.”
“So do I.”
Alexis made a little expression of disgust. “Isn’t that romantic? I suppose you love him, too.”
Nadia’s finger tensed on the trigger.
“He’s a beast. A monster,” Alexis said. “He’s only let me live to torture me with the thought that, someday, he’d kill me painfully. Every day is a nightmare.”
“I promise, I won’t kill you,” Dominic said, surprising Nadia by slowly getting to his knees. “I won’t do anything to you. It’s over. And I’m sorry for the past.”
“Shut up!”
The gun in Alexis’s hand shook. “Nothing you say will ever make up for what you’ve done to my life! You don’t understand!”
Nadia’s arms were beginning to tire from holding the gun upright so long. She had to change the situation. She had to…
“But you’re going to understand,” Alexis said, and the gun changed position. Now, it aimed directly at Nadia. “Because you’re finally going to lose something you care about.”
“No!”
The gun went off. Nadia’s finger pulled, the gun kicking back in her palm.
Alexis’s expression was one of stunned, irritated disbelief. The bullet caught her in the throat. Blood sprayed in a fine mist, and Alexis toppled to the floor.
The shock and horror of what had just happened would sink in later. Right now, Nadia tried to stay calm. She didn’t feel anything—not the numbness of shock, not the pain of a bullet wound. Immediately, she looked at Dominic.
He looked pale. Too pale.
He was her target. He was the one Alexis had hit with her last bullet.
“Dominic,” she breathed, trying to hold him, trying to figure out where the bullet was lodged. “Dominic, please hang on.”
He smiled at her, a tender, lopsided smile that shattered what little control she had left. She started to tremble, crying.
“I knew you wouldn’t betray me,” he said softly. “I do trust you, Nadia. And I do love you.”
“I love you, too,” she said, pressing kisses against his cheek. His skin was cold, clammy with shock. She tried to warm him. “You can’t die now.”
He grimaced. “I’m working on that.”
She held him close as she heard the sound of sirens, echoing down the hallway. She knew he’d probably hate it, but she was glad she’d called the police as she rushed over here.
“Don’t worry about anything,” she murmured, kissing him gently. “I’ve got you.”
He breathed a soft word, as the EMTs and police crashed down the hallway. She couldn’t make it out. “What was that?” she said, leaning close to his mouth.
His lips caressed her earlobe.
“Forever,” he said. “You’ve got me forever.”

Chapter Fourteen
Nadia was sitting in a different lobby of the same hospital where Deidre had given birth. Now she waited to hear how Dominic was faring. She felt an edge of anxiety, realizing how close she was to losing him.
Jelena, Irina, and her father walked in. Her father embraced her, looking puzzled. “I left Deidre home with the baby. Tell me, why are we here?”
“Papa,” she said, feeling her throat catch, “Dominic’s been hurt.”
“What does it matter?” Jelena said, although Nadia noticed that her eyes widened at
hurt
. “You were his prisoner. He deserves everything he gets, and then some.”
“Whatever you need to tell yourself, Jelena,” Nadia said coolly, “we both know the truth.”
Jelena flushed. Her father cleared his throat.
“You feel something for this man, then.”
“Papa, I love him.”
He looked a little bewildered. “How? A man like…” At her stern stare, he let the statement peter off. “And he feels…?”
“He loves me, too, Papa.”
He sighed heavily. “Well, at least some good has come from this,” he said, after a long pause. “When he feels better, we’ll negotiate with him.”
“No.”
That, from Jelena.
Nadia shook her head, as well. “I am going to be with him, but it’s not an arrangement. It has nothing to do with the family.”
Her father turned scarlet, right up to the roots of his hair. “Wait a minute. You’re choosing this man, this stranger, over your own family?” He sounded incensed. “You’ll take bread out of your baby brother’s mouth, just for your own selfish pleasure?”
“I’m choosing to have my own life,” Nadia countered. “I love him, and I want to be with him. It has nothing to do with my baby brother, or my sisters. Or you, Papa.”
“You’re my daughter,” her father said with menace.
“You don’t own us, father!” Jelena snapped. “You never did!”
He glanced around nervously. “This is not the place to have this conversation. We’ll go home.” He turned to leave.
“Papa, I’m not going home.”
He turned back to Nadia. “Come home
right now
.”
“That isn’t going to work,” Nadia said sadly. “I love you, and I will always do what I can to help you. But I’m not going to just be a bargaining chip for you anymore, Papa. I’m finished. I’m not a meal ticket. I’m your daughter, and you need to love me and respect me for what I am.”
“Of course I love you,” he said, looking bewildered. “What does that have to do with anything?”
She looked at Jelena. He didn’t understand. He really, genuinely didn’t understand.
Jelena sighed. “Perhaps you should go home, Papa.”
Now he looked at them, aghast at the mutiny taking place. “You lead her to this,” he accused. “You’re divorcing your husband, and you’re talking about not remarrying. You’ve made money with a settlement with him somehow, and you’re keeping me cut out of it! What is this?”
“I’m taking control of my own finances,” Jelena said, and there it was again—that intimidating quality. She sounded like a general.
“You’re a woman,” her father said caustically. “How could you…”
“Papa,” Jelena said, her voice sharp enough to cut steel. “You don’t want to cross me on this. I promise you.”
Her father gasped. Jelena didn’t blink.
“I thought I was protecting you,” Jelena said to Nadia. “I did everything I could to stop you from making these mistakes. I’m not sorry.”
“You will be if you try it again.” Nadia stood up to her sister, infusing every word with menace. “I mean it. Leave Dominic and me alone.”
Jelena shrugged. “If you’re going to be stupid enough to stay, I can’t stop you. I can only save myself.”
“What the hell is going on here?” her father asked plaintively. “You’re crazy! You’ve both gone crazy! Turning against your family, turning against each other, for what? What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I’m not going to be your whore any more, Father,” Jelena said, her voice ringing with finality.
“And I’m just going to be your daughter from now on,” Nadia said more gently. “I’m staying with Dominic, because I love him.”
Jelena shook her head, but at least she seemed to realize there was nothing she could say that would dissuade Nadia. It was the way it was.
Her father was finally deflated, at a loss. “It’s all falling apart,” he muttered. “You’re all abandoning me.”
“It’s not about you,” Jelena snapped.
Nadia gripped his hand.
“Many marriages are unhappy. I was unhappy. Arrangements aren’t for love, they are for survival. I thought you girls understood that.” He stared at her pleading. “We had to make sacrifices to survive.”
“Yes, we did,” Nadia said. “But I don’t have to. Not anymore. And neither does Jelena.”
He set his jaw. Then he nodded.
“We’ll just have to make do, then,” he said, sounding disappointed. “With the new baby, and your sister Irina…what will we do?”
“You’ll do what you have to,” she said, as sympathetically as possible. “No new cars. Take care of that baby.”
“I dreamed of so much more than this,” he mused.
“So did I,” she answered.
He didn’t, couldn’t, understand. Nadia felt an ache in her heart. She kissed his cheek goodbye. “I’ll call soon.”
She did dream of more than this. Now she had a chance at it, and she wasn’t going to lose that.
The doctor came out, and she stood. “You can see Mr. Luder now.”
“How is he?”
“Much better. A tough, er, guy.” She got the feeling he was about to say something else, like
bastard
, but had thought the better of it. “He has a tremendous will to live, and that helps matters immensely. He’ll be weak for a while, he’ll need to recover. But I don’t see why he shouldn’t be much healthier in a few months.”
“Thank you,” she breathed, then followed him impatiently into the room.
Dominic lay there, his scarred face pale, tubes attached to him, IVs. The doctor left them alone.
“I was so worried I’d lose you,” she said, taking his hand and squeezing it hard.
He smiled, her favorite lopsided smile. His eyes were serious. “So now what are we going to do?”
She smiled. “You’re going to be in here for a little while. I’ll stay for as long as they let me. Then, they’ll let you go home. I’ll take care of you.”
“And when I’m well…?” His eyes bore into her like bullets.
She smiled. “When you’re well,” she whispered, “I’m going to make love to you until you lose your mind.”
His smile was one of pure, animal desire—tempered by his recent accident, of course. “God, I hope so,” he breathed. “But then, Nadia?”
“I’ll stay with you,” she murmured. “Forever.”
“I don’t want you to stay out of pity.”
“That’s good,” she countered. “Because I’m not.”
He cleared his throat. She was about to ring the nurse for some water or apple juice for him, when he surprised her by reaching out, holding her hand.
“The contract…” he said. “Alexis is dead. That means I’m free.
We’re
free.”
She felt the word and its meaning sink in.
Free
.
“Will you marry me?”
She blinked. She hadn’t expected that. His eyes looked hopeful—even as she could feel the tension in his hand, hear it in his voice.
“Yes,” she said, and he let out a deep breath. “I expect to have a job of some sort,” she quickly added. “I want to be more independent. I’ll have my own life.”
He frowned at this, opening his mouth as if to protest.
She cut him off with a quelling look. “You’ll just have to trust me.”
He nodded, grinning slowly. “I may get a little crazy at times, because it’s hard for me. I’ve been this way for a long time. But I promise to try.”
She smiled. “Then you’ll start to get more of a life, too. You’ll find something you like doing. And we’ll both make love and have a life together.”
He nodded. “I can live with that.”