Chapter 5 - The Woman Rossy Thought Was Dominic’s WeaknessThe storm swallowed the ruined cabin behind them.
Harper barely had time to pull the passenger door shut before Leo slammed the SUV into reverse.
Gravel exploded beneath the tires.
The headlights swept across the broken porch, the shattered front door, and one motionless body half-hidden beneath the rain.
Then the house disappeared.
Harper sat in the rear seat beside Dominic with both hands clenched around the torn fabric of her sweater.
Her entire body shook.
Not delicately.
Not romantically.
Violently.
Her teeth clicked together.
Her fingers would not obey her.
Adrenaline had kept her moving inside the cabin.
Now that movement was no longer necessary, her body had begun collecting the debt.
Dominic noticed.
Of course he noticed.
He noticed everything.
“Give me your hands.”
Harper looked at him.
“What?”
“Your hands.”
She hesitated.
Then held them out.
Dominic took both between his palms.
His skin was warm.
Hers felt frozen.
“Breathe slower.”
“I am breathing.”
“You’re hyperventilating.”
“I was just shot at.”
“Which is why you need oxygen rather than panic.”
Harper glared at him.
“You are unbelievably irritating.”
“Good.”
His thumbs pressed against the center of her palms.
“Anger is useful.”
Lightning flashed beyond the windows.
For one bright second, Harper saw blood on Dominic’s shirt.
Her stomach dropped.
“Dominic.”
He followed her stare.
A dark stain had spread beneath his ribs.
“You’re bleeding.”
“It’s nothing.”
“That is what men always say immediately before something becomes extremely not nothing.”
Leo looked into the mirror.
“Boss?”
“Drive.”
“Dominic—”
“Harper.”
His voice sharpened.
“I said it’s nothing.”
She stared at him.
Then something inside her snapped.
Maybe it was exhaustion.
Maybe terror.
Maybe the memory of being ordered around for four consecutive days.
Harper grabbed the hem of Dominic’s shirt and lifted it.
He caught her wrist instantly.
The movement was so fast she barely saw it.
His eyes became dangerous.
“Do not do that again.”
Harper did not release the shirt.
“Then show me.”
For several seconds, neither moved.
Leo wisely focused on the road.
Rain hammered the roof.
Dominic’s grip slowly loosened.
Harper lifted the fabric.
A bullet had grazed his left side.
Not entered.
Grazed.
But the wound was ugly.
Skin torn open.
Blood running down his abdomen.
Harper exhaled.
“You need stitches.”
“I need Rossy.”
“You need stitches first.”
“I’ve had worse.”
“That doesn’t magically make this good.”
Dominic studied her.
Harper realized she still had one hand pressed against his abdomen.
Warm blood coated her fingertips.
She should have been horrified.
Instead, she was angry.
“You protected me.”
The words came quietly.
Dominic’s expression changed almost imperceptibly.
“The first bullets came toward your side of the room.”
“So?”
“So I moved you.”
“You covered me with your body.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Dominic looked out the window.
“Because dead witnesses are inconvenient.”
Harper almost laughed.
Almost.
“Liar.”
His gaze returned.
The darkness between them changed.
Then Leo interrupted.
“We have company.”
Dominic released Harper immediately.
A pair of headlights appeared behind them.
Then another.
Two vehicles.
Moving fast.
Leo accelerated.
The SUV surged forward.
Harper’s back struck the seat.
“How did they find us?”
Dominic reached beneath his coat and removed a handgun.
“They didn’t.”
He checked the magazine.
“They predicted the evacuation route.”
“That sounds suspiciously like finding us.”
Dominic ignored her.
“Leo.”
“Two SUVs. Approximately six lengths back.”
“Take Route Nine.”
“That road floods.”
“Exactly.”
Leo smiled for the first time Harper had ever seen.
“Understood.”
The road narrowed.
Trees crowded both sides.
Rainwater streamed across the pavement.
Dominic opened a compartment beneath the seat and removed another weapon.
He handed it forward.
Leo accepted it without looking.
Harper stared.
“You keep guns under the seats?”
Dominic glanced at her.
“You keep emergency tissues in your purse.”
“That is not remotely the same thing.”
“It serves the same philosophical purpose.”
Despite everything, a laugh escaped her.
Short.
Hysterical.
Real.
Dominic looked at her strangely.
Then the rear window exploded.
Harper screamed.
Dominic dragged her down.
Glass sprayed across the leather.
Leo jerked the wheel.
The SUV fishtailed.
Gunfire cracked behind them.
“Stay down!”
Dominic lowered his window enough to fire backward.
Three controlled shots.
Not wild.
Not panicked.
The vehicle behind them swerved.
Harper pressed her forehead against the floor.
Her heartbeat thundered.
She remembered the fire poker.
She remembered deciding she was finished hiding.
But courage was not the absence of terror.
Courage apparently involved being terrified while doing something anyway.
Harper lifted her head.
Dominic saw.
“Down.”
“What can I do?”
“Stay alive.”
“That isn’t doing something.”
“It is currently your full-time occupation.”
Another shot hit the SUV.
Leo cursed.
Then the road dipped.
Water covered the pavement ahead.
Not inches.
Feet.
“Hold on,” Leo said.
The SUV hit the flooded section at speed.
Water exploded around them.
The engine roared.
For several terrible seconds, Harper felt the vehicle lose traction.
Then the tires caught.
They climbed the opposite side.
The pursuing vehicle entered too quickly.
Its front wheels disappeared beneath the water.
The SUV spun sideways.
The second vehicle slammed into it.
Metal screamed.
Leo kept driving.
No one spoke for almost a minute.
Finally, Harper lifted herself back into the seat.
Her hair was filled with glass.
Dominic reached over.
“Don’t move.”
She froze.
His fingers entered her hair.
Careful.
Unexpectedly gentle.
He removed one fragment.
Then another.
Then another.
Harper watched his face.
“You’re still bleeding.”
“You’re persistent.”
“You kidnapped the wrong woman.”
Something darkly amused appeared in his eyes.
“I am beginning to understand that.”
They reached another safe location shortly before dawn.
This one was nothing like the cabin.
It was an old brick warehouse beside the river.
From the outside, it appeared abandoned.
Inside, an elevator descended underground into something resembling a private command center.
Concrete walls.
Computer screens.
Weapons lockers.
Medical supplies.
Three men Harper had never seen immediately stood when Dominic entered.
Nobody asked questions.
Nobody stared at her.
That somehow made everything more unsettling.
Dominic pointed toward a chair.
“Sit.”
Harper folded her arms.
“No.”
His eyebrows lowered.
“I am not sitting until somebody closes the hole in your side.”
One of the men coughed to hide a laugh.
Dominic slowly turned his head.
The man became fascinated with a computer monitor.
Leo dropped his wet jacket onto a table.
“I’ll get Sofia.”
“No.”
Dominic’s answer came immediately.
Harper looked between them.
“Who is Sofia?”
“Our doctor.”
“Then yes.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Dominic removed his coat.
“Because she is forty minutes away.”
Harper stared at the medical cabinet.
Then at his wound.
“My mother was an emergency-room nurse.”
Dominic looked suspicious.
“That does not make you a doctor.”
“No.”
Harper approached the cabinet.
“But it means I spent half my childhood hearing why people die from ignoring wounds because they think being stubborn counts as medical treatment.”
Leo laughed openly this time.
Dominic gave him a look.
Leo raised both hands.
“I heard nothing.”
Harper found sterile gauze.
Antiseptic.
Suture strips.
She pointed at a chair.
“Sit.”
Dominic did not move.
“Dominic.”
Something almost absurd happened.
The three armed men in the room looked at their boss.
Then at Harper.
They were waiting to see whether the terrifying man who controlled all of them would obey a five-foot-four woman wearing a torn sweater.
Dominic apparently realized the same thing.
His jaw tightened.
Then he sat.
Leo turned away before Dominic could see his grin.
Harper cleaned the wound.
Dominic never flinched.
“You can react, you know.”
“To what?”
“This hurts.”
“I’ve experienced pain before.”
“That is the saddest masculine sentence I’ve heard all week, and I was engaged to Caleb.”
Dominic looked at her.
“Were.”
Harper paused.
“Were what?”
“Engaged.”
His voice was quiet.
“You said you were engaged.”
His eyes held hers.
“Past tense.”
Something shifted inside Harper.
She returned to the wound.
“Yes.”
Past tense.
She had not consciously done that.
Maybe part of her had already crossed a bridge the rest had not reached.
Harper finished dressing his side.
When she stepped away, Dominic caught her wrist.
Not hard.
“Thank you.”
She looked at him.
It was the first time she had heard gratitude from him.
“You’re welcome.”
Leo approached the table carrying a tablet.
His expression erased the fragile moment.
“We have a problem.”
Dominic released Harper.
“What?”
Leo placed the tablet down.
A surveillance image appeared.
Harper recognized the location immediately.
Her apartment building.
The photograph had been taken less than an hour earlier.
A black sedan sat across the street.
“Rossy’s men?”
Dominic asked.
Leo nodded.
“Two confirmed.”
Harper’s chest tightened.
“Barnaby.”
“He’s safe,” Leo said.
“Finn moved him yesterday.”
Harper stared.
“Where?”
Leo looked uncomfortable.
Dominic answered.
“My housekeeper has him.”
“You have a housekeeper?”
Dominic’s expression remained perfectly serious.
“That is the part of the sentence you find surprising?”
Harper rubbed her face.
“Where is Caleb?”
Leo and Dominic exchanged a look.
She saw it.
Immediately.
“What?”
Neither answered.
“Where is Caleb?”
Dominic stood.
“Harper—”
“No.”
She stepped backward.
“Do not use that voice.”
“What voice?”
“The voice where you decide I’m too fragile to know something.”
Dominic’s expression hardened.
“You are under considerable stress.”
“I was shot at twice tonight.”
She pointed toward the screens.
“I hit an armed man with a fireplace poker.”
Her voice rose.
“I cleaned blood out of your side while three mobsters watched me boss you around.”
One of the men quietly left the room.
Harper continued.
“I am beyond considerable stress.”
She looked at Leo.
“Where is Caleb?”
Leo exhaled.
“Missing.”
Harper went still.
“Since when?”
“Yesterday afternoon.”
“Chloe?”
“Also missing.”
Cold moved through Harper.
Dominic watched her closely.
“Rossy took them.”
She looked at him.
“Why?”
“Because they’re connected to you.”
“But you said Rossy thinks I’m connected to you.”
“He does.”
Dominic approached.
“And now he is collecting leverage.”
Harper backed away.
“This is because of me.”
“No.”
“He took them because of me.”
“He took them because he believes kidnapping civilians gives him power.”
Dominic’s voice hardened.
“The responsibility belongs to the man who made the decision.”
Harper looked at the photograph of her building.
Caleb had betrayed her.
Chloe had betrayed her.
She hated them.
At least she wanted to.
But imagining either tied to a chair somewhere because of her made her stomach turn.
“We have to help them.”
Dominic stared.
“No.”
Harper blinked.
“No?”
“No.”
“They could die.”
“They betrayed you.”
“That doesn’t mean I want them murdered.”
Dominic stepped closer.
“Rossy expects me to respond.”
“Then respond.”
“That gives him what he wants.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do.”
His voice became colder.
“Because Rossy does not understand what you are to me.”
Harper stopped breathing.
The room became completely silent.
Dominic seemed to realize what he had said.
Harper whispered.
“And what am I to you?”
His jaw tightened.
A phone rang.
Leo answered.
His expression changed almost instantly.
“Boss.”
Dominic turned.
Leo activated speakerphone.
A man’s voice filled the underground room.
Smooth.
Older.
Amused.
“Dominic.”
Rossy.
Harper knew without being told.
“You made quite a mess at the coast.”
Dominic’s face became stone.
“You sent children to kill me.”
“They almost succeeded.”
“No.”
Dominic looked toward Harper.
“They almost annoyed me.”
Rossy laughed.
Then another sound came through the phone.
A woman crying.
Harper went pale.
Chloe.
“Harper?”
Chloe screamed somewhere in the background.
“Harper, please!”
Harper stepped toward the phone.
Dominic blocked her.
Rossy continued.
“I have two people who seem extremely concerned about your little blonde guest.”
Caleb shouted next.
“Harper! Harper, I’m sorry!”
Dominic’s eyes remained on Harper.
Rossy laughed again.
“Apparently everybody suddenly appreciates Harper.”
His voice lowered.
“Funny how valuable a woman becomes after people realize someone powerful might care whether she lives.”
Harper felt sick.
“What do you want?”
Dominic asked.
“The dock codes.”
“No.”
“And Harper.”
The room changed.
Dominic became utterly still.
Rossy continued.
“You bring me the codes.”
A pause.
“And you bring me the girl.”
Harper looked at Dominic.
Rossy’s voice turned almost cheerful.
“Midnight tomorrow.”
He gave an address.
“Come alone.”
The call ended.
Nobody spoke.
Harper stared at Dominic.
Then at the dead phone.
“He wants me.”
“Yes.”
“Then we use that.”
“No.”
“Dominic—”
“No.”
She stepped closer.
“You said he thinks I’m your weakness.”
“He does.”
“Then let him.”
Something dangerous entered Dominic’s eyes.
“You do not understand what you’re suggesting.”
“I understand exactly.”
Harper pointed toward the phone.
“He expects you to protect me.”
“Yes.”
“So surprise him.”
“No.”
“Let me help.”
“No.”
Her anger ignited.
“You don’t own me.”
The sentence struck the room.
Dominic’s face changed.
Harper remembered the nightclub.
You belong to me.
That had been days ago.
A lifetime.
She moved closer until only inches remained between them.
“You took me because I was a witness.”
Her voice became quiet.
“You controlled where I went.”
“What I knew.”
“What I could touch.”
“What I could say.”
Her eyes held his.
“But something changed in that cabin.”
Dominic said nothing.
“I’m not your hostage anymore.”
Harper’s voice did not shake.
“If I stay, I stay because I choose to.”
She pointed toward the phone.
“And if I help Caleb and Chloe, I help them because that is my choice too.”
Dominic stared at her.
Long enough that everyone else seemed to disappear.
Finally, he spoke.
“You could die.”
“So could you.”
“That is different.”
“Why?”
“Because I chose this life.”
Harper swallowed.
“And tonight I’m choosing what kind of person I want to be inside it.”
Silence.
Dominic looked toward Leo.
Then back at Harper.
“You will follow every instruction.”
Harper’s heart accelerated.
“That means yes?”
“It means I am temporarily entertaining your terrible idea.”
She almost smiled.
“Progress.”
Dominic moved closer.
His hand rose.
He touched the scratch on her cheek.
“Understand something.”
His voice dropped.
“If Rossy touches you…”
Harper felt the promise beneath the unfinished sentence.
“What?”
Dominic’s thumb rested beneath her jaw.
His eyes became colder than anything she had seen.
“I will burn everything he ever loved.”
Harper should have been afraid.
Instead, for reasons she was not ready to examine, she leaned slightly into his hand.
Across the room, Leo suddenly found the ceiling extremely interesting.
Dominic’s gaze dropped briefly to Harper’s mouth.
Then returned to her eyes.
The moment stretched.
Dangerous.
Unspoken.
Unavoidable.
Finally, Dominic stepped away.
“Get some sleep.”
Harper almost laughed.
“You seriously think I can sleep?”
“No.”
He picked up the tablet.
“But tomorrow night you’re going to walk into Rossy’s trap.”
May you like
His eyes hardened.
“So I need you rested when we turn it into ours.
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