Dominion (Alpha Domain #1) (18 page)

“Love you,” I whispered.

Her terrified scream wasn’t enough to push away the darkness that claimed me.

“
J
ohn
, JOHN!” I shouted, pushing his slack body off of mine and rolling over to straddle his waist.

Amber was sobbing beside me, crawling over to John as he bled out. I pulled my shirt over my head and pressed it to the front wound, then turned to Amber.

“Keep as much pressure on as you can,” I said, a sense of pride coming to me when she immediately moved into place and pressed down hard without protest.

A gurgling noise came out of John as I pulled my phone out and dialed the all-too-familiar number.

“Get here. NOW!” I shouted the instant the call connected.

“Three minutes.”

The call ended and I stood up, going over to the wreck of his closet and grabbing another t-shirt before making my way back to his side. Mason and Derek came into the room next, but Derek cursed low in his throat and ran out of the room as soon as he saw the blood.

Mason lowered to his knees and tried to take the bloody shirt from Amber, but she shook her head, her eyes never once leaving John’s face.

“Baby, I need to put this under him,” I said gently, grimacing when I realized that I couldn’t stop my voice from shaking.

She let up just enough for me to position the shirt beneath him, then I gently lowered his body back to the floor before going to get a clean shirt for the front.

After two minutes of counting the seconds, a loud group of voices approached the bedroom. Troy and Derek stood to the back, Mason joining them to give Jim room to work as he kneeled down and dropped his medical bag beside John.

“Fucking hell. Back up, darling,” he said to Amber, easing her back so he could lift up the shirt and look at the wound.

Amber let out a sob and I reached for her, holding her shaking body tightly against my chest as she cried. I watched as Jim poked around at the wound, then reached into his bag for a clamp to help slow the bleeding.

“We need to get him to my place. I don’t have enough equipment here to keep him from bleeding out.”

Mason and Troy stepped up, lifting John into the air while Derek resumed Amber’s earlier task and kept pressure on the wound. Thankfully, Jim lived less than two blocks away and there were enough fucking vehicles around that they could get there within seconds.

“Stay here,” Mason demanded when I tried to get up to help. “We’ll take care of John. You need to wrap up this shit with Dante and take care of your girl.”

I wanted to argue—I was
ready
to argue—but Amber’s frazzled presence and the reminder that I still needed to make the call to Dante were enough to settle the urge back down. I cleared my throat and nodded, watching as they carried my best friend’s limp body out of the room. Amber cried harder and I rocked her against my chest.

“He’ll be fine, baby. John’s taken a lot of bullets and he’s still up and running. He’ll be fine, I promise. I promise.”

She nodded, but continued to cry and I swallowed hard around the lump in my throat.

It was true—John
had
taken a lot of bullets in his life and always lived to tell the tale.

But this was the first time he had ever taken a bullet for
me
.

“
T
his isn’t going
to be a pleasant conversation,” I warned Amber, holding up the phone and waiting for her to leave the room.

She tilted her chin up defiantly, her quiet sniffle and bloodshot eyes the only evidence that gave away how hard she had been crying only a few minutes ago.

“Oh yeah? Put it on speaker.”

Even with all the shit that was going on, a small smile formed on my lips. “Have I ever told you how adorable you are when you try to act tough?”

She frowned. “It’s not an
act
, Allen. I want to hear what this dickwad has to say.”

I understood her anger completely, but she wasn’t going to be doing either of us—or John, for that matter—any favors by sticking around for this.

I tried to convey with my stare how serious I was as I said, “You don’t want to hear this. It’s only going to make you angrier.”

“Why do you think that?”

I grit my teeth together as I started to get irritated. “Because I’m not calling to threaten him, Amber. I’m calling to make a peace offering.”

She gaped at me, eyes wide and incredulous. “You’ve got to be joking! After what his people did to John?”

“Do you think I
want
to do this? You don’t get it! Shooting John wasn’t a calculated move that was made to upset you! It’s
business
and you’re too emotionally attached to see things reasonably!”

After my voice quieted back down from the shouting, I watched as her anger faded back to sadness. She slowly nodded, her eyes glassy with tears that made me feel like a total prick, but I didn’t stop her as she stood up on wobbly legs and left the room.

The door quietly closed behind her and I couldn’t even imagine the horrified look that must have appeared on her face when her eyes inevitably landed on the bodies in the hallway. But I couldn’t deal with consoling her right now. I had a phone call to make first.

He answered on the second ring.

“You! You son of a bitch, I’ll
end
you for this! How dare—”

“Shut up and listen,” I cut in, leaving no room to argue. “Your boy Mario is dead.”

“
What?
How—”

“I fucking
shot
him, that’s how. If you want proof, I’ll gladly send you a picture considering his dead body’s only a few feet away from me at this very moment. You’re probably also aware that your slaves have been freed.”

“You motherfucker, I’ll—”

“SHUT UP AND LISTEN!” I screamed over the line, startling a loud yelp out of Amber that I could hear through the door. I lowered my voice and said, “I think you should seriously reconsider my offer before my boys and I raise hell on the rest of your organization.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line.

“What offer?”

“The one I made you last night, you idiot. I’ll pay you double what Chris owed you and we’ll walk away with the truce back in place.”

“You think I would agree to this? The Sanchez family—”

“—Should think twice about fucking with a team of highly skilled assassins. Don’t you think there’s a reason we chose to send this particular message? Don’t you think there’s a reason why we didn’t kill
you?
Because I personally would like to salvage what little is left of our alliance before rashly declaring war between our groups. But make no mistake—the girl is
mine
. Fight me for her and you
will
lose.”

The words tasted like ash on my tongue and I wished there was some other way to solve this that wouldn’t wind up with a lot of us dead. I had no doubt that my team could wipe out the entire family, but only once we were fully assembled again.

But there was also no doubt in my mind that we would suffer casualties in this war. I didn’t want to risk that—not when it could easily be John or myself—leaving Amber behind to suffer through the pain of loss.

“Perhaps you are right,” Dante reluctantly agreed. “I will accept your offer—double the payment for the girl—and we will cease this senseless violence.” Dante paused, a humorous chuckle sounding over the line before he said, “My father would not be happy if I started a war over a cunt.”

I slammed my eyes closed and took a deep breath, then slowly let it out along with every ounce of anger.

“Meet me tonight at Monaco for your payment.”

“I will see you at ten o’clock, my friend.”

I ended the call and slid my phone across the floor, trying not to let the nauseous rise in my stomach from him referring to me as his ‘
friend
’.

My own morals may have been pretty twisted, but I could
never
be friends with someone like him. It would take every ounce of self-control I possessed to keep from slitting his throat in one of those secluded booths tonight.

The phone chimed and I crawled over to it, quickly scanning through the message from Derek and jumping to my feet. I rushed out of the room and found Amber sitting in the kitchen.

“Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“We need to get to Jim’s. John is slipping.”

“
W
hat do you mean
slipping
?” I asked as I tried to keep up with Allen’s frantic pace.

“You know what I mean,” he said softly.

“No.
No.
He can’t die!” I shouted stubbornly, grinding my feet into the pavement and yanking my arm away from Allen’s death grip.

He turned back to me and snarled. “Let’s
go
. We need to be with him in case—”

He cut himself off mid-sentence and turned away from me. I approached him carefully and laid my hand on his shoulder, willing him to turn back and face me.

“Allen, please. Don’t shut me out now.”

He turned back around and while the tears weren’t actively falling, I could still see them glistening in the corners of his eyes. I cupped his cheeks and gently pressed my lips to his, smiling a little at the way he sharply inhaled the same way he did every other time.

“He’ll be okay,” I told him, even though I really had no way of making such a promise. “Let’s go.”

I took his hand in mine and we walked together quickly, but not with him dragging me behind him. We were on even ground this time.

At least we were until he lifted me into his arms and broke into an all-out run. I shrieked and clutched at his shoulders, closing my eyes and hoping that he wouldn’t drop me.

E
ven on foot
, we were at Jim’s building and up to his apartment within five minutes. Allen led the way into the apartment and I followed closely behind, glancing around the filthy living room with disgust.

They took John
here
for medical treatment?

But when he led me into another room that was startlingly different that the entrance, I realized why. Jim lived like a pig, but he also seemed to know what he was doing.

The sterile operating room was a dead giveaway.

“How’s he doing?” Allen asked, brushing past Derek and Mason and making his way to where Troy was assisting Jim.

“The bullet made a clean path and avoided all the major organs— thank fuck. But he’s lost a lot of blood. I got a guy bringing over a few bags from the hospital and as long as we get the transfusion started soon, he should wake back up.”

I numbly walked over to John’s side and reached for his limp hand, clutching it tightly between my own. Troy backed up to give me space and I looked up to see Allen staring down sadly at his best friend.

“Is there anything we can do? When is your guy getting here? What should I—”

“Allen, relax,” Jim said, patting his bloody hand on Allen’s bare shoulder, the sight making me cringe. “He’ll be here soon. In the meantime, I’ve patched up the holes to temporarily stop the bleeding. But I need the blood before I start the internal work.”

“How long?” Allen asked, his voice thick with emotion.

“It’ll take me a few hours, but I’ll get it done. We’re just waiting on Scotty.”

Allen shook his head and I could tell he wanted to scrub his hand over his eyes, but he was well aware of the stickiness of blood on them. My hands were the same way, but my body had become so numb that I was able to easily ignore it.

“Mason, I need you with me to meet Dante tonight.”

“Sure thing, boss,” he said hesitantly, looking from Allen to me a few times before he finally asked. “Can I have a minute?”

I looked down at John then back at Mason before agreeing with a curt nod. I let go of John’s hand, easing it back to the table before I followed him out of the room and left Allen to speak privately with Jim.

Once the door was closed, Mason turned to me with sad eyes and said, “I’m sorry for scaring you.”

“It’s okay. I understood what you were doing.”

“You don’t have to pretend like it was fine. You had a panic attack and nearly fainted, Amber. I know I wasn’t putting enough pressure on your windpipe to knock you out.”

A distant part of me had realized that while it was happening— that it was my own mind causing my body’s reaction and not something he had done. But even so, I hadn’t been able to keep my fear under control.

“Well, yeah. Can you blame me? I was fucking
terrified
. But that doesn’t mean that I didn’t understand.”

“I just want you to know that I didn’t mean anything I said. And that I’m sorry for freaking you out.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for. If it wasn’t for what you did— you’d probably be dead and I’d be on my way to becoming someone’s sex slave,” I said with a forced laugh, but I couldn’t help my body from shuddering at the thought. I wrapped my arms around my waist for comfort and swallowed hard when I felt John’s blood on my shirt. “I just hope he’ll be okay.”

“He’ll be fine. Scotty’s on the way— he’ll be here any minute. You want to go back in?”

I nodded, more to myself than to him, and allowed him to guide me back into the room by the small of my back. I immediately moved to John’s side and took his hand back in mine, knowing that once Scotty arrived with the blood, I’d be thrown out of the room for surgery.

Not that I really wanted to see them cutting John open anyways.

But I wanted to be close to him for as long as possible. To reassure myself that he was still alive. I placed my fingers on his wrist and focused solely on the weak rhythm of his heartbeat, drowning out the voices in the room.

I was so lost in thought that I didn’t hear the door open as Scotty arrived and I only let go of John’s hand when I felt Allen gently pulling me back into his arms.

“He’s here, Amber. The blood is here. We need to give them room to work.”

The four of us exited the room, leaving Jim, Troy, and Scotty alone with John to operate.