Pursue (Portland Street Kings Book 3) (10 page)

Brett’s story had no more plot holes, but they weren’t filled with a hero's actions or sincere apologies. They were tainted with betrayal. The cloak removed and Dom was revealed and then came the pain… again.

Desperate to rebuild my walls, not only to keep Dom at a safe distance but also to keep my memories at bay. Remembering is the first slip down a long and frightening mountain. It’s a trick, starting with my happiest times and then when I’m at my weakest, open and vulnerable, it will drag me under amongst the dark and filthy faces that I’ve scratched out. They’re unrecognizable but not forever. The longer I stay defenseless and susceptible to hurt, the clearer they and my memories become. I can’t allow my hurt and pain to take over. I’m at my limit, equal measures to the good I’ve felt. Any more damage and I’ll be stuck in the dark forever.
 

“Stop.”
 

Warmth on my face causes me to refocus my eyes, and I find my feet on the ground, my arms slack by my sides and Dom's palm cupping my left cheek. He wipes away a tear I didn’t realize had fallen.
 

“You’re too absorbed in your own head. Stop thinking altogether and start talking to me.” Dom is now cupping my face with both hands, his eyes pleading with me to spill all my secrets. “Tell me what thoughts are causing you to cry.”
 

I should be turning from Dom and pushing his hands away, except I don’t.
I can’t.
Hearing sadness in his voice and seeing the desperation in his eyes, my mind trips over itself.
Comfort him. Don’t get close. Relieve his pain. Save yourself and back away.
Torn between what Dom needs and my own plan to protect myself, I quickly realize there’s a missing brick in my well-constructed wall: a hole Dom created. It feels as if he’s taken the brick from my bottom row, causing the wall to lean and crack.
 

“You. I was thinking about how much you hurt me.” My voice is soft. It was a fight to get the words out, my heart waging war to keep them inside; however, my survival instincts won in the end.

Push.
 

Dom abruptly releases my face as if I burned him, his hands hanging in the air from shock. “After we kiss, after I touch you so intimately, that’s your first thought? Remembering how much I hurt you?” Dom drops his arms and waits eagerly for my reply.

Managing to keep my voice steady and my expression blank, I lie, “Yes.”

Push.
 

Sensing a tremble in my hands, I cup them behind my back. My first thought was of Dom laughing. How his eyes squint and he glances to the ground while warmth explodes from his mouth. But with the good always comes the bad.
Keep pushing. Make this the last time he questions your feelings for him. Show him no love resides here anymore.
“I knew what I was getting myself into kissing you, Dom. I unbuckled your belt because I wanted to give myself some relief from this exhausting trip, which has gone so horribly wrong. And I got that moment of being somewhere else. Might have been by your hand, but you were the last thing on my mind.”
I wonder if every time I lie, it leaves a mark on my soul? Soon there will be no room left.

Push.
 

Dom flinches and takes a step back, color fading from his face. He turns his back on me and stares into the trees, at nothingness. Slowly, his back, arms and shoulders tense and then Dom expels a heartbreaking roar into the air. Birds flee the trees, their speed showing fear as they fly away. Dom spins around, nostrils flaring and anguish in his stare. His mouth opens and closes, repeatedly. Words fail him each time.
 

Deciding there is nothing left to be said, Dom walks to the car, picks up both our bags and hangs them over his shoulders. He locks the broken-down Dodge and starts up the hill toward the nearest farm.
 

Following Dom up the hill, I expect to feel victorious. After all, I won. I decided to play my own game and I just moved up a space. I’ve longed for the day when I could hurt Dom as much as he hurt me. However, the only emotions running through me are sorrow and regret.
 

Life is not a game.
No, it’s not, yet my brothers and I have been used as pawns too many times to count. Being a survivor gave us no reprieve. The good and honorable don’t win in this world, and this little girl, who had to grow up too fast, has had enough.
 

Chapter Eleven

Della

While I follow Dom to the nearest farm, I notice the sign in front of the property. It's falling off its hinges and facing sideways instead of the road. It says The Harris’s Corn Farm. The sign appears to have taken some beatings from a few storms and no one’s come to fix it up.
 

Dom makes it to the side of the barn. He shrugs our bags off his shoulders and lets them fall to the ground. He looks back to me and points to the bags. I know what he means. He wants me to go there and stay while he checks out the farm. Before I have a chance to nod or reach the bags, he’s already leaving, walking around the back of the barn and out of sight.

Reaching the bags, I dust off the ground of brambles and wildflowers, deciding to sit down while I wait. Digging through my backpack for my phone, I pull it out, sighing; three text messages from Slater.
 

Don't forget to text me when you get to Hastings.

Actually, text me when you hit Minnesota.

Where are you now? You getting close yet?

Exhaustion takes over as it usually does with my overbearing brother. I decide since the messages are only fifteen minutes old, Slater can wait. I shove my phone back into my bag, and I make a mental note to text him back when Dom and I have figured out what we’re doing for the night.
 

Twenty minutes pass before Dom returns. His eyes stay on the ground as he walks over to me. He picks up the bags and without a word, he turns and heads back to the front of the barn.

He’s hurt. I understand that so I don’t call him out on his silent treatment. I know if it wasn’t safe for me to follow, Dom would have said something. So I follow. Turning around the corner, I just catch up as Dom enters the barn. The red double doors are cracked open just enough for us to fit through. Before walking in, I glance to my right and stare in wonder at the large foursquare house. It’s beautifully painted white and gray with large windows, which hold white frilly curtains on the inside. The porch out the back appears warm and inviting with intricately crafted beams holding it together.
 

Walking into the massive barn, the sweet smell of the hay scattered along the barn floor hits me first. To my left, there’re empty animal stalls and to my right, a wall covered with tools and stacks of hay.
 

Hearing a rickety sound, my eyes swing to the left, and I find Dom climbing a tall ladder attached to a second level.
 

Assuming I’m meant to follow, I step up the rung, and when I reach the top, I’m surprised to find the only similarity between the barn floors is the dust and cobwebs which have built up over time. This level seems to have been built into a hangout for teenagers. There’re two large paned-glass windows, which allow the sun to illuminate not only this level but the whole barn. There are posters of bands stuck to the walls. Music groups I remember from the nineties. A small table sits in front of a large sofa with gaming magazines, and DC comics spread out across, so many that I can’t see the top of the table, only the legs.
 
An old television with an antenna sitting on the top rests on a crate, and there’s a wooden bookcase against the wall filled with CDs and movies. Glancing around the room, I can see the life this space once had. I can almost hear the chatter and laughter that once must have filled these barn walls.

Dom drops our stuff on the sofa, which is covered in two different blankets, a red one and a blue. He coughs when the settled dust shoots up from the fall of the bags.
 

“Sort of feels as if we’re intruding,” I mention while still staring around the room, feeling as if I’ve gone back in time and at any moment, a boy or boys will come running into the barn and up the ladder and be shocked to see us standing here.
 

Dom finally looks at me. “We are trespassing.” His voice is firm, letting me know we can have a conversation, but in no way are we okay. “This farm may appear abandoned, but the house is clean and full of furniture. There’re washed clothes drying on the line, but from a distance, you can see their mail is piling up. Best guess is that they’re away at the moment.” Dom doesn’t let his gaze linger on me for long. He turns and peers out the window. “We’ll stay the night and think about what our next step will be. You can have the sofa. I’ll take the floor.” He walks to the ladder, and I twist my body around to watch. “There’s a vegetable and fruit garden out the back. I’ll pick a few things for us to eat later. Stay here. Probably best we aren’t both running around the property in case someone turns up.”
 

I nod, but Dom doesn’t glance up as he continues down the ladder and through the crack of the barn door.
 

With a heavy heart, I sit on the sofa and pick up one of the comics. I push aside my guilt and ignore the impulse to race after Dom and apologize.
How many more times until I become numb?
 

***

Dom returns after a short time. He unfolds the bottom of his shirt, and a cabbage, some beans, carrots, and a cucumber come tumbling out and onto the coffee table. He didn’t hang around to eat. Instead, he went straight back down the ladder and hasn’t returned since, even now as the sun sets and night takes its place. However, I’ve heard him below, sweeping and cleaning up the stalls. Dom is similar to Slater; my brother can’t sit still for too long, especially in stressful situations, and I guess the last thing Dom wants to do is sit up here with me and pretend I didn’t break his heart for the second time in the last twenty-four hours.
 

I’ve eaten two carrots, half the cucumber and a couple of beans. It’s not enough since we skipped lunch, but it will have to do for tonight. I called Slater and told him we’d had car trouble and that we were staying in another hotel while the car was being fixed. All my brothers demanded to know where I was and that they would drive to me immediately. Exactly the reason I didn’t tell them our location. I’m the luckiest woman to have four brave and kind men love me so fiercely. But I also love them just as much, which is why I don’t want them anywhere near me while I have the mafia’s
caporegime
on my ass. I said good-bye to Slater as he started cursing Dom's name and saying he should never have left me alone at the hospital. All of my brothers, plus Piper and Lana, sent me text messages begging me to let them come and get me. I declined firmly and put my phone on silent before it became too much, and I gave in. I desperately want my family around me, but what I want isn’t what’s best for them.

Deciding it's time to get some sleep, I pull the dusty blankets off the sofa and I’m surprised to find a nice piece of furniture underneath. I pat the covers until I’ve removed most of the dust and dirt, and keep the red one while placing the blue down on the floor for Dom.
 

A little while later when my eyes are closed but I’m far from asleep, Dom climbs the ladder and pulls the string on the bare bulb light hanging from the roof. Against my wishes, my heart pounds heavily as I listen to his movement throughout the room.
   

“So this is who you are now, Della?” Without thinking, my eyes shoot open. Dom’s sitting on the coffee table with his arms resting on his thighs and his eyes fixed on mine. “Someone who uses people, humiliates them and doesn’t show an ounce of remorse?”

Dom’s words send fire through my veins. Not because of what he said or that he thinks this way about me, but because he’s right.
I’ve become everything I hate.
I evolved. My trauma's rebuilding me into a scared, weak human. And without another thought, I reply to Dom with a cold formality, “If you can’t beat 'em, join 'em.” I hammer down another nail in the coffin, which holds the old me, and continue along this dangerous path.

Dom rubs at his mouth and jaw roughly as his head shakes with disbelief. His eyes wildly search my soul, my features, and my body language, seeking out a flaw.
 

Steeling my resolve, I make sure there is nothing for him to find except conviction and perseverance.
 

Dom doesn’t hide his emotions. Anger and sadness fill his irises, and then his features grow slack as hopelessness falls over him. I want him to own that sensation. Acknowledge it and move on from any possibility of there ever being an
us
again.

“I made a mistake,” Dom says in a thick voice filled with remorse. A heavy weight falls upon my shoulders.
I can’t take any more talks about this or his apologies.
“And from that moment, I’ve done everything I possibly could to fix my fuckup. When I understood how deep that fucking hole I had dug for you was, I stayed near Lucini to protect you. The moment Frank sent someone for you, I would have killed him before he stepped foot on a plane. I’ve tried to prove to you that I won’t leave or hurt you again. I’m willing to take on the whole Lucini family for you, Della.” Dom throws up his hands in frustration.
 

How do I explain it’s not about me forgiving him? Even if I could sift through all my emotions to acknowledge I might have already forgiven him, it’s me I don’t trust. It’s my decisions which are in question. I trusted Jae. I trusted Rex and I trusted Brett. Every man, apart from my brothers, who I became close with, broke a piece of me. Even my real father threw me to the wolves. Dom needs to realize there’s nothing he can do. He has to walk away, today.

“You’ve won,” Dom continues in a softly spoken somber voice. “You wounded me. Hurt me as much as I’m sure I hurt you when I walked away after first telling you I loved you. You’re playing to win, Dell, even though, in your game, there will be no winners. Not even you.”