Revengeful Deceptions (22 page)

“Just think little brother, if it
weren’t for me you would have never met her, I wish she had been in that
goddamn car that night too.” It wasn’t until he said it that Adam knew his
brother not only had no empathy but he had no heart either. His brother,
Brandon Caruso was full of nothing but evil.

  
Before Adam could react, his father slapped Brandon hard across the
face, stunning him.

“All this Brandon, the reason why
we're standing here has nothing to do with Dominique, or Adam. It’s all you
Brandon, all you. Now I suggest you make that phone call and make it now.”

“Yes dad.”
The hell I am,
Brandon thought to himself.

Adam had to walk away; he walked
away from his brother and his father and cursed into the night air. He cursed
until his voice was hoarse; until he let his father put his arms around him and
hold him in his embrace. The life that he had planned to share with Dominique
was over and he didn’t have the heart to go into her hospital room and tell
her. Instead, he asked his mother to do it and simply walked away.

Dominique woke up in excruciating
pain, her head was bandaged and she could hardly breathe. It was as if there
was a hand holding onto her lungs and their grip was extremely tight. Her
entire body felt like it was on fire and she didn’t know if that was a good or
bad thing.

“Welcome back.” said a nurse who
had walked into her room. “How are you feeling?”

“I feel like I’ve been hit by a
car.” Dominique couldn’t help it, she knew she shouldn’t joke but at the time
it was exactly how she felt.

“A sense of humor, I like that,
tells me you’re alive and among the living Miss Foster, that’s a very good
sign, the doctor will be with you in a minute.”

Dominique wondered why Adam wasn’t
by her side,
the doctors most have told him to wait.

  
“Miss Foster, how are you feeling? I'm Dr. Singh, you’re a very lucky
woman Miss Foster,
  besides
having a mild
concussion and three badly bruised ribs you and your baby are going to be just
fine.

The room suddenly seemed a lot
smaller, it was as if the whole world was caving in and Dominique was to sink
right into the middle of it all.

“Excuse me Dr. are you sure?”

  
He let out a chuckle, “Yes Miss Foster I am 100 percent sure. Of course
we'll have to wait for someone from obgyn to come down and give you a thorough
examination but yes, congratulations Miss Foster, am I guessing you had no
idea?”

“I wasn’t sure Dr. thank you. Dr.
is there anyone here to see me?” Dominique needed a distraction and she was
hoping that Adam would be that distraction, she would wait before she told him.
Wait until she was out of the hospital and healing.

  
“Yes, there is, I’ll go ahead and send them in, but not too long, you
need your rest.”

Dominique was expecting to see
Adams face but instead Muriel was the one who burst through the doors eyes
stained with tears and looking incredibly grateful and appreciative. “Oh
Dominique honey the doctor says you’re gonna be alright, you've got some broken
ribs and cuts and bruises but he just might be able to send you home in a
couple days.

  
Dominique you saved my life, and I cannot thank you enough.”

Dominique couldn’t help but sense
that something was wrong, Muriel was quite nervous.

“Muriel, where's Adam?”

Muriel burst into tears as she
relayed what Adam had wanted her to tell Dominique.

“Oh honey, he knows everything,”
she cried.

“What do you mean everything
Muriel?”

“Dominique Brandon knows who you
are, he confessed to Adam and his father that Nick found out who you were and
that he had planned on killing you. He told Adam that if he let you go he would
call off the attempts on your life Dominique and Adam agreed. He said it wasn’t
fair to you to keep you in danger. And Dominique? It appears that my husband
Jonathan knew who you were all along, but he kept it from all of us.”

  
“Oh Dominique, I am so, so sorry,” Muriel cried.

Dominique felt as if she'd been hit
all over again. She had secretly suspected that Jonathan was somehow involved
but she never thought that Adam could be.

“Muriel, what are you saying? Are
you saying that Adam knew that his own brother killed my family and he held it
from me? How long has he known Muriel? How long?”

  
“Honey, he found out a little before Nick got killed, oh Dominique I am
so sorry this has all gotten way out of hand. What are we going to do?”

Dominique wanted to curl up and
cry. She wished she'd died or at least stayed asleep so that she could spend
more time in her dream with Teddy and Stephen, but Stephen told her that it
wasn’t her time yet and that she had another life to worry about, the life
of  the little baby growing inside of her. She knew the time had come, it
was now or never.

Chapter Twenty One

“Muriel I’ll tell you what we're
gonna do, you’re gonna get in touch with Molly and Neal, have Neal come
here  first thing in the morning, tell Molly she needs to go to work
because we don’t want to arouse suspicion.
Me
, you and
Neal are going to sit here and put our plan in motion.

Neal can fill Molly in later on.
There's no more time for planning, it's now or never Muriel, the only
difference is that your husband is more involved than we thought but I know
what you've got planned for him so I’m going to concentrate on Brandon, he's
the one I want. Now I know it’s a whole lot sooner than we planned but are you
ready to do this Muriel because there's no going back, once we start it we've
got to see it through.”

“Dominique after what I learned
today, I’m more than ready, I’m going to go make some calls, and you need your
rest. Oh Dominique,” she said holding her hand. “Are you ready for this? You'll
be on your own after it’s all done.”

She felt the familiar sting of
tears as she said to Muriel, “I'm ready Muriel, I’m pregnant but ready.”

“Oh my dear god, Dominique are you
sure you want to go through with this? You've got to tell Adam this changes
everything!”

“No it doesn’t Muriel, we stick to
the plan do you hear me, Adam knew about Brandon and didn’t tell me. He knows
what his brother is capable of but he still chose to take his ultimatum. No
Muriel, it doesn’t change a thing.”

“But Dominique, you kept the fact
that you knew it was his brother that committed the awful crime from him. And I
know for a fact that the only reason he didn’t tell you was because he is in
love with you and he just wanted you to move on with your life. Please, you
promised you wouldn’t hurt him and keeping your pregnancy from him will do more
than hurt him.”

   “Yes I did promise
you  Muriel and trust me when I tell you that I need to keep this from him
for now, please listen to me, I know what I’m doing Okay so please, just let's
stick to the original plan and have  Neal here first thing tomorrow, can
you do that? For me? Please?”

Dominique was fading, everything
was surging on her and she didn’t know how much more she could take.

“Yes Dominique, I understand, you
get your rest. We'll see you in the morning honey. Again, I am so very sorry
that this happened to you, and I’m going to do everything in my power to make
sure it all turns out alright, for each of us.” Muriel left the hospital room
more anxious than ever now to help Dominique exact her revenge.

Dominique was glad for the quiet;
she needed the time to think. Adam had left her high and dry in the hospital.
He hadn’t even come to say goodbye, Brandon and his sick ultimatum,
she
thought to herself.
Adam knows everything now, it’s all out in the open and
after the New Year; he'll know that his child is growing inside me.

My god
thought Dominique,
just
yesterday Adam told me that he loved me and I said the same and now look at me,
I'm lying in a hospital bed and Adam is completely out of my life, it’s as if
none of it ever happened.
She thought to herself as she drifted off to
sleep.

Besides going to work, Adam
couldn’t find the strength to leave his condo. He wanted to stay inside, he
wanted the memories of Dominique to remain all around him; in the bed she
shared with him. Her clothes that were hanging in the closet, and she still had
things stored in the bathroom. He hoped that when his mother broke the news to
her that she would understand why he had to let her go. It was for her own
safety, that Brandon would have her killed if he didn’t break things off and he
knew that if he was there in her hospital room, there would be no way that he
would ever want to leave her.
No
, he told himself,
its better this
way. I'm sure by now she hates me anyway,
he sighed as he began packing up
her things.

It wasn’t until three days later
that Dominique was released from the hospital. Molly and Neal had come to
collect her. Muriel wanted to be there as well but had to make a trip to
Wellesley to check on her parents. “Tell Dominique that I will be by her place
later on tonight,” Muriel had told Molly when they spoke on the phone. “We'll
finalize everything when I get there, just as long as she's feeling up to it,”
Muriel whispered
  into
the phone.

Dominique was glad to be out of the
hospital and back home, back home at her place. She half expected Adam to be
parked outside, but she knew that wasn’t going to happen and it was a hard
thing for her to accept. She knew that he still loved her. Muriel told her that
he hasn't left his condo in days and had been working from home.

Dominique was sure that if she told
Adam she was pregnant with their child he would drop everything and go to her,
but she wasn’t ready to tell him yet, she wanted to wait until it was the right
time.  She also wanted to make sure that Brandon was completely out of the
picture because now, it wasn’t just herself she had to be worried about, it was
her baby that needed looking after.

And she had no doubt in her mind
that Brandon Caruso would kill her and her baby if given the chance.
But maybe
Adam wasn’t ready to be a father,
she thought to herself,
if he could
walk out of my life so easily after I’ve been hit by a car, what would he do if
he found out that he was going to be a father?

As the four of them gathered
together that evening to go over their plans, Dominique thought it best if they
waited until after the holiday. Christmas was a week away and although things
certainly weren’t going as planned, Dominique did not want to ruin anybody’s
Christmas, and besides, her good friends Pam and Rob were coming down to spend
the holiday with her so she wouldn’t have to be alone and Rob, who she made
privy to her plan, told her he had something for her, something she would
definitely need once she carried out her plan.

  
“Okay so what day are you thinking Dominique?” asked Neal who's strength
was something they needed if they were going to be able to carry out their
plan.

“Well, I was thinking New Year’s
Eve would be perfect, we all meet at the penthouse no later than ten am. We do
what we need to do and say everything that we need to say and be done by no
later than three because I’ve gotta get to the Hyannis to get the last ferry.
So what do you guys think does that sound like a plan?” Dominique hoped they
would agree.

“Yes,” they all nodded.

  
“Dominique are you sure you want to stay in Nantucket? I mean you'll be
so isolated and what if Adam shows up?” Molly was worried for her pregnant
friend.

“Actually Molly going to Nantucket
was Muriel's idea, she's letting me stay at the cottage for a while, just until
things die down and we see where we are with Brandon. If things don’t go as
planned then he's going to want to come after me even more so than before.

  
And now that I’ve got someone else to think about I can't let that
happen. Besides, Nantucket Island is the last place he'll look and I have it on
good authority that he hates the island, especially in the winter months.”
Dominique smiled at Muriel who was the source of her information.

“That's all well and good Dominique
but you still haven’t answered my question about Adam showing up unexpectedly,
you yourself said that he loved going there in the winter.”

“I've taken care of that Molly,
don’t you worry,” said Muriel, “I've already taken the keys back from Adam and
his father under the rouse of having the house renovated. I told them that I
needed a project to do and a total renovation with all new windows and an
update of the heating system.

At first Jonathan was a bit
suspicious but when I assured him that I would be spending a lot of time there
once the holidays were over, he was more than willing to give me free rein, I
suppose it’s so he can carry on with his mistresses. But it will give me a
chance to spend time with Dominique and pamper her. We'll be able to get ready
for the baby,” she said excitedly.

“Dominique, when are you going to
tell Adam? You shouldn’t keep something like this from him, it’s not right.”

Dominique knew that Muriel was
right, but she couldn’t tell Adam; not yet, it wasn’t time. She had to know if
he still cared for her and since he had cut off all contact that meant he no
longer did.

“Muriel, I just want to get through
the next few weeks, and then I’ll tell him, but please let me do it in my own
time, please?” Dominique begged.

“Of course Dominique, I understand
completely.”

Dominique knew that she did.

By the time they had concluded
their night, all arrangements had been made. Dominique told them all that there
was nothing left to do but enjoy the holidays with their families, and that the
next time they would all be together would be the morning of Dec. 31
^st
. Once
everyone had gone, Dominique sat alone with her thoughts; she was the only one
who had no family left, Brandon saw to that the night he left Stephen and Teddy
to die.