The Art of Domination (52 page)

“Sugar…” she mutters and my heart aches to hold her close and reassure her that I love only her and I always will.

I just want this
nightmare to end.

***

Why is he touching her
? I don’t understand. He looks so calm
.
My God, he’s watching her with the same Dominant gaze that he watches me with. The gun is still pointed at me and I can’t move from my spot. His hand is in her hair and he tugs hard and I close my eyes, not wanting to see my Dom doing this to someone else. I hide behind my knees again and cover my ears. Their voices are muffled and I try to float away again, but I can’t.
I just can’t.
I want Dylan to hold and comfort me right now. My mouth and head ache.
Cassie
. That’s her name. How could I forget?

I open my eyes again and watch them. Dylan is caressing her face and whispering things to her. This can’t be happening. He loves me.
Me.
He told me so. I know he wasn’t lying. He married
me.

Snap out of it, Isa. This is all just a ploy to get Cassie to let her guard down; of course it is. I’m not stupid. I close my eyes one last time and suppress my self-deprecating inner voice.
He loves me; I know he does.
I’ll wait for the moment that she lowers the gun and I’ll take her. I know I can do it.
Fuck her.
She thinks she can cut her hair and dye it and that will make her like me? She’ll never be like me. She’s the no-talent bitch.  Dylan belongs to me.
He’s mine.

When I open my eyes, my alter ego is waiting in the wings. She’
s desperate to come out and kick some ass. I think about the look on Erika’s face when I dominated her and I feel exhilarated again. Fuck anyone who tries to come between me and my husband. 
I’ve had it with this crap
. I block out the words being said between them and concentrate on the ringing in my ears and the sound of my breathing and heartbeat. I’m doing a good job focusing until I hear Cassie say something that catches me by surprise.

“I know everything about you, Master.
Everything
. I know about your parents, too. Erika told me about them and I looked into what happened to them. Did you really do that to them? You can tell me. We’re meant to be together, Master, and now you can tell me everything about yourself.”

What the hell
is she talking about?

Dylan
blinks rapidly and his eyes shift towards me and Cassie gets aggravated with him for taking his eyes off of her.

“Why are you looking at her?”

Dylan doesn’t answer and he looks confounded like he doesn’t know what to do.

“Shut up, Cassie. I don’t want to talk about my parents.”

“I want to hear it from your own mouth, Master. I want you confess all of your bad deeds to me, like you did Erika.”

“
I mean it, shut the fuck up, Cassie,” he says more adamantly and pulls her hair harder.

What is this about?
Dylan looks nervous and his cool exterior starts to fade. He’s holding something back; hiding something. His eyes shift to me again and Cassie pushes away from him and attacks me, pulling me out of the chair abruptly and holding me from behind.

“You just can’t let her go, can you, Dylan? You still love her, don’t you? After I said I’d give you everything she can, you still want her, don’t you?” she screams.

She has me in a choke hold and I’m trying to pull her arm away from my neck, but her lunatic strength is greater than mine. I start to see spots and my vision goes fuzzy, but she lets her grip loosen. I gasp for air and Dylan looks panicked and enraged. I can feel the muzzle of the gun against my temple or else I’d start kicking.

“Does Isabel know all of your secrets?” she asks.

“Of course she does, she’s my wife,” Dylan answers coolly. I can see his steadfastness coming back and his stance shifts.

“Are you sure about that? Does she know how you killed your parents?”

What the hell?
Surely, she’s lying. That can’t be true. This woman is demented. She has to be out of her head to be accusing Dylan of such a thing.

Dylan’s eyes narrow and I see him clench his jaw, but he never makes eye contact with me.  I’m sure he won’t make that mistake again.

“If you’re lying, I’ll kill her right now and you can watch me splatter what little brains she has all over the front of you.”

Cassie leans down and breathes the same question into ear.

“Do you know what
my
Master did to his parents?”

Fuck her.
He’s my Master.
I hate lying, but whatever it takes to get her to calm down, I’ll do it. “Yes, of course I do, I’m his wife,” I repeat.

Dylan’s loo
ks me in the eyes and I see hurt and deception in them.
So he is holding something back
. Did he really kill his parents? No. It can’t be true. He would’ve told me something so vital. He knows every little thing about me. How can Erika and Cassie know something so important about my husband, my Dom, and I don’t? My fear of Cassie turns to anger against Dylan for making me a liar and continuing to hold back secrets. He promised he would never lie to me again.
He promised.

I blink long and hard and Dylan furrows his eyebrows at me. He knows I know. His gaze doesn’t falter and I mentally scream at him for not trusting me enough to tell me about his past.
A single tear leaks from my eye and he swallows hard. I’m so hurt and livid right now I can’t think straight. I’m brought back to the realization of our desperate situation when Cassie shoves me to my hands and knees, and starts screaming incoherently. 

“Fuck you, you stupid gold-digging whore! He was supposed to be mine!”

“Jesus Christ, Cassie! No!” Dylan yells.

He lunges forward a
nd reaches out and I hear an earsplitting gunshot ring out. I feel a sharp pain in my side and I gasp for breath. I jump up and see Dylan wrestling the gun out of Cassie’s hands. I try and help and I feel strong hands pull me away and I hear Sawyer’s voice.

“No, Isabel!”

Dylan slaps Cassie hard across her face and it stuns her long enough that Sawyer is able to pull the gun out of her hands while Dylan pins her down.  I move out of the way while a rush of security people fills the room. I feel dizzy and lightheaded and I lean against the wall trying to catch my breath.
What the fuck just happened?
Dylan is still pinning Cassie down as she continues to wail obscenities and thrash about. He looks over at me and he looks horror-struck.

“Oh
my God, Isa!” he yells and rises up and pushes his way through the crowd to me.

What?
He grabs me and pulls me to him. My vision is still fuzzy and the voices are starting to fade out.

“Get someone in here to help!” Dylan screams.

Sawyer comes running over and he looks just as frightened as Dylan. What are they freaking out about?  Dylan takes his coat off and presses it to my side and I suddenly feel a sharp pain and I shriek. I look down and my beautiful dress is soaked in blood.
Holy gunshot wound.
I’ve been shot? But I didn’t even feel it.

“I’m fine,” I whisper to Dylan.

I really do feel fine. I’m a little dizzy, but… oh, dear. Okay. Now I feel it. I gasp and start hyperventilating. The pain is kicking in now.  The same man who helped me before at our house is in my face and talking to me but I can’t make out his garbled words.  I feel my body start shaking and I feel cold; really cold.

“She’s going into shock…”

I’ll be fine. I just need to rest. I close my eyes tightly and try to sleep it off.

When I
awaken, I’m at home in bed.  Dylan is sitting next to me in the white chair, sleeping, wearing the same clothes from the gallery show. His gorgeous white vest, shirt and tie are blood spattered.  When I try to move, pain shoots through my body and I yelp out like a hurt animal.

Dylan sits up
, startled, and comes to my side.

“Don’t move, Isa. You’ve been shot.”

“Why am I at home?” I ask.

“Because
you were only grazed and I insisted that you be brought here. Dr. Keating is here to keep a close eye on you. He’s cleaned your wound and assured me that you’ll be fine with close supervision.”

I see that I have an I.V. in place and several clean towels and dressings next to the bed.

“What happened to Cassie?” I ask, looking down at the dressing on my rib cage.

Dylan pauses and I look up at him, waiting for an answer.

“She’s been taken to psychiatric hospital until she’s stable enough for charges to be brought against her.”

He rubs the back of his neck and doesn’t make eye contact with me. Dylan looks relieved that I’m awake, but my relief at o
ur being safe is only fleeting when I recall Cassie’s words about Dylan’s parents. 

“Isa, you know I was only saying and doing those things
to Cassie to keep her calm, don’t you?”

I turn my face away from Dylan, not wanting to look at him.

“I’m not stupid. Of course, I know that.”

“I didn’t say you were. I was just trying to explain. You looked so…” he trails off.

“What? Pathetic?” I snap.

“I didn’t say that either. You looked like a child,” he says softly.
“It broke my heart to see you like that,” he says scooting closer to me.

I don’t want to hear this.
I don’t need his sweet words right now. He’s a liar. He’s been lying to me our entire relationship. Will he ever change or will he continue to lie to me our entire marriage?

“What’s wrong, love?” he says, running his fingers through my hair. I don’t want him touching me. I pull away from him
and turn away.

“Isa…”

“Don’t. I can’t talk to you right now,” I tell him. I’m still too furious with him. I need time to think things through before I say something I’ll regret or something hurtful. I feel the bed dip next to me as he shifts and sighs loudly.

“I should’ve told you.”

“I said, don’t,” I repeat louder.

Dylan stands up and walks towards the windows and stands staring out.  The pain in my side is throbbing and I shut my eyes and
force myself to sleep.

When I awaken again, I’m alone in the bedroom. I’m hot so I uncover myself and sit up on the edge of the bed. I’m not near as sore as I was before. I
t must be the medication numbing my pain. I just want to leave. I’m not sure exactly why. I just can’t take the lies anymore.

I gingerly pull the I.V. out
and rub the sore spot that it leaves. It only bleeds slightly and I apply brief pressure to it. I wobbly walk to the closet and get out some clothes and pack a small bag.  Maybe I can sneak out of here unseen. That would be best. I don’t want a confrontation. I just want some space between Dylan and I. His constant lying is more than I can handle. Erika knew about his parents and so did Cassie, but not me? That’s completely unacceptable. Who else knows?

What really happened? Does it even really matter at this point? Not really. I don’t believe that he really killed his parents. I don’t. I’ll never believe that. There must be some rational explanation, but at this point, I don’t care what it is.

I lean up against the closet door and catch my breath. I’m feeling slightly dizzy again. This is a bad idea. I should just rest for a few days and then leave.
To hell with that.
I can’t look into Dylan’s beautiful lying eyes again.

I manage to get dressed and
get my shoes on without blacking out. I gather my coat, car keys and small bag and hit the elevator button to go down. The elevator is bright and the lights make my head throb and spin. I lean against the same back wall Dylan fucked me against last night and close my eyes.  When the doors open up on the first level, I hear Dylan’s voice talking with security. I open my eyes and he looks over at me shocked and irritated.

“What the hell are you doing out of bed?” he asks strictly.

He looks me over and then sees my bag on the floor and the color drains from his face.

“Isabel…” his mouth gapes open and I stumble out of the elevator.

He catches me and I try to push him off, but his strong arms hold me tight. 

“Get off of me, you liar,” I say.

He pulls back away from me and looks offended.

“D
on’t call me that,” he whispers.

“
Why? That’s what you are. Don’t you realize that a lie by omission is still a lie?” I snap at him.

I try and push past him again and he grabs me and backs me in to the
elevator and closes the doors and stops the elevator.  He steps away from me and watches me fearfully. 

“Open the damned doors and let me leave. I mean it, Dylan. I can’t stay here with you.”