If The Seas Catch Fire(6)

The stripper looked at the gun as if he’d forgotten he had it, and then shrugged. “This is a shit part of town. Everyone’s armed.”

Dom glanced around. His vision was a little fuzzy and doubling around the edges. He was up the road from the marina, that much he knew. This area was all too familiar.

How the hell had he gotten here tonight? In the trunk of one car and the backseat of another, that much he knew, but at the beginning of the evening, he’d been clear on the other side of Cape Swan. He’d been parked behind an upscale restaurant, palms sweating and stomach sick over a date he didn’t want to be on, when the *s got the drop on him. How long ago had that been? Shit. He had no idea what had happened, or when, or where…

All he knew was that he was f*cked up and he needed to get out of here. He turned on the phone. It didn’t require a passcode, fortunately, and thank God he’d committed a few key numbers to memory. “Do you need me to get you a cab or something?”

He lifted his head, but the stripper was gone.

He scanned the deserted road as much as his sore muscles and shitty vision would allow, but there was no sign of the guy. Not even footsteps fading into the night.

They got ninjas working as strippers in this town or something?

Well. Whatever. He was alone now.

He shifted his gaze back to the phone, gave his eyes a second to focus, and entered a number. It rang several times, before Biaggio, his uncle’s consigliere, picked up.

The sleepy, irritated voice muttered, “Hello?”

“It’s Dom. I need help.”

He could almost hear the old man snapping to attention. “What’s going on? Are you all right? Where are you?”

“I’m… down by the marina. Couple of blocks from the gate. Banged up.”

“What? My God, what’s… Are you all right?”

“I’m… I think so? I just need to get out of here.”

“I’m on my way. Do I need to call Rojas?”

Dom knew damn well Biaggio was going to call the family’s physician either way—better safe than sorry—but he still croaked, “Yeah. Call him.”

Biaggio swore in Italian. “Where exactly are you?”

Dom gave him the intersection, and after they hung up, he leaned back against the bench, but that only aggravated the bruises on his back.

As his body ached and throbbed and threatened to just fall apart, his mind reeled. He tried not to think about everything that had happened tonight, tried not to pick apart exactly how the motherf*ckers had caught him with his guard down, but that was easier said than done. It was like his brain had split into two pieces, and both sides were pulling him in opposite directions. One wanted to focus solely on staying conscious and watching for his ride. The other wanted to go back to the restaurant where his evening had started and retrace his steps. Figure out exactly when things had gone to shit. When he’d ceased to be meeting with Brigida Passantino, the woman his uncle was pressuring him to marry, and when he’d suddenly been in serious danger. And serious pain. And…here.

He rubbed his forehead, carefully avoiding the goose egg swelling near his hair line. There’d be plenty of time to retrace those steps when he got home. Biaggio had undoubtedly notified Uncle Corrado—no one in the family got roughed up without the boss knowing about it. Corrado was probably already pacing in his office, ready to grill Dom about what had happened. Or more importantly, who had happened. Who had dared to f*ck with a boss’s nephew? Who was Corrado going to order dead before sunrise?

Dom was pretty sure the guys who’d f*cked him up were dead already, though. The shouting and struggling in the trunk of the car had ceased after a few small caliber gunshots. Assuming he hadn’t hallucinated that part. Had he? No, he was pretty sure that had been real. Along with the red leather clad stripper who’d pulled him out of the car and then vanished. Had he been a hallucination?

Except Dom hadn’t gotten to his feet, into the car, and out of it again on his own power. Someone had been there beside him—he could still feel every tender spot the kid had touched while helping him up.

No, he’d definitely been real. And dangerous.

The back of Dom’s neck prickled. In his mind’s eye, he saw the pistol in the stripper’s waistband, the way the kid had carried it comfortably and naturally.

The gunshots echoed in Dom’s mind. There hadn’t been anyone else around. No one else could have pulled the trigger. Which meant…

No way.

But then, who else could have done it? For that matter, it didn’t take a big guy like Dom to pull a trigger, though God knew he’d pulled his fair share. A pistol made anyone, however slim and slight, physically capable of killing. If Dom could cope with putting a bullet through someone, he had no reason to believe that stripper couldn’t. And those ice cold eyes hadn’t held a trace of fear, though Dom had hardly been a threat to anyone by the time he could look at the kid’s face. Still, Dom was alive, Floresta and Mandanici were dead, and…

And who the f*ck was that kid?



*



It seemed like hours before the sleek black car pulled up and stopped on the curb. Two doors opened. Stan, the driver, hurried around the front as Biaggio, the white-haired consigliere, stepped out of the car.

Biaggio’s eyes widened. “Domenico, what happened? Who did this?”