Chapter 3
3
Schlick.
The custom dagger sank deep into my shoulder.
Blood instantly bloomed, soaking through my clothes.
I had given her that dagger for her eighteenth birthday. I taught her how to hold a blade so she could protect herself, not so she could gut me. I had been raising a viper in my own home.
Dominic's eyes bulged. His Adam's apple bobbed.
"Victoria, why didn't you dodge? It's just your leg that's bad, you could have easily dodged that! Right?"
"Everyone in the underworld knows you as The Midnight Wraith. Sienna just wanted to spar with you. How have your reflexes gotten this slow?"
Right.
How had I gotten this slow?
When I was twenty-five, heavily pregnant with Dominic's child and weeks away from my due date, I was kidnapped.
He nearly lost his mind. He threw away everything to save me, storming the enemy compound alone.
They had taken me just to lure him out. They injected neurotoxins straight into his brain, then threw us both into a subterranean holding cell to rot.
I remember him huddled behind a pile of trash, his eyes vacant, drool slipping from the corner of his mouth as he mumbled the same words over and over.
“Scared… I’m scared…”
My heart seized violently at the memory. I could barely breathe.
Ignoring the agonizing cramps tearing through my swollen belly, I forced myself to crouch down and grab his shaking hands.
“Dominic, come with me.”
I shielded my stomach and turned, using my own back to block the hail of bullets meant for him.
The piercing agony drove me to my knees.
But I fought. I shoved him into the elevator and slammed the button for the rooftop extraction point.
I had a team waiting there.
When I finally woke up, he had forgotten everything about that night.
He couldn't even control his own bowels. He was no different from a vegetable.
Because of the gunshot wounds and the subsequent miscarriage, my body was wrecked. The doctors told me I would never be able to conceive again.
But he remembered none of it.
He didn't know we had lost a child.
He didn't know the price I had paid to keep him breathing.
Back then, we would have died for each other without a second thought.
But loyalty, it seemed, could pivot faster than the barrel of a gun.
I swallowed the rage burning in my throat.
"The coastal properties are my bottom line."
"Also, Sienna is grown. It's no longer appropriate for her to live with us. She's capable now. Tell her to pack her bags."
He rubbed his temples, looking utterly exasperated, treating my words like background noise. He waved a hand dismissively.
"Guards, take the Boss down to get her wound treated, then send her home to rest."
I furrowed my brows, staring at him like he was a stranger.
Dominic, I barely recognize you anymore.
The guards who grabbed me had already been bought by Sienna. They had no intention of taking me home.
They slapped duct tape over my mouth, bound my wrists, and threw me into a cramped storage closet.
Sienna strolled in, a sickeningly sweet smile on her face.
"Victoria, you taught me that a predator doesn't just rely on weapons."
"They rely on being ruthless, and knowing exactly when to strike."
She pressed the bloody blade against my throat.
"How do you think I'm doing?"
"You also said that if I want something, I have to take it. So, I slipped a little something into Dominic's drink earlier."
"Now, you get to sit here and listen to exactly what he chooses."
The edge of the blade nicked the skin over my vein.
The smell of my blood only made her eyes gleam brighter.
The hidden sentries I had brought with me shifted in the shadows, ready to strike, but I pinned them down with a single, sharp look.
Dominic. I wanted to see exactly how far he would fall.