If The Seas Catch Fire (33 page)

He closed his eyes for a moment, icicles forming along his spine.

Dom took his hand, and he kissed it gently but didn’t speak.

“I heard the shouting and the gunshots,” Sergei said. “I heard my mother scream. Then there were squealing tires, and the two cars left. I waited a few minutes, until I was sure they were gone, and got out of the car.”

In almost twenty years, Sergei hadn’t gone a day without thinking about the scene that had awaited him when he’d stepped out of that car. In the milky beams of the station wagon’s headlights, his father and both of his brothers were sprawled on the pavement, writhing and whimpering in pain as enormous pools of blood expanded beside their midsections. Mama was on her knees, holding Vasily’s limp form against her and screaming. Just… screaming.

One by one, right before Sergei’s eyes, his brothers had stilled. Then his father.

And Mama still screamed. Even as she let Vasily down onto the asphalt, her shirt and face and arms covered in blood, she’d
screamed
.

“
Mama?
”

“
Seryozha?
” She’d looked up at him, eyes wide and glittering in the headlights. “
Sergei? Are you…
” She reached up and frantically ran her bloody fingers all over his face and through his hair. “
Are you real, Seryozha
?”

“
I’m real, Mama
.”

She’d thrown her arms around him, and they sat there until almost daylight, both crying, both rocking back and forth in the darkness until another car finally came by. When the driver had gotten out and found them, Mama had screamed and pleaded, “
Please don’t hurt my son!
”

Then the cops had come, and there’d been a hospital, and social workers, and relatives suddenly sending him to live with relatives. He saw Mama once more—briefly— before his aunt took him away. To his knowledge, that was the last time she’d known who he was.

In the present, he cleared his throat. “I went to live with some family in San Diego. I didn’t have any contact with my mother, and no one would tell me anything, so I ran away when I was fifteen and came back to Cape Swan to find her.” He exhaled hard. “No one’s ever been able to tell me exactly what happened, but what I’ve gathered is that she fell into this horrible depression. She thought I was dead. Overdosed a few times on meds, tried to drink herself to death a few times, and then she just kind of… lost it, I guess. So now she’s in a home, and barely even knows who she is half the time.” His voice wavered a bit as he added, “She doesn’t know who I am.”

“My God,” Dom whispered.

Sergei exhaled, then took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders. “After that, I got my hands on my uncle’s pistol, and I found the men who’d threatened my father to start with. And I shot them.”

Dom blinked. “Wait, you killed them when you were
fifteen
?”

Sergei nodded. “My cousins had taught me to shoot, and I decided to put that to use. Once I took those assholes down, I realized I could do it, and I decided I was going to kill everyone who’d been involved in what happened to my family.” He met Dom’s gaze. “At first, I didn’t want to take down the entire Mafia.” Sergei laughed dryly. “I mean, I don’t think God Himself could bring them all down and keep them down—another family just pops up to take the last one’s place. But I did realize I couldn’t stop until I’d destroyed the Maisanos and the Cusimanos. And once I saw that the Passantinos were fucked up, I put them on my list too. Whoever comes in to fill the void, well, not much I can do about that. But those three? Done.” Sergei exhaled, shaking his head. “I just don’t know what to do now. If you’re not dead soon, then I will be.”

“Then take the money I gave you,” Dom said. “And get the hell out of this place.”

“I don’t need the money. I actually have a bit of an insurance policy. I’ve got a place out of the country. And money squirreled away in about a dozen offshore accounts.”

Dom nodded. “Go, then. Blow town and get the fuck out of here.”

“Dom.” Sergei exhaled. “I’m in love with you. I want you to stay alive, and I want to stay alive myself, but I didn’t come this far to walk away and leave the Maisanos standing.”

For a long time, Dom didn’t speak. Finally, though, he held Sergei a little tighter and said, “Look, I don’t know what our next move should be. I say we sleep on it for now, and in the morning… we’ll figure something out.”

“Do you think you
can
sleep?”

“It’s worth trying.”

*              *              *

Unsurprisingly, Sergei didn’t sleep much. He dozed off for a little while, long enough for a few nightmares, and woke up feeling like he hadn’t slept in weeks.

But then he was suddenly wide awake—the bed was empty.

He looked around. Dom wasn’t in the bedroom. His heart sped up. Had Dom slipped out during the night? Run like hell the way any sane man would with a contract on his head?

Sergei quickly grabbed a pair of shorts off his dresser, pulled them on, and went looking through the rest of his apartment.

He found Dom on the back patio, sitting on the edge and gazing out at the morning sky.

You idiot. You shouldn’t have stayed.

God, I’m glad you’re here.

As Sergei stepped out through the sliding glass door, Dom turned. Then he rose.

“Hey,” Dom said. “I didn’t want to wake you up. Sounded like you’d finally fallen asleep.”

“Yeah.” Sergei shrugged. “Sort of. You want some coffee?”

“Sure. Yeah.”

They went into the kitchen. Despite the daylight casting an entirely different set of shadows and colors on the plain white cabinets and dingy laminate, there was no ignoring that this was where he and Dom had stood last night. Where Sergei had confessed the truth, and they’d brawled until Dom had calmed down. On the cabinet beside the oven, there was a smear of dried blood. His? Dom’s? No way of knowing. Not that it mattered.

His mind going a million directions, Sergei went through the motions of starting some coffee.

“So,” Dom said. “I’ve, uh, been thinking about our situation.”

Sergei’s hands stopped. In an instant, he couldn’t remember how to work the coffee maker, and didn’t really need the caffeine anyway. Facing Dom, he said, “Okay?”

Dom stared at the floor for a moment before meeting Sergei’s gaze. “I think we need to come to terms with some things that are out of our hands at this point.”

“Such as?”

“My cousin wants me dead. He’s going to make sure it happens. That’s…” He paused. “That’s why they called in the best for the job.”

Sergei winced, forcing back the bile climbing his throat.

Dom took a deep breath. “The contract is out. One way or another, I’m a dead man, and if you aren’t the one to pull the trigger, you will be too.”

It took a second to read between the lines, but when Sergei realized what he was getting at, he jerked away from Dom’s grasp and stepped back. “Don’t even say it, Dom. I won’t. I can’t.”

“You need to.”

“Fuck no. I can’t do it, Dom. I don’t…” Sergei shoved a hand through his hair and started pacing across the kitchen, which seemed almost too small for pacing now that there was a broad-shouldered Sicilian standing in it. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I don’t think you have much choice.”

“No. No fucking way. You’re—”

“Sergei, listen to me.” Dom closed his hands around Sergei’s shoulders. “I’m dead no matter what. At least I can—” He winced, then softly added, “At least I can trust you to make it quick.” His eyebrows rose slightly, as if to ask,
Right?

“I’d never make you suffer,” Sergei breathed.

“Then you have to—”

“
No
.” Sergei set his jaw. “I’m not—”

“Sergei, for God’s sake, just do it. Then you can walk away from this town and never look back. You don’t fill this contract, you’re going to be wearing a bull’s eye for the rest of your very, very short life.” Dom swallowed. “Because they
will
find you, and they
will
kill me. And I think we both know that they won’t just put a bullet through your head.”

Sergei shuddered, his mother’s screams echoing through his mind as she stared at the bodies of her slowly dying husband and sons. “Dom…”

“You know how this works. We both do. And I don’t want you being tortured for letting me live. They’re going to kill me either way, so—”

“No. There’s enough money. We can… we—”

Dom gripped Sergei’s shoulders tighter. “Look at me.”

Sergei met his gaze, though it was a struggle, and the pain and desperation in Dom’s eyes only made his heart sink deeper and deeper.

“These people have taken everything from me too,” Dom said. “I got roped into this life, and I’ve done things I’m not looking forward to answering to in the next one. The bottom line, though, is no matter what we do, someone is going to make sure I’m dead.”

“Dom, we—”

“
Listen
to me.” The hurt in Dom’s eyes intensified as he held Sergei’s gaze. “The only variables here are
how
I die and
if
you do. If I can’t get away from all this alive, then I would rather go down knowing that you’re going to make a clean break and get out of here. If you promise me you’ll do it quickly, and then you’ll leave Cape Swan forever and go have the life neither of us have ever been able to… I can’t think of anything that would give me more peace.”

That hit Sergei in the chest. He’d craved peace even more than he’d craved vengeance, and to be able to grant that to Dom would mean he could sleep at night. But not like this.

“What if we fake our deaths?” His mouth had gone dry. “A burned out car in the ocean, it’ll—”

“No.” Dom shook his head. “We both know no one will believe I’m dead without a body.”

Sergei chewed his lip. He couldn’t argue with that. “And if we run? We have money. We—”

Dom shook his head.

Sergei squeezed his eyes shut. Dom was right. There was no way around it.

Shoulders sinking beneath Dom’s gentle hands, Sergei exhaled and met his gaze. “I don’t know what else to do.”

Dom pulled in a breath and stood a little straighter. “We shouldn’t do it here. The cops… they’ll…”

Sergei winced. “Are we really…”

“What else do you suggest?”

He flinched.

“There are places all over this area,” Dom said. “The woods. The beach.” Dom half-shrugged. “I don’t care where they find me as long as they don’t find you.”

“You’re…” Sergei struggled against a wave of nausea. “How the hell can you be so casual about where I’m supposed to
kill you
and leave your body?”

“Because the alternative is letting
you
get killed,” Dom shot back.

“Fine,” Sergei snapped. “But I’m not—”

“Do you hear yourself? This is out of our hands, Sergei. All we can do is damage control.”

“And damage control is me killing you?”

“Yes!” Dom threw up his hands. “It’s either that or—”

“I know what the fucking alternatives are!”

“Then what else do you suggest, because I’m out of ideas.”

Sergei swallowed, wondering when that lump had started rising in his throat. He didn’t have any more ideas either. Because there weren’t any. The unwritten laws of this town were evil and cruel, but they bent for no man.

“What if we kill Felice?” he asked. “You’re the boss, for God’s sake. Put a hit out—”

“And how many of Felice’s goons know you’re contracted to kill me?” Dom shook his head. “Anyone lays a hand on him while I’m still alive, they’ll know damn well you turned.”

Sergei’s skin crawled. Dom had a point.

What the fuck was he supposed to do now? His plan hadn’t included this. Dom wasn’t supposed to inherit his uncle’s position. Felice wasn’t supposed to contract Sergei to kill Dom. Even if Dom had and Felice had, Sergei wasn’t supposed to care about Dom. He wasn’t supposed to be too in love to pull the fucking trigger.

But they had. And he was. And here they were.

And if Sergei didn’t kill Dom, someone else would. Brutally. Mercilessly.

Slumping against the counter, he whispered, “You’re right. We can’t do this here.”

Dom exhaled. “I know a few places.”

“Me too.” Sergei ran a hand through his hair. Then he brushed past Dom. “I’ll get my keys.”

*              *              *

They ditched Dom’s car in a lot near the edge of town. Then he joined Sergei, and neither of them spoke as Sergei followed that familiar highway into the thickly forested hills.

As he drove. Sergei tried not to think about whether he regretted that they hadn’t taken the time to go to bed once more. Now that the truth was out, and they both knew what had to happen, he just… couldn’t.