The Sacrificial Lamb (12 page)

He managed to appease Carlo, who no longer sounded suspicious. If Domenic had played his cards right, he had bought them some time, and he needed all the extra time he could get.

When dusk finally fell, Domenic went over his plan to go back to the condo and pick up some supplies, food, and clothing. Whatever he lacked, he would have to stop for on the way back to the warehouse. If timed right, the whole errand shouldn’t last more than an hour. Upon his return, he would take care of Vince and take Alex away. He hoped what little trust she had in him was enough to convince her to cooperate.

The thought of leaving Vince alone with Alexis made him nervous, but he couldn’t see any way around it. The other option would be to take her with him now, but he didn’t think she would be up to going grocery shopping with a mobster who had just kidnapped her from her kidnappers. If she decided to try to escape, or called attention to them—which was almost a certainty—they would be as good as dead. Domenic considered trying to explain it all to her, but he wasn’t sure if she would believe him. No, he would have to take the risk.

He told Vince he was going to go out and get them all something to eat for dinner. Domenic banked on Vince’s fear of being caught red-handed to prevent him from doing anything in his absence. Before leaving he went in to talk to Alex under the guise of asking her what she wanted to eat.

The last few hours, he had been replaying their last moments together in his head. It had been infinitely exciting to be able to touch her. It disturbed him that he could still feel the silkiness of her skin. The cadence of her heart, beating out a staccato tattoo under his fingertips stayed with him. Her face haunted him. Domenic had wanted to go back to her, but knew he shouldn’t.

When he walked into the room, she sat and watched him in silence. Domenic went to her and took the same position as before, crouching down so they were at eye level. She looked alarmed at the expression on his face, and he tried to control his features so as not to scare her unduly.

“Listen to me closely,” he whispered to her. “I have to go and take care of something, but I’ll be back in an hour.”

“You’re leaving?” she whispered. Her voice trembled, and she sounded ready to panic.

“Yes, but I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He took one of her cold hands in his. “I’ll explain everything to you when I return. Take this, just in case.” Domenic pressed a switchblade into her palm. It was the same one he had purchased all those years ago. The same one he had planned to use on Carlo.

“Aren’t you worried I’ll try to use it on you?” Alex asked with a strange look on her face.

“You can try,” he said, smirking. “I’m fully trained in hand to hand combat, including disarming people with weapons. I’m not worried.” He winked at her, and she smiled prettily. “I want you to be able to protect yourself if necessary.
I
know you have a knife.
He
doesn’t.”

Alex made the knife disappear, and Domenic stood up to leave. As he went to the door she got up from the cot and came after him.

“Wait!” she whispered urgently and reached for his jacket to tug him back. “What if you don’t come back?”

“I’ll come back,” he answered, “but just in case…” and before Domenic could stop himself, he bent his head and pressed his lips to hers. The intense jolt he felt at that moment shocked him.

Domenic pulled back and left the room with the image of Alex burned into his mind, her fingers pressed against her lips, her eyes wide and beautiful.

H
E
K
ISSED
M
E
, was Alex’s flustered thought.

Mr. Armani—
Domenic
—had kissed her.

She stood there frozen in place, staring at the door with her hand pressed against her mouth. He had gone from killer to kisser in an instant. What had just happened?

Logically, she should be upset that he had made such a bold move, but she wasn’t. The resolve had been in his eyes a fraction of a second before he bent his head toward hers. Too stunned to pull away, her mind had registered the fact that his lips were soft yet firm. Then the sweet pressure against her mouth was gone, and a moment later, so was he.

Slipping her hand in her pocket, Alex felt the knife hidden there. He had given her a weapon to use “just in case.” That phrase scared her more than anything because there were too many situations in which that could apply. Just in case Mr. Meek decided to try anything funny. Just in case Mr. Mean decided to return and finish the job. Just in case Mr. Hulk tried to figure out what the big deal about her seemed to be and pick up where the others had left off.

Just in case Mr. Armani never came back again.

Sighing, she turned and trudged toward the cot to sit down. He said he’d be back in an hour, but then what? Their talk had been cryptic, but she got the impression he was going to find a way to help her escape. Maybe he had gone to the police? No that was impossible, because if he did that he would be arrested along with anyone else involved in this mess. So then, where could he have gone? And what was going to happen when he returned? Alex wasn’t sure if she would be able to hold out for an entire hour.

Why had he kissed her? Maybe all this danger excited him.

Everything that happened today crashed down on her head—the phone call with her father and her near miss with disaster when the call was over. When Mr. Mean made his intentions clear about what would happen next, Alex couldn’t help but close her eyes and pray that someone would stop him. It caught her by surprise when a pair of green eyes flashed in her mind. Not just someone—
him
. As if she had summoned him merely by thought, he had appeared.

Alex saw Domenic from over Mr. Mean’s shoulder, looking like an avenging angel. Beautiful and deadly. The rage on his face was a sight to behold. On anyone else, it would have distorted their features to the point of ugliness, but instead it enhanced his already sharp features. His eyes flashed brilliantly, his nose was subtly flared, and his jaw was clenched tight enough that it looked as if it was chiseled out of stone.

She was scared of him. Scared, yet enthralled. To watch him attack with single-minded ferocity, in her defense, had her spellbound.

“I said, she is
mine!”
he’d shouted as he lifted the man off the floor to deliver a debilitating blow.

Mine? What did that mean? At that moment, Alex was confused but too focused on what was happening to think about it in depth.

When everyone had left the room, Alex sat on the cot and willed her heart to slow down. It was too much. She didn’t know how much more she could take. She was at the breaking point already, and one more thing would push her over the edge. What would happen now that Mr. Mean had crossed the line? Would he be gone for good? Would she just have the one guard tending her? Could this be the night she made her escape? Everything seemed to be going to pieces among her captors. Maybe she could take advantage of that.

Now Alex was unsure what to do. Mr. Armani had given her the impression that he was going to help her get out of this warehouse. He had even given her the small but deadly knife that was weighing down her right pocket. Everything pointed to the fact that he was now forsaking orders in order to assist in her escape. She didn’t know why he would risk his life to help her, but at this point she wasn’t going to ask any questions or try to dissuade him.

Could she trust him?
There was no easy answer to that question, but if he didn’t return in the hour, she was going to go through with her original plan to try to escape on her own. Now that she had the knife, she felt more confident. Alex couldn’t fight against a gun, but if this worked, maybe that wouldn’t be part of the equation.

One thing that worried her was that she didn’t know where she was. Not being a Chicago native, there were still many parts of the large city that were foreign to her. For all she knew, they could be out in the middle of nowhere with no help in sight. She didn’t want to think about that at the moment or else she would be tempted to just give up. One step at a time. First, she had to get the hell out of this room, and then she’d worry about what to do next.

An hour was a long time to wait. Time slowed to a complete crawl, which left her with a lot of time to think. Her mind kept going back to Mr. Armani and how he had touched her while she was crying. He had treated her like a china doll, using soft, gentle strokes to wipe away her tears. For the first time she saw him,
really
saw him. Not as one of her captors, but as a man.

The same striking features that earlier had been thrown into relief by his rage, had softened then. His brow was smooth and unlined, his eyes, gentle and concerned. Alex had followed the crooked line of his nose to his lips, which were full and dark, relaxed from the unforgiving line he usually sported. While his jaw had no longer been clenched, it was still angular and strong.

Her heart had sped up involuntarily at the way his lingering fingers caressed her skin. His hand had been at her neck, and the featherlight touch had been distracting in a terrifying sort of way. He wasn’t her boyfriend. Besides the fact that he shouldn’t have elicited that kind of reaction from her, he wasn’t even an everyday, ordinary guy. This was a criminal. A dark and dangerous man who carried a gun and had most likely used it—she didn’t even want to know how often. This man could kill her with no compunction, and she had let him caress her intimately, like a lover.

Shaking out of her reverie, Alex stood up and paced the room for a while. She brought her fingers up to her lips and traced them, back to thinking about the kiss, that soft brush of his mouth on hers. What had followed was a complex rush of emotions that she had been trying to avoid analyzing. First and foremost, there had been shock. Then a fire had ignited in her belly and spread rapidly throughout her body. When he pulled back, she had felt a vague sense of loss and regret. Those feelings were soon replaced by guilt and confusion.

When he crossed the line into physical intimacy, so had she. Her body understood, even if her mind tried to deny it. Somewhere along the way, Alex had stopped looking at Domenic as a threat and started to depend on him. She tried to convince herself that it was just a matter of survival and basic human instinct, but now she wasn’t so sure. The kiss had changed everything.

Annoyed, she tried to call up Shane’s face so she could remind herself of who she
really
loved. He was a good man, and he loved her. Shane didn’t carry a gun, and he had certainly never killed anyone. He was a law-abiding citizen. He’d never even gotten a speeding ticket. Shane was honest, caring, sweet, and gentle. Alex smiled to herself as he materialized in her mind. She tried to remember what it felt like to kiss him, but as soon as their lips touched, he morphed into someone else. Her eyes flew open in horror.

What the hell was wrong with her? She had to get out of here. This place was messing with her head, and it was making her loyal to the wrong type of person. It didn’t matter if Domenic was trying to help her now, he was a bad man.
Bad
. Perhaps if Alex told herself that often enough, she would start to believe it.

The condo was already dark—the faintest illumination was shining through the windows from the buildings surrounding it. That didn’t slow Domenic down as he walked through the living room on his way to his bedroom. When he snapped on the light, he realized there was someone sitting in his armchair, waiting in the dark. He had his gun out of his holster and aimed at the chair within a second.