The Sacrificial Lamb (18 page)

“But what does that have to do with you saying I was yours?” she asked, still confused.

“After a captive was raped, she went under the protection of the brave who had done it. Became his slave, for lack of a better term. But none of the other members of the tribe could touch her without retribution.”

“So to the others, I became
yours?”

“Yes.”

“And that’s why neither of them did anything before?”

“Right.”

“Then what changed?”

“You made the call to your father. Once Carlo knew your father wouldn’t testify against him, you became a liability, and my protection no longer mattered.”

“Oh,” she said, feeling nauseated. “They meant to hurt me.”

Domenic nodded and looked down at his hands. Silently, she counted in her head how many times Domenic had saved her life. “Three times. You saved me from danger three times.”

His eyebrows rose, and a stupefied look crossed Domenic’s face. He seemed just as surprised as she was. “Yes, I guess so.”

“And it’s still not over.”

“No, it isn’t.” His jaw clenched tightly. “We’ll have to hide here until the trial. Russell is going to get word to your father that you’re safe and that he can testify against the Liseni.”

“That’s who took me, the Liseni?”

“You didn’t know?”

“No. What I told you in the warehouse was the truth. I really didn’t know anything about Santino DiRocco or what happened to him.”

“He was killed,” Domenic said in an even tone.

“Oh no,” Alex whispered. She remembered the handsome older man and was sorry to hear of his death.

“Your father witnessed it. He also witnessed Carlo and his brothers giving the direct order.”

“How?”

“They don’t know that part, just that he was a primary witness, and that’s why you were abducted. To keep him silent.”

Alex was horrified that her father had been so close to all this criminal activity. Yes, he was a sheriff, but in Boulder, Montana, things like this just didn’t happen. Half the time, he and his deputy would sit around most of the day, playing cards. They were lucky to get any calls at all, and usually it was of the drunk and disorderly kind.

“This is just…crazy. Seriously, crazy.”

She plucked at the too-big shorts she was wearing. Domenic’s shorts. Neither of them spoke, and she wondered if he was thinking about how the hell he had gotten mixed up with all of this, and if he regretted the day he ever crossed paths with her.

“So, what are we going to do until the trial?” She looked around the small cabin, but there wasn’t much by the way of entertainment.

“I can think of a few things,” Domenic said, smiling mischievously, and her heart beat a bit harder. He got up from the couch and walked over to the hutch. After rummaging in it for a few seconds, he found what he was looking for. Coming back to where she sat, he put a box on the living room table in front of her.

“Scrabble?” Alex said, looking up incredulously.

“Scrabble.”

W
HEN
A
LEX
A
SKED
H
IM
what they were going to do over the next two weeks, and he replied that he could think of a few things, Scrabble hadn’t been one of them. But of course, he couldn’t come out and let her know he’d love to fuck her on every flat surface in the cabin. And against a few of the upright ones as well.

Scrabble had been the safest option at that moment.

That morning she had walked out of her room, hair all over the place and eyes puffy from sleep. It shouldn’t have turned him on, but somehow it had. Domenic should have still been pissed off over what had happened the night before. Alex had given him the fright of his life by setting off the security alarm, and it was a good thing that he hadn’t shot her by mistake. He had been taught better than that, but a lot of men in his position would have fired first and asked questions later.

After the incident, it had taken quite a while before he had fallen asleep. Every noise he heard had snapped him back awake, thinking it was Alex trying to leave again. After everything he had done to secure her safe passage out of Carlo’s hands, she still doubted him and his intentions. While they were hardly pure, he didn’t mean the girl any harm. Domenic understood that Alex didn’t trust him one hundred percent, but in truth, it still had bothered him that she thought he’d brought her here to kill her. The notion was downright laughable, if only she knew the truth.

Domenic toyed with the idea of letting her know why they were here. He could have had Russell escort her back to her father in the Witness Protection Program and washed his hands of this mess, but he wasn’t able to let her go. No woman had ever gotten under his skin like this before, and it was imperative that he know if it was because of the situation or because of Alex herself.

It had been important for him to figure out if he removed Alex from the grasp of the Liseni, would he still feel this urge to protect her and keep her safe? Would the mere thought of not having her near him still cause him grief? It had been one day since they’d escaped the warehouse, but that feeling was still present. Perhaps after two weeks of isolation, the shine would wear off. Of one thing he was certain, she would either grate on his nerves, or he would never want to be separated from her again.

Despite wanting to strangle Alex last night for pulling that stunt, it still hadn’t dampened his feelings. If anything, it made him want her more. She hadn’t pouted or cried at his anger, but instead, it had lit a fire in her eyes. Watching her stick out her chin pugnaciously as she yelled back at him made Domenic want to do bad things to her. He wanted to tame her into submission.

And now she sat across from him, arranging her letter tiles with a scowl on her face. No, he definitely did
not
want to be playing Scrabble. He wanted to be doing something altogether different. Something that would involve her screaming out his name. Alex glanced up at him, and her face cleared.

“Who goes first?” she asked, oblivious to the thoughts coursing through his mind.

“You’re the guest. You go first.”

They were evenly matched. Both had extensive vocabularies and played with a competitive edge. He was actually enjoying himself—it had been a very long time since Domenic had felt this comfortable around another person. He didn’t feel like he had to keep up his usual charade. They bantered back and forth and teased one another as the game went on.

“Qi? Really? You had a Q and that’s how you use it?” Alex snickered.

“Well since you used the last U on
up
, I didn’t have much of a choice, did I?”

“If you hadn’t noticed, there isn’t much space left on the board.”

“Ergo, my use of qi. It still got me thirty-one points to your measly nine.”

They glared at one another over the board momentarily.

“Add it up, pretty boy,” Alex said with a growl, and Domenic started to laugh. He picked up the score sheet and started adding up the totals.

“It’s a tie!” he said, frowning.

“A tie?” Alex reached across and yanked the sheet from his hand. “You rigged it!” she accused.

“If I was going to rig it, I’d rig it so I won.”

“Well then you added it wrong,” she insisted as she started totaling the numbers.

“I’ll have you know, I have an MBA from Harvard. I did
not
add it wrong.” Domenic leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest.

Alex gaped at him and put the sheet down. “You got your MBA from
Harvard?”

“You seem shocked?”

“Oh, um…well…” The blood pooled in her cheeks, and he wondered if it was painful to blush so strongly.

“Well, what? You thought made men were all uneducated thugs?” he asked, raising a brow at her.

“Kind of?”

“You know what they say about people who assume,” he replied.

Alex kept her eyes downcast and began doodling on the paper in front of her. She pursed her lips and seemed to be considering something. Finally, she looked up at him. “So, if you have your MBA, how did you get involved in…all this?”

“The mob?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s kind of a long and complicated story,” he replied slowly, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Well, it’s not like we don’t have time.”

“I’m not sure how much you want to know, Alex.”
Or how much I can tell you.

“I want to know everything,” she replied promptly, leaning forward like a child about to hear a bedtime story.

“Everything,” he muttered. “Good thing we have a couple of weeks. It’s a pretty long fucking story.”

“Okay, well, why don’t you tell me a little at a time?”

“Only if we can trade off.”

“Trade off? Like, I tell you about my life?”

“Yes.”

“My life isn’t that exciting,” Alex said, shaking her head and pulling a face.

“I’m sure it’s more exciting than you think. At least to someone who’s interested in hearing about it,” he responded softly, looking down.

“All right. Deal.” Alex had a small smile on her face when Domenic glanced back up. “But you go first.”

“I already told you something about my life,” he pointed out. “I think it’s your turn to share.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Tell me about your boyfriend.” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. While he would have liked to ignore the fact she was involved with someone, Domenic needed to know how strong her attachment to this other man was. He knew hearing about him would be like some kind of torture, but his curiosity had gotten the better of him.

“My boyfriend?”

“Yes, you did say you had a boyfriend?”

“Um…well I’ve known Shane for a long time. We met when he moved into town with his parents eight years ago.”

“So you’ve been together eight years?”

“No, I guess it’s about four?”

He found it interesting that she was unsure how long she had been involved with her boyfriend. He thought most women kept track of things like that.

“We became best friends when he moved to Boulder, but Shane is a year or so younger than me, so I kind of thought of him as a kid when we were teens. Then I came home for summer after my first year in college and he was…all grown up.” A faint smile touched her lips, and Domenic contemplated stopping her from continuing the story. Already he was feeling a burning hatred for this man without even knowing who he was.

“You love him?” Domenic asked, his stomach twisted, anticipating her answer.

Alex hesitated, and he leaned forward, watching her expression.

“Yes, I love him. But I’m not sure if I’m
in
love with him. Does that make sense?”

“Not really. Explain.”

“This is a lot more information than just finding out you have an MBA!” she protested.

“I promise I’ll share more next time.” He grinned at her and made a gesture with his hand for her to continue speaking.

“Well, we went to college in Billings together, but then I was accepted here to do my Masters in Special Education. The last two years apart have been hard on Shane.” She was playing with the pencil they’d used for Scrabble and wasn’t looking at him any longer.

“Was it hard on you, too?”

“At first, yeah. But I think that was because I didn’t know
anybody
,” she said with a pensive look. “I’m kind of shy, so it was hard to meet new people.”

“Shy? You don’t seem all that shy to me.”

“I wasn’t concerned about impressing
you
,” she said, the fiery spark reigniting.

“So, college kids you want to impress, whereas the guy with the gun? Not so much.” Domenic snickered at her and tried to keep his humor in check.

Alex just rolled her eyes at him. “Anyway,” she continued, “once I made friends, it was easier for me.”

“But not for Shane.”

“He wanted to move out here when he finished college, but I didn’t think it was a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know,” she sighed. “I guess this was the first taste of freedom I’d ever had, and I didn’t want to give that up.” She looked up at him, her eyes imploring, asking him to understand.

“So, being with him made you feel trapped?”

“What?
No!
That’s not what I meant at all!”

“Then what did you mean?”

“I don’t know if I want to talk about this anymore.” Alex frowned at him, and even though his instinct was to push for more, he let it go.

“All right. It’s time for lunch anyway,” Domenic remarked, glancing at his watch.