The Sacrificial Lamb (14 page)

Just as she was considering her options, a large hand covered her mouth. In a panic Alex slashed behind her with the knife, but her wrist was grasped firmly before any contact was made. A thumb pushed into her inner wrist, and her hand began to go numb. She started to fight, when a familiar voice hissed in her ear.

“Stop.”

Her struggles ceased and some of the tension left her body. The hand came away from her mouth, and the grip on her wrist slackened. As blood rushed back into it Alex’s hand began to tingle.

“Has he fired his gun?” Domenic whispered, his lips close to her ear. She nodded yes. “How many times?” She tapped his hand five times, not trusting her voice.

“Five?” he confirmed. Again, she nodded. “Stay here. Don’t move.”

Domenic departed as silently as he had arrived, blending into the darkness as if he were made of it. Alex listened closely, but she couldn’t hear which way he had gone. After a few agonizing minutes, she heard the sound of metal plinking and then some shuffling. A volley of shots were fired. She clapped her hands over her ears and tried not to scream as the echoes reverberated through the large room.

After the noise of the guns, the silence was almost as deafening. Alex stayed perfectly still. She didn’t know who had won the battle, if anyone had won at all. There was a wide expanse of empty space that separated her from the door to freedom. If Mr. Mean was still prowling out there, he might see her if she made a run for it.

Could she leave, not knowing if Domenic lived or died? What if he had been shot and was injured? She stared at the door, cursing and trying to force herself to leave.

He’s a mobster,
she yelled at herself.

So? He was the one who helped you,
she argued back. Alex looked at the door once more and made her decision. She got her feet under her and stood up.

Then he was there in front of her. The hazy light coming through the doorway glinted off his black hair. The air left her lungs as she dashed forward. Domenic hardly had time to open his arms before she barreled into him. Held tightly against him, Alex sucked in deep breaths and tried to control her sobbing.

“It’s okay, Alex. I’ve got you,” he murmured into her hair, his hands passing gently over her back.

“Is he dead?”

“Yes.”

She wanted to feel sorry for the dead man in the warehouse, but she didn’t. If it came down to a choice between Mr. Mean’s life and hers, she’d win every time.

“Come on,” Domenic said urgently. “I have to get you out of here.”

“Are we going to the police?” she asked, loosening her death grip and looking up into his face.

He hesitated a moment. “No.”

Alex pulled back out of his arms. Vaguely, she remembered that she still had the knife he had given her. While she had grown to trust this man, she wouldn’t hesitate to use the weapon if that meant keeping him from locking her up again. At this point, she would almost welcome death now that she had escaped her confines.

“Please, just let me go!” she begged. “I promise I won’t say anything about you! I’ll never mention your name. Please!”

“I can’t let you go, Alexis,” he said with a pained look on his face. “It’s too dangerous.”

“And keeping me here, isn’t?” she demanded. Alex gripped the knife tighter. She didn’t want to use it, but he didn’t seem to be leaving her any choice.

“We’re not staying here. I’m taking you with me.”

“Just bring me to my father! He’ll keep me safe!”

“Alex, you have to listen to me. If I bring you to the police, you are as good as dead!” he said vehemently. She cringed back from his tone and the implication of his words.

“My father,” she whispered.

“He’s fine. But if I bring you to any police station right now, there are people there who wouldn’t hesitate to silence you. Don’t you
get
it?”

“So, what are we going to do?” she asked, her voice rising as panic threatened to overtake her.

“I’m taking you somewhere safe. You just have to trust me.” His eyes were imploring. Alex knew that he could force her easily enough if it came down to it, but instead he was asking her to come of her own free will.

“How? How can I do that, Domenic?”

He blinked at her use of his name and looked sad for a moment.

“I know how this looks. I know how I must appear to you, but
please
believe me when I say it’s not what it seems.” Domenic stepped toward her and laid his hands on her shoulders. Slowly, his hands moved down her arms. The knife clattered to the floor, and he grasped her hands in his large, capable ones. “Come with me,” he pleaded.

Alex stared into his face. One side visible while the other was hidden in shadow. Dark versus light. A visceral representation of the man who stood before her. His intensity was palpable as he waited for an answer. She was positive that even if she said no, he wouldn’t just leave her here, but he wanted to be sure of her choice. That she knew she wasn’t just being abducted again. He didn’t want to be her captor, just as she didn’t want to be his captive.

“Okay,” she said finally.

Domenic bent down to pick up the knife and retracted the blade. He slipped it into his back pocket and took her hand. Alex followed him out into the night and hoped she had made the right decision.

F
OR
T
HE
F
IRST
L
ITTLE
W
HILE
, they drove in silence. Domenic told Alex to get into the backseat and lie down. Although it was night out and he knew it would be excessive, Domenic grabbed the blanket he kept in the trunk and handed it to her. She glanced at it and then at him, questioningly.

“You’re going to have to stay hidden for the first part of the drive until I can get us out of Chicago,” he said, by way of explanation.

“Where are we going?”

“We’ll talk about it on the way!” he said in an urgent tone. “Right now we have to get out of here.”

Alex looked at him with her large pale, blue eyes as he opened the door for her and held the seat forward. She scrambled into the backseat, lay down, and obligingly covered herself with the blanket. Domenic started the Mercedes and got the hell out of there.

The gunfight with Marco had gotten a little too close for his liking. While he had been the victor, one of Marco’s shots had come perilously close. Had that not been the man’s last bullet, Domenic might not have left the warehouse alive. Marco had already been fatally wounded when his ammo ran out, and Domenic needed to fire once more to finish him off.

He drove until they reached I-90, heading east toward Michigan. Once on the highway, Domenic picked up speed, wanting to put as much distance between Carlo and the girl as possible. Alex had tried to talk to him when they started driving, but he cut her off, not wanting to be spied talking to himself while driving his car.

Once they made it through the toll road entering Indiana, Domenic relaxed and told Alex she could sit up now. She made a huffing noise and threw the blanket off. Her hair was pasted to her forehead, and her face was a dusky rose color.

“Phew! Thank God, I was about to die of heat stroke back here!” she said testily.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Would you prefer that I bring you back to the warehouse?” He eyed her through the rear view mirror, and she had the sense to look abashed. “Alex, we aren’t out of danger yet. Please, grasp that.”

She locked gazes with him, and her eyes flashed in anger. “Are you kidding me? I’ve been a prisoner for over a week. I had mostly resigned myself to the fact that I was going to die. I know how much danger we’re in,
Domenic
. I’ve known since the moment I woke up in that fucking room!” Her voice had grown steadily louder until she was almost yelling. It occurred to him that she must be giddy that she was finally out of the warehouse, and while their safety was not an absolute,
her
odds of surviving had increased exponentially.

“Okay, calm down,” Domenic said in a soothing voice. He looked back to the stretch of highway before him. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too.”

There was rustling behind him, and he looked up to see Alex removing the hooded sweatshirt he had gotten her. Her breasts pushed against the thin white sleeveless shirt she wore underneath as she pulled it off, and he had to tear his eyes away before getting into an accident. Domenic glanced back again, and she was sitting back, her eyes on him. Once again, he had to break eye contact to keep his focus on the road.

“What did you do with Mr. Meek?” Alex asked, breaking the silence.

“I locked him in the room after taking his gun and phone.”

“Poetic justice, I guess.”

“Better yet, what did
you
do to him?” he asked, smirking.

Alex blushed and looked out the window. Haltingly, she told him how she escaped the room. Domenic’s chest started to hitch, and before he could stop himself he was roaring with laughter at her impromptu choice of weapon.

“You…soaked him…in
piss?”

Alex opened her mouth for a sharp retort, but before she could say anything, her lips quirked up and she started giggling. After a few seconds, she was bent forward, holding her stomach. Tears streamed down her face as she howled with laughter. It was the first time he had ever heard her laugh, and he had to admit, it was definitely an improvement over crying. It took a while for their laughter to die down.

“So, then what happened?” Domenic asked, picking up where they left off.

Sobering up, Alex finished her story. She told him about Marco entering the warehouse as she was trying to escape and everything that followed until Domenic made his appearance. He gripped the steering wheel as she described what had happened. It was over and Alex was safe, but if he could have brought Marco back from the dead just to strike him down once more, he would have. Domenic was relieved he’d had the foresight to leave her with a weapon and was proud that she had seized the opportunity to use it.

When she finished the story, they sat in silence once again. As he drove, a thought struck him that made him frown. In all the excitement, it hadn’t occurred to him that Alex had orchestrated her own escape and had acted upon it. Domenic had thought perhaps Vince had gone in to torment her as he waited for Marco to arrive, and Alex had somehow evaded him and gotten away. It hadn’t even crossed his mind that she would have done something so foolish.

“Why didn’t you wait for me?” he asked, turning his eyes to the mirror to seek out hers. Alex held his gaze for a moment before looking down. She had her lips pressed together, and he could tell she was fiddling with her hands as she did whenever she was visibly distressed.

“I wasn’t sure if you were going to come back,” she finally answered with a deep sigh.

“I told you I would be coming back for you.”

“You said you would be back in an hour, and you weren’t.” She looked at him through the mirror once again.

“I know. I was delayed.”

“Doing what?”

“We’ll discuss that later.”

Alex’s lips compressed into a thin line again. She thought now was as good a time as any to get into the whole story.

“You know, Domenic, this isn’t going to work out very well if you won’t tell me anything,” she began. “You asked me to trust you and I did—but you obviously don’t trust me.” She placed her arms across her chest and glared at him.

“I trust you,” he said.

“No, you don’t.”

“I do,” he insisted.

“Fine, then answer a question for me,” she said, with a dangerous gleam in her eye.

“What?”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Next question.”

“See?” she said in triumph.

“My brother-in-law was at my condo waiting for me tonight,” he said, more prepared to offer up the information to her first question.

“Your brother-in-law?”

“Yes, my sister’s husband.”

“You have a sister?”

“Yes,” he answered.

“Is she involved in all of this, too?”

“No.”

“Is your brother-in-law?”

“No, he’s a cop.”

“A
cop!”
Alex practically yelled. “Why was he at your condo?”

“Looking for you.”

Alex rubbed her eyes with her hands and shook her head. “This is so confusing,” she muttered. “Okay, let me get this straight…you’re in the mob?”

“Yes.”

“But your sister isn’t involved at all?”

“Right.”

“And she’s married to a cop?”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t that a conflict of interest?” she asked in disbelief.

“Something like that,” Domenic murmured.

“Thanksgiving at your house must be pretty interesting.”