Under His Domain (5 page)

Kennedy couldn’t take stand the waiting
anymore.
 
“I need to see Easton,”
she said, and then she was opening her door and getting out of the car.

“Hey, where’s she going?” the driver
yelled.
 
“Hey, don’t go out there!”

“Kennedy!” Nicole shouted.

But Kennedy couldn’t stop herself.
 
Outside, the air was clear and cool and
everything was too real now.
 
The
men weren’t as far away as they’d seemed when she’d been safe in her car.
 
DeLuca took his eyes off Trevor and
noticed Kennedy, and she saw him swear, his mouth a grimace of hatred.

“Quickly!” Red said, taking the blindfold
off Easton.
 
“We need to move, now!”

But Easton was exhausted and badly
beaten.
 
His eyes rolled in his head
and his legs sagged momentarily.

Kennedy was close enough to help grab
hold of him on one side, as Red grabbed him from the other side to support him.

“He’s hurt!” Kennedy said, her heart
pounding in her throat.

Easton didn’t even glance at her.
 
She wondered if he’d been beaten badly
enough that he might still die.
 
His
skin up close was pale, and his eyes almost lifeless.

“We need to get out of here before they
realize what we did to Trevor,” Red told her, gritting his teeth as he kept
Easton standing.

Kennedy started to rip the binding off
Easton’s wrists.
 
It was difficult,
and she knew they had very little time.

Glancing up momentarily, she saw that the
mobsters had managed to remove Trevor’s black hood.
 
There was a collective shout of anger
and disbelief from the group as they realized what had been done to him.

“Dammit,” Red yelled, seeing that the
mobsters were pulling weapons.
 
DeLuca grabbed the albino man and one of his cohorts plunged a knife
into the albino’s chest.

Kennedy shrieked.

Kane was engaged in a struggle with the
third mobster, and the two of them fell to the ground in a tangled heap as Red
sprinted back towards the danger.
 

That left Kennedy to try and hold Easton
on his feet and move him to safety.
 
As she attempted to drag him towards the car, he glanced at her as if
finally realizing who she was.
 
His
lips formed his typical wry grin.
 
“Everywhere you go it’s like this,” he said, but his voice wasn’t angry.

“Hurry,” she urged him.
 
“We need to get out of here, Easton.”

But Easton took a deep, pained breath and
turned towards the fray.
 
“Those
motherfuckers,” he growled.
 

“Don’t—“ she tried to stop him, but
Easton was too powerful.

Somehow he’d gotten his bearings and some
of his strength back.
 
Maybe it was
anger fueled by adrenaline—whatever it was, Easton moved quicker than
Kennedy would’ve thought possible.

Red had grabbed the man who’d stabbed the
albino and was choking him from behind, his arm across the man’s throat.

The albino was on the ground, wide eyed,
bloody, looking dead.

Jimmy DeLuca pulled a gun from inside his
suit coat and started to take aim at Kane Wright.
 
As he was about to fire the gun, Easton
threw himself into a full body flying tackle and hit DeLuca with all his
weight.
 
The two of them landed
against the van, and Jimmy DeLuca’s enormous head crashed against the back of
the van’s tail light as they fell.

Kennedy didn’t know what to do.
 
In front of her was carnage and violence
like she’d never in her life seen before.

Suddenly, Nicole was next to her,
grabbing her arm.
 
“Don’t go over
there,” she said.
 

“We have to do something, Nicole!”

“We’ll get hurt if we do, Kennedy.
 
Don’t be crazy.”
 
Nicole turned to her driver, who still
had his gun out.
 

He looked at Nicole.
 
“Red’s orders were for me to stay by you
no matter what and protect you at all costs, Miss Jameson.”

Nicole fixed him with a surprisingly
calm, steely gaze.
 
“You go and get
my husband and bring him back here.
 
Do whatever you need to do.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”
 
The driver moved efficiently and quickly
towards Red, who was still trying to subdue the mobster with the knife.
 

Meanwhile, Easton had risen to his feet
after knocking DeLuca to the ground.
 
Jimmy DeLuca started to get up and Easton hit him in the stomach.
 
Then he hit DeLuca in the stomach again
and again.
 
The big mobster’s face
wrinkled in pain as Easton clubbed his ribs over and over, and Kennedy knew
that Easton was intentionally trying to inflict maximum pain on the man who’d
kidnapped him.

A shot rang out and Kennedy saw that
their driver had shot the
knife wielding
mobster in
the kneecap.
 
The wounded man
crumpled to the ground, leaving Red free to go.
 
Red started towards Kane Wright and his
foe.

Nicole called out to him.
 
“Red!
 
No!”

But Red didn’t listen to her.
 
He went to where Kane was fighting,
hauled the mobster off him and hit the man with a punch that sent him
completely unconscious, flat on his back, twitching.

Trevor was standing amidst this bloody
carnage, completely stone still.
 
Kennedy knew why.
 
She could
see part of what had been done to him and could very well guess the rest of it.

He would never be able to hurt anybody
else again, but at what cost?

That
was your idea, Kennedy.
 
You’re
responsible.

But Kennedy didn’t have time to worry
about her ethical responsibilities right then.
 
She was too frightened about Easton, and
ran over to where he was still beating Jimmy The Muscle DeLuca.

Kennedy grabbed Easton’s bicep from
behind, before he could deliver yet another blow to the mobster’s midsection.

“Don’t,” Kennedy implored him.

Easton turned his head to look at
her.
 
“Why shouldn’t I?
 
Do you have any idea what that bastard
did to me?”

“It’s enough,” she said.
 
And it was.

Jimmy DeLuca was breathing shallowly, and
she would’ve bet that most of his ribs were broken.
 
Easton was a professional fighter and
he’d just hit the man with everything in his power, over and over again.

“It’s not ever going to be enough,”
Easton rasped, still glaring at the wounded mobster.

DeLuca put up his hands.
 
“Don’t kill me,” DeLuca gasped.
 
“It’s over.”

Easton shook his head.
 
“Cowards, every last one of you,” he
muttered, and then he turned away from his torturer and grabbed Kennedy’s hand
tightly in his own.
 
“Come on,” he
whispered, and began walking away from the scene.

Nicole was hugging Red fiercely just
nearby.
 
She broke away from Red and
gestured for Easton and Kennedy to follow them.
 
The four of them went to the car and got
in, with Red in the driver’s seat and Nicole in the front passenger side.

Easton and Kennedy slid into the
backseat.

“What about Kane?” Kennedy asked, as Red
started to back the car up.
 
Out the
front windshield, Kane Wright and Red’s driver could be seen talking to one
another.
 

“Kane is going to stay and clean up the
mess,” Red replied.

“What does that mean, exactly?” Easton
asked him.

Red glanced at Easton in the rearview
mirror.
 
“Don’t ask too many
questions.”

Red turned the car around and left the
scene, and Kennedy had to admit she felt grateful to be going, even as she
realized that she’d never be able to completely forget what had happened there.

“What about Kane’s friend?” Kennedy
asked.
 
“The one who was
stabbed?
 
Is he going to be all
right?”

Red and Nicole exchanged a glance.
 
“He’ll be fine,” Nicole answered.
 

“We’ve got doctors on call who can help,”
Red clarified.

But Kennedy didn’t know if she really
believed them.
 
She turned to Easton
now, seeing that he was still quite injured.
 
He slumped over in his seat, his head
hanging.
 
“Are you okay?” Kennedy
whispered.

Easton grabbed her hand tightly and
squeezed, nodding ever so slightly.
 
“I’ll be fine,” he said,
then
groaned as the
car ran over a pothole, jarring him.

Kennedy gave him a closer look.
 
“You should go to the hospital.”

“No hospitals,” Easton muttered, shaking
his head.
 
“Just bring me home.”

As they continued driving, and the shock
started to wear off, Kennedy found herself needing to stare at Easton to
convince herself that he was, in fact, next to her in this car.

Easton had somehow survived the madness,
the kidnapping, whatever had been done to him by Jimmy DeLuca and the mob.
 

She’d been sure that she was going to
lose him, absolutely certain that the worst had occurred.
 
But he’d come back to her, even if he’d
come back wounded and half conscious.

She held onto his hand for as long as he
allowed it.

Nicole and Red were mostly silent up
front, although occasionally they made some small talk with one another.

Kennedy wondered what they were
thinking.
 
In the end, they’d both
risked their lives for her and Easton, and she’d never be able to repay them
for the trouble she’d caused.

It was a terrible burden, knowing that
the very people she’d wanted to impress and grow closer
to,
had instead been harmed by her presence in their lives.

If
I
was
Nicole, I wouldn’t want to see me ever again.
I’ve been nothing but trouble since I got to this city, and I’ve hurt her and
Red over and over.
 
None of it’s
been intentional, but does it even matter at this point?

Finally, they slowed down and stopped in
front of Easton’s townhouse.

“I guess this is our stop,” Easton said,
his voice raspy.

Red glanced at him in the rearview
mirror.
 
“He might have a
concussion, Kennedy.
 
Wake him up
every few hours tonight, and if he begins vomiting or having a bad headache,
call us immediately.
 
No matter what
time, okay?”

“I couldn’t bother you again,” Kennedy
said.

Nicole turned around and looked at
her.
 
“You need to communicate with
us from now on,” she said, her eyes open and honest.
 
“We’re family, Kennedy.
 
Don’t push us away.”

“But after all of this insanity,” Kennedy
said, “I feel like I’ve done nothing but drag you down.”

“Nonsense,” Nicole told her.
 
“This hasn’t been your fault.
 
It’s just bad luck and bad timing.
 
Call us if there’s any problem—otherwise
I’ll check in with you.”

“Okay,” Kennedy smiled, relieved.
 
“And you don’t think the police will be
involved with everything that happened today?”

Red shook his head.
 
“Kane will make sure of it.
 
No police.”

Easton opened his door and started to get
out.
 
“Thanks for everything,” he
told them.
 
“If my brains weren’t so
scrambled right now, I’d be more eloquent.”

“Just take care of yourself.
 
I’ll be in touch,” Red replied.

Kennedy thanked them both one last time
as she got out of the car and went around to help Easton walk to the house.
 
He leaned his weight against her, and
she stumbled, nearly falling over.

“If we both hit the deck, I don’t think
I’ll be getting up anytime soon,” Easton said.

“I just didn’t expect you to be so
heavy,” Kennedy told him, laughing a little.

“You’re crazy, you know that?” Easton
asked, as they hobbled together, his arm over her shoulder, her arm supporting
his waist.