Page 94 of Vicious Vows

"I'm not leaving. I'm safe right here. We don't need to run away," I yelled back before I turned my head back to the scene unfolding in front of me. "You mother fucker!" Dominic roared and tackled Lionel to the ground before straddling him and raining down blows on his brother's face.

I cringed as I watched Lionel lift his hand, grab the back of Dominic's head, and slam his face down into the crumbling ground beneath them. "Oh god, we have to help him. We need to get in there," I tried to move forward once again, but Yuri had a tight hold on me. "No, we can't. He's got to do this on his own. If he's ever going to recover from this, he'll need to win by himself. There's no one to help him now."

I heard the words, but it was as if I couldn't understand them. What the hell did he mean he had to do this on his own? That wasn't the plan. Dominic was my husband, my partner. I'd always be here to help him.

The gravity of my emotions for this man who was basically a captor surprised me. I spent so long trying to fight and get away I wasn't sure when I decided that I'd rather stay with him than be with anyone else. Either way, I couldn't call him my captor any longer; Dominic ensured he gave me my freedom. Now with his father dead, there was no one around to stop him from getting his inheritance. I didn't need to give him a child or stay married to him if I didn't want to. There was no gun hanging over my head. Yet I couldn't see my life without him.

What would it feel like to wake up in my apartment again, alone? How would it feel to walk down the street without the heat and power that radiated off Dominic washing over me? I didn't want to find out. No, I'd already found the life I wanted, and it was with Dominic.

Lionel pushed Dominic off him and got to his feet, kicking him in the ribs. "You think you deserve this? You'd be nothing if it wasn't for me. I'm the true leader of this family!"

Tears streamed down my face as I watched Dominic take a beating. I knew my man was strong, but no one could survive all this. He'd already had a ceiling collapse down on him, and now he was having to deal with his brother's abuse. It was more than too much.

A loud groan erupted from Dominic's mouth, a sound so intense it clawed at my ears as Lionel pulled his foot up and dropped it down hard right in the middle of Dominic's chest. "Enough! It's enough!" I screamed, still struggling in Yuri's grasp. "Just stop!"

Lionel looked in my direction, shooting a nearly satanic glare before looking back down at his brother. "You know what, I thought I'd just kill your little woman with you, but now that you've both made it out, I'm starting to think I might keep her around. She could be more fun with me than she ever was with you."

"What are you talking about? She can't be here! You promised!"

I hadn't even realized that my sister was still around. My eyes jerked in her direction, and rage boiled from deep within my soul. This was all her fault. She'd been in on all this from the beginning. All at my expense.

"You fucking bitch! I fucking hate you!" I tore away from Yuri; this time, not even he was able to hold me back. Farrah's eyes went wide as she watched me barrel straight towards her. Never in my life had I struck her with the intent to hurt her. This time, once I got my hands on her, I wasn't sure anything would stop me from killing her.

I slammed into Farrah with the force of a raging bull. She didn't even have a chance to scream out before she was on the ground, gasping for breath. I lifted my fist over my head and brought it down in the same way I'd watched Dominic strike Lionel, over and over until my sister looked more like a murder victim than my identical twin.

By pure chance, she managed to get her knee between our two bodies, and she pushed me off before trying to run away. I wasn't done with her. Every last messed-up thing that she'd ever done to me rushed back into my mind, and I chased after her, completely oblivious to the devastation still going on around me.

I caught her right before she made it behind a stack of gravel, a tower of flames spitting out from the debris causing her to come to a skidding stop. I grabbed her hair and slammed her to the ground before kicking her over and over.

I watched as fury flashed in her eyes right before my sister reached to the side, grabbed a small shard of granite, and swung it hard against my shin. The pain zapped through my body like a lightning bolt, and I crumbled like a sack of potatoes to the ground. I heard Yuri calling for me, but he wasn't getting any closer.

When I turned my head, I realized that not only had Farrah and I raced away from the dwindling pack of guests, but we were right in the crosshairs of the falling debris from the building next to us. Yuri couldn't get through the fire to get to me.

Farrah clenched both her hands together and brought them down on my face like a club. Lights flashed in my eyes as my vision blanked for a second before I was able to focus again, only to see my sister raising her hands once again to bludgeon me. She wouldn't get the best of me. Not again. After a lifetime of sitting back and being the loser, this was one fight I wasn't going to let her win.

Reaching deep within myself, I found the will to flip her off and grabbed whatever I could around me to strike her. She screamed in pain as the stone made contact with the side of her face, splitting open the skin on her cheek like a rotted apple.

"Faye, stop! Please, stop!" She put her hands up, her voice getting weaker right along with her strength to protect herself.

Just as I was about to bring the stone down again on my sister's face, a heavy mound of flesh collided with my side. Lionel had thrown Dominic off the small deck, and my husband smashed into me. Now the four of us were on the scorched earth, surrounded by falling stones and blazing fires.

"You don't learn. Why didn't you leave?" Dominic wheezed out as I struggled to help him to his feet.

"It's all the same; she should be here to watch you die!" Lionel shouted, blood splattering out of his mouth. He may have the upper hand right now, but he still wasn't fully healed from being shot at the docks a few days earlier. Both these men were in bad shape.

"Dominic, we have to go!" I tried to pull him away, but Dominic simply shrugged me off and gave me a slow shake of his head. He walked away from me back to the fight waiting for him. One of them was going to die tonight. My attention was no longer on my sister, who groaned and swayed as she fought to get up on her own feet, but back on my husband.

Blood streamed from the side of Dominic's head and he was holding his side as if his ribs were broken. Lionel wasn't fairing much better. Blood leaked from his mouth and he limped as he got closer to Dominic, his hands up ready to continue fighting.

We were nearing the end; there wasn't much either of them could do.

At the same time, they swung haymakers at each other. The blows barely made contact but both of them went down slowly. Less from the hit but more due to fatigue.

I was so focused on the two of them that I almost didn't recognize the ominous groaning coming from behind them.

Time slowed to almost a screeching halt as another boom exploded from above, and the last piece of the building began to fall. A large wall of stone and glass slowly began to tumble straight toward us. I looked to the side where my sister was and watched her struggle to get away before my eyes jerked to the other side where Dominic was pushing his brother off, trying to get away himself. On their own, neither one of them was strong enough to make it a safe distance.

All my life, I thought I knew what I'd do if I were ever faced with this decision.

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