Page 52 of The Dominator

“Let’s go,” Earl said.

I looked at him beseechingly.

“You’re going home.”

Relief flooded through me. Home?

“To Tommy,” he clarified.

He must’ve seen the look of hope on my face. I knew my expression dropped. Was home with him? I hated what he’d put me through so far, but I hated myself, too, because my actions, my running away had probably made it easy for Earl to kidnap me.

As we headed for the front door, I saw Juan Carlos again. He was in a robe, smoking a cigar. He walked up to us and nodded at Earl. “You hand her off to Ricky and his crew and stay. We don’t want the Ferrano boys to see you. Athena, your fiancé has been told if he ever gets tired of you to send you back to me.” He winked. I just stared at him blankly.

Earl walked me outside and put me in the back of an old cargo van. I sat on the dirty, carpeted floor and a different, tall Mexican guy tied my hands and feet and put duct tape over my mouth.

“I’m sorry. Good luck,” Earl said softly to me and then shut the van doors.

This bad guy had a guilty conscience. I was grateful that he’d at least stopped that filthy pig from finishing with me but he’d been the one who helped bring me here.

Two guys sat in the back with me with gun holsters on them and there were two in the front. The only one I recognized was the slim Black guy who’d done the first aid on Earl’s shoulder. I sat and trembled. I couldn’t make my body stop.

One of the guys answered a phone, spoke in Spanish, then looked back and said, “Change of plans. You been sold, bitch!” Then he said something else in Spanish and they all started laughing hysterically.

Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no!

Was Earl lying, or had someone double-crossed someone? Where was I going? What would happen to me?

* * *

The van drove for what felt like a long time, maybe an hour, but I don’t know if I had a realistic concept of time, only the concept of horror. I felt like I was rapidly falling apart at the seams, stitch by stitch, and there may not be much thread left.

Abruptly, the van screeched to a halt and the two in the front got out. The two in the back sat and kept their gazes focused on me. A long time seemed to pass when finally, the back door opened and I was yanked out, dropped carelessly on the road, and then the men jumped back into the van and squealed away.

For at least a minute or two I just lay there in the dust, in the dark, totally freaking out, immobile because I was still bound and gagged. Then I saw headlights coming at me, heard brakes squeal, and heard multiple sets of feet running. I squinted at the high beams in my face.

Oh no, what next? Who had I gotten sold to?

I was scooped up into the air in strong arms. I knew that scent. It was leather, it was musk, a bit of sweat, some stale coffee, but it was Tommy. When it hit me, at that second it was the best scent I’d ever smelled in my life.

My heart leapt forward with jubilation but then at the same instant I felt fear prickle like spikes through my scalp. How mad was he going to be at me for this?

And then I was in the back seat of a car; I was on his lap and he was breathing hard, getting my hands untied, getting my feet untied, and then he got the tape off my mouth. It was dark and we weren’t alone in the car, which was now speeding away. There were three heads in the front bench seat and just us in the back.

I felt barely more than catatonic. I had my bottom lip in my mouth, reeling from the sting of the tape being pulled off. My feet and hands were numb from having been tied too long and too tight.

“Are you hurt?” he breathed, examining me in the near darkness of the car with just the tiny interior light on. I shook my head no but at the sight of his eyes, the concern on his face, the reality of where I was and what I was in the middle of, a giant sob tore out of me.

He pulled me tight against his chest and rocked back and forth, one hand on my head, the other flat against the center of my back. I put my arms around his torso and held tight, feeling him pull me tighter, feeling his mouth on my head. He said nothing but he kept rocking back and forth with me, kissing my head over and over, squeezing me reassuringly. He said nothing, I said nothing. I had a feeling that there would be plenty to say when we were alone.

A while later, I don’t know how much later, the car stopped and I jolted awake. I had fallen asleep against him, feeling like his scent and his arms were a warm blanket around me. He carried me, cradled in his arms in through a gate, and then up a walkway to a large light-colored house with all the outside lights on. Once inside, the interior’s light was blinding. I squinted and shielded my eyes. He said something softly to his brother who’d been in the car with us, shut the door and then he climbed a narrow staircase with me. A moment later he kicked a slightly ajar dark stained wooden door open and then swept his foot backwards once we were in to shut it. He turned around and locked a deadbolt and put me down on a bed. He was standing over me, looking down at me for a moment, his expression unreadable to me.

My dam burst and the tears fell like Niagara Falls. He flicked the light switch off, sat, grabbed me, pulled me up onto his lap, and rocked me some more in the dark. He held me tight, almost too tight. After a few minutes or an hour, I wasn’t sure, he let go. He got up to his feet. I clambered up to my knees on the bed and threw my arms around him and held on tight, not wanting him to leave me alone, not wanting someone to swoop in and take me, not wanting his sweetness to change to anger.

He kissed the top of my head and whispered, “I’m gonna run a bath. Just a minute, okay?”

I let go of him and just sat on the edge of the bed.

He went to an adjoining bathroom and turned the water on. He was back a moment later and reaching for my hand. I stood up and followed him into the bathroom. I saw my reflection in the mirror. My hair was a tangled mess, my eyes were bloodshot, and my black and white checkered dress with the red collar and red belt was filthy and ruined. I had no shoes on my dirty feet. Tommy looked rough, too. He was wearing a pair of khaki cargo pants and a white button up shirt, but he was filthy dirty. He looked exhausted. His face was prickly and unshaven. He looked down at me and started to undo the zipper on the back of my dress. I let the material fall to my feet, got out of my underthings, and got into the big antique-looking claw foot tub and wrapped my arms around my legs, putting my cheek on my knee.

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