Page 2 of Dating the Don

Underneath that, I wear a fairly simple white t-shirt tucked into bright red jeans that fit like a second skin that moves effortlessly and stretches in all the right places, making it easier for me to clean spots that are hard to reach. Paired with sneakers, which make my life even easier. It may not be the mostfashionable option, but no one can deny how much I love my colorful touches.

The walk to the basement access is mostly silent. If I hadn’t grown up alongside Ada, Cristiano’s younger sister, while being chased around by him in these very halls, I would easily say this mansion was creepy.

It is quite formal, but then again, his grandparents designed it. A family compound.

I still don’t know exactly what the Dominio family does, but they have always been kind to me so I don’t ask questions. It’s not my business.

I reach the door and fumble for the basement key, tucking a strand of chin-lengthred hairbehind my ear. Justina is the only person with a skeleton key. For the rest of us, there are doors that we can access using our security badges in addition to a few conventional keys. The fact that they don't just choose a medium and stick with it is another strange thing. However, they pay me enough not to ask obvious questions.

Some doors in this place are still off-limits, even to me.

I unlock the door and am met with voices. Nobody should be in the basement. Other than Annalisa, Mrs. Dominio, who is unlikely to leave her bedroom anytime soon, I don't thinkanyone else is home. Who could it be? Nobody could have broken in here since the Dominios have more private protection on their compound than even Jesus Christ would have.

I shouldn’t spy. I know it’s wrong and yet I find myself leaning in anyway.

If something is going on down there, it's for a very good reason, and I should get out of the way until it's over. Actually, going to hide in the bathroom for an hour or two to finish reading my magazine would make great sense. It would be the perfect excuse. There is a common understanding that when Dominio business is underway,one must become invisible.

I take half a step back from the door, silently cursing my shoe for daring to squeak at a moment like this and close the door again.

I'm holding the key that is inside the lock. Lock it and go;that's the only sensible choice. But I have to leave here early today. It's not like dusting will take a long, right? I can always just slip in and out. I can work around them. There's no way Cristiano will get upset with me, and even if he did, it won't last more than a minute or two. He’s far too nice of a guy.

He knows I have to work.

Right?

I’m sure it’s fine.

Since the meeting is being held in the basement, it doesn't take me long to come to the conclusion that it is probably not of significance. I have sketches waiting for me. Important sketches. I still have a few days till the scholarship application deadline, but I need to make a good impression.

Yes. That’s what I’m going to tell him if he asks me why I’m puttering about during his meeting.

I straighten my back, tuck the basement key back into myapron, and silentlypush the door open again. I casuallysaunter down into the basement, holding my bucket of cleaning supplies in one hand and a pair of clean dusting cloths in another. With actual dedication, it will just take fifteen minutes.

But then, my shoe slips.

Of course, it does.

One moment I’m confidently strolling down the stairs towards what promises to be an uncomfortable fifteen minutes of work and then the next I’m falling ass over face down to the basement. My bucket of cleaning supplies flies out of my hands and clatters somewhere, leaving the scent of pine cleaner everywhere in the air. My body batters and the air is knocked out of me.

The voices in the basement are silent now.

I canfeelthe eyes in the room on me. All of them. Before even looking at them, I'm trying to take stock of my situation to see if I have any fractured bones.However, except for a few bruises, I believe I’m alright.

With a shy, apologetic grin that I hope he finds endearing, I turn to look for Cristiano's eye, only to be greeted with an entirely other scene.

It’s not a meeting.

Well, not whatIwould call one.

There’s a bloodied and beaten man tied to a chair in the center of the room. The concrete floor is soaked and the metallic scent starts to mix with the pine in a way that makes me think I’m never going to be able to polish floors with that cleaner ever again.

It seems like the man is only two hits away from death. Men who I had assumed to be merely members of Cristiano's staff are behind him, followed by the man himself.

The charming boy next door that I grew up withis no longer there.

Instead, something else has consumed him. A darkness in his eyes makes me shudder right to my very core. He looks likeanother person entirely. His face iscovered in blood, his hands areswollen, his knuckles bruised, the skintorn. He has tortured that man.

Cristiano. Torturing. He has a knife in his hand, poiseddirectlyin front of that man’s open eyeball. If the man so much as inhales too sharply, he will lose his eye.

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