Page 64 of Love Over Time

I headed out of town toward the 101 with the windows down. Rain pelted on the car door, wetting the seat along with my shirt and face. I sped down I-10 with no clue where I was going. My mind raced, flooded with a thousand incoherent thoughts. I thought of Mom. I took the next exit, made a U-turn at the light, and backtracked to A Different Point of View bar. I needed something to numb the pain. Or maybe I just needed to feel close to Mom.

When I reached the entrance, the valet gave me a ticket, and I stuffed it in my back pocket, mumbling a thank you, ignoring the looks he gave my beat-up truck. At the bar, I ordered a whiskey. The bartender was the same one who had helped us find Scott. I’d never asked Dom what he did with the asshole.

“Is Scott around tonight?” I asked the bartender, gesturing for another round. If he recognized me, he didn’t show it.

“He quit days ago.” He poured my drink and quickly moved to the other side of the bar.

I supposed when Dom said he’d take care of the trash, he really meant it. Nikki chose her friends well. No doubt Dom was in on it too. I shut my eyes, and I all I could see was Nikki holding his hand, walking him upstairs. Dom kissing her by the window. I chugged my drink and slammed it on the counter.

“Wow, man. You look like shit.” Dom Moretti braced his arm on the counter.

I had to give it to him; he had great timing. My feet hit the floor just as I gripped his collar and punched him across the face. Every heartbeat thrummed in my ears, pumping hot blood through my veins. After the initial gasps, the room went eerily quiet. The bartender rushed to the phone behind the bar and started dialing. If he was calling security, I didn’t give a fuck.

“What the fuck?” Dom scrambled back, rubbing his chin, eyes trained on me.

When he didn’t move, I squeezed my hands tighter. A sharp pain spread up my fingers. The raw ache on my bleeding knuckles was an improvement on the anger twisting in my stomach. I stepped and came at him with a liver shot. He let out a grunt. Pressing his lips together, he shoved me away and stood his ground, hands out in front of him, palms facing me.

“Fight back.” I gritted my teeth.

“With pleasure. But first tell me what the fuck we’re fighting over?” Red rose to his cheeks. His chest expanded wide as he forced even breaths.

“You tell me.” I threw another punch. This time he locked his arm around my elbow and clocked me. I countered with a left hook and then another and another, pouring every bit into him. I wanted him to feel the way I’d felt when I read Nikki’s note, when I heard Mom’s voice in the recording. I wanted him to make up for all the years I’d spent alone, for all the ones I’d have to spend without a family.

Two sets of hands gripped my arms and pulled me off him. Their voices were a jumble of sounds over the blood gushing in my ears. I blinked several times, forcing air into my aching lungs. My feet squeaked across the shiny floors as guards walked me out of the bar and shoved me into an elevator instead of taking me through the lobby and back to the valet podium. I scooted back until I touched the mirror lining the elevator wall.

Dom sat on his haunches, his face inches from mine, eyes black and menacing. “Today I was feeling like I deserved a beating. Next time you come at me, I will pummel you to the ground. Drink this.”

“What is it?” I glared at the blurry glass he shoved in my hands.

“Just drink it.” He stood next to me.

My mouth twitched when I took a swig of it, but I let the whiskey wash down the last of the fighting adrenaline in my body. We stopped moving. The abrupt change made my stomach roll. Maybe it was time I stopped chugging whiskey.

When the doors slid open, Dom stepped out of the elevator, calling out for me over his shoulder. “Come on.”

With the amount of alcohol I’d had in such a short amount of time, I should be drunk, but instead I felt hungover, complete with a pounding headache and cottonmouth. I rose and followed Dom down a carpeted hallway. At the far end of the floor, he touched his wallet to the door lock magnetic strip. When the light turned green, he gestured for me to go in, and I obliged. If Dom wanted to get rid of me, he would’ve had the security guards throw me into the trunk of his SUV. Why had he brought me to his grand suite instead?

“There’s water on the dining table.” He closed the door behind him. “Now. Care to tell me what the fuck that was all about?”

“Nice place.” I took a bottle of water and drank until it was all gone. “You live here.”

He gave me a half smirk. “Perk of the job.”

“More of Cole’s money, I’m sure. Tell me. Is this what you and Nikki do? You go around finding pathetic fools with their heads so far up their asses they can’t tell a beautiful woman from a con artist?”

“Ouch. That sounds painful.” He let out a laugh. “I should’ve known Nikki had something to do with this. What did she do now?” He rubbed his side where I’d punched him.

I pressed my forefinger and thumb to my eyelids and winced. “Don’t pretend, asshole. You know exactly what you two did. Conning me out of my father’s will and the little money my mom had.” That slow burn in my stomach was back. I sounded like a complete moron. How had I not seen it?

He chuckled. “I really thought she’d retired. Maybe she figured she wasn’t ready yet. Or maybe she had a damn good reason for walking away with your mom’s money.” He sauntered to the head of the table where he had a laptop and piles of manila folders laid out. He shuffled through a couple, picked up the one with Cavalier on the label, and slid it across the table to me. “Is that the will Nikki stole?”

I took another bottle of water and downed it, glaring at the papers in front of me. “You didn’t give it to her.”

He raised an eyebrow. “What the fuck is going on, man?”

“She left me.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. Pathetic didn’t begin to cover it.

“And you automatically thought she left with that will?”

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