Page 99 of The Club

I shake my head.

Dominic studies me but not like he’s worried. He’s just trying to figure out what I want. He goes to the table of tools and gets a gun.

I smile, realizing as it touches my hand that it’s what I want. I usually prefer knives, but right now I want the heavy, final thud of a bullet. Somehow, Dominic knew that.

The gun is a perfect, satisfying weight in my hand. I raise it, aiming at the face that’s still human over the body that’s not. It seems fitting.

I pull the trigger.

***

Rocco is waiting outside the room when we emerge barefoot and bare chested, having left our bloody shoes and shirts with the body. I almost feel bad about the mess he has to clean up, but he only nods to Dominic and goes inside the cell.

We make our way through the hidden door into the cellar then up through the pantry and into the kitchen.

Noah is waiting there. He doesn’t react to the blood all over Dominic and Dante. It’s me his gaze catches on, my skin clean except for the light splatter on my face—and the bloody handprints that Dominic has left on me. My side. My chest. My neck and jaw.

I love how he’s marked me.

Noah’s eyes jump to Dante. “Tristan is here.”

Dante’s initial reaction is one of surprise, of relief, of need. It’s in the way his lips part and his body rocks forward. It’s in his eyes.

Then he visibly reels himself in, stiffens, goes cold.

“I don’t want him to see me like this,” he says.

“I can see you like this,” Tristan answers, appearing in the doorway.

Dante’s breath catches as their eyes lock. There’s the briefest flash of uncertainty. Tristan is well aware of what Dante does, has even watched him work before, but he’s definitely outside of this world that Dante, Dominic, and I inhabit.

But he walks into like he accepts it, like he accepts Dante. His hand reaches out as he approaches. As Dante moves toward him, meets him, and takes his hand, I see for the first time that they are, in fact, right together. Really right.

The opening in Dante’s eyes is subtle, but it’s there. The easing in his body, however, is far more obvious as he walks out with Tristan.

I glance at Dominic, who’s watching me closely. At first, I think he’s still worried about me and Dante, but then I realize that he’s watching me simply because he wants to. Like I watched him earlier.

I want to be with him. Ineedto be with him. But I also need to talk to Noah.

Dominic’s eyes flick to Noah like he knows this. He says, “I’ll be upstairs.”

I snag his hand as he starts to walk off. I don’t want him to leave like that, like he has no place here. He turns at the grip on his hand, coming back to me. I release his hand and grab him around the waist.

His arms go around me in turn, marking me with more blood. His forehead comes to rest against mine. He stays there briefly, then he pulls away. I let him go this time. I turn to face Noah.

“Do you understand now?” I ask, weirdly anxious. Before when we discussed Dominic, I was defiant, angry. Now, I guess, I want his approval. I want Dominic to have it.

I had two fathers before Noah. My biological father. Then the Collector, in his twisted way.

But it’s Noah who matters in his jeans and flannel, with his shaggy hair and careworn face.

He says, “I understood the second he walked into Lush to deal with Moretti. I could see then, and I can see now, that he loves you. I can see that you love him too.”

My throat tightens, but I make myself say what I need to say, to tell him the truth. “I also love you, Noah.”

He sucks in a breath, startled by words I have never said to him.

Saying them to Dominic unstuck them inside me. They’d been lodged deep, shoved down, twisted around by the man now getting cut into pieces in the containment room.

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