Page 109 of The Devil's Deal

But that can be changed.

He wouldn’t. He couldn’t.

My body shivers from the icy cold blanket wrapping around the length of me, my pulse pummeling in my ears.

A whimper climbs from the depths of my despair as I lower to the ground to retrieve the recorder. It wobbles in my shaky hands, burning through the pads of my fingers.

I hit rewind, then press play, needing to hear his name again. Wanting to make sure I didn’t make it up.

“I don’t want you to lose any more of your brothers, Dominic.”

I play that part again and again. I play it so many times, I lose count. My chest tightens, my stomach pounding with its own pulse, knotting into the most unbearable pain.

But my heart, it bleeds.

Raw.

Agony.

I hurt everywhere.

If the man who’s been with me this entire time is the same boy I once trusted above anyone in the universe, I won’t survive the betrayal.

How could he do this? How could he not tell me who he is? How could he accept my father’s deal? The same man he knew would hurt me and my mother.

I continue playing the rest of the recording as I openly sob, unable to take two betrayals in one night. At least I always expected one man to hurt me, but I never expected Dom to be the one to break my heart.

“I’m sure you can find lots of things to do with her,” my father adds. “But if you don’t want her, kill her. Whatever you need to do to get over it.”

I sob louder now, the drumming in my tears like battering raindrops on a windowsill.

“You’d let me kill your daughter?” Brian—no,Dom—asks.

I don’t fucking know who he is anymore.

“I want this over with as soon as possible, so yeah. I can even sweeten the deal.”

“How?” Dom asks, the undercurrent of his tone as sharp as the blade he used on Cain.

“If you don’t want to kill her yourself, I’m willing to do it for you. My own kid. I’d do that as long as you promise to end it once and for all.”

My chin trembles with a heavy onslaught of tears, the back of my nose stinging, unable to take any more of this.

Nausea swirls in my stomach and the need to throw up hits me like an iron fist. I grab a garbage pail beside the chair and hurl into it for a few seconds before I realize nothing is coming out. Snatching a tissue from the box on the desk, I wipe my mouth and toss it into the pail just as Dom continues.

“Give me a day.”

Click.

There’s nothing else after that.

With a trembling hand, I stuff the recorder back inside and place the file where it was. My entire body shivers, like I’m flailing through freezing waters of hell.

I can’t stay in this house another minute. I have to find a way out, but none of these men will let me go. Not unless I find a weapon of my own. They won’t want to hurt me. Brian—I mean Dom—would kill them if they dared. I know that much to be true.

Just the thought of him being Dom rips a new hole in my already bleeding heart.

I fall onto the floor, my body rocking from the heaviness of my sobs, not caring who hears.

---