Page 58 of Prince of Malice

“Don’t talk to me like that. I am your father!”

Hearing the two of them fall into disarray, their entire plan crumbling as they fight with each other like children, I burst out into near hysterical laughter.

The two Grecos fall silent in an instant, their intense argument having made them forget all about me sitting beside them grinning along to their bickering.

“Are you enjoying this you—” Antonio blurts out, but goes quiet when Angelo grabs hold of his arm.

“This is what he wants,” he says, pullinghis father toward the door. “Let’s talk elsewhere.”

Both men bite their tongues as they practically shove each other out of the cramped storage closet. They leave me alone, tied up in the chair, waiting for the next step of the plan.

I feel awful for never giving Dominic the credit that he actually deserves. He wasn’t the one who ran into this whole situation completely blind, hoping to take out the Grecos single handedly. He was the one that actually came up with a plan to solve this problem without anyone getting unnecessarily hurt.

If it wasn’t for him, I may not have gotten into this situation in the first place, but I certainly wouldn’t have come out the other side as a better person without him either.

I writhe around in my bindings, trying to wriggle free of the tight constraints around my wrists, but every movement just makes them dig further into my skin. Feeling the friction burn against my wrists makes me hiss in pain.

Relenting my attempts to escape, my arms go slack, and I let them fall behind me.

“What am I supposed to do now?” I mumble to myself.

A slouched figure leans itself on the doorframe in front of me. “You wait for me,” the unmistakable voice says. Dominic steps into the light, showing the extent of his injuries, his damaged limbs causing him to need the frame for support.

“How did you get out?” I ask him as he stumbles toward me and begins messing with my restraints.

“If you think getting out of these is impressive, you should see me with handcuffs.” He laughs as he fights against my bindings. With another quick tug, he manages to break apart the wraps around my wrists, allowing me to move my arms in front of myself and massage them.

“How about we do that later? But for now, let’s get out of here.”

Dominic helps me to my feet, the two of us using each other for support as we stumble for the rear door to the storage room.

“That was a good plan,” I admit. “How did you come up with it?”

“Well, I know for a fact that no onepushes buttons like you do,” he responds with a chuckle. “It’s pissed me off in the past, so I thought if we both did that, we could push them over the edge.”

“You weren’t half bad.”

We crash out onto the side street beside the restaurant, the darkness of night as our cover and the roaring argument of Antonio and Angelo already reigniting in the restaurant, and we stagger away.

Throughout the dark, empty streets of the city, side by side with Dominic, the pair of us hardly say a word to each other. The only noises we emit are the pained grunts and panting breaths that call and respond to each other like its own kind of conversation.

For now, though, Dominic guides us both through the labyrinth of street grids to some location unknown to me. He is leading this dance, and I am only his blind partner. We need somewhere to lay low until we know if our plan came to fruition or not. We can’t head back to Valmont. Angelo knows where Dominic lives, and Iwouldn’t put it past him that he knows where I live either.

“Where are we going?” I ask him between my exhausted gasps.

“Back to mine,” he replies, his voice showing just how tired he is.

“Won’t Angelo find us?” I ask in a panic.

“Not my dorm, my home.”

The door to the Rossi mansion creaks open, revealing the entranceway behind it. Dominic’s family home is nowhere near the same size as the Valenti mansion, but there’s something so much nicer and more homey about its much more humble design.

“Come on, just up here,” Dominic whispers to me as he takes my hand in his and leads me up the stairs.

Nodding to him slightly, I follow him up to the second floor, limping with each step along the way.

Creeping down the hallway, Dominic has each floorboard committed perfectly to his memory, placing his feet on the exact right spots to avoid the ones that creak. Sneakingbehind him, I slip up every few steps, tensing as they creak at me like an incorrect buzzer on a game show.

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