Page 29 of Sweetest Sin
The plane …
We were supposed to take a car to the airport and fly back to Coral Bay together. He asked if we could have lunch before he went home.
Yet he’s gone.
I quickly pee and then go in search of him. The suite is big. He could’ve gotten up to take a phone call and didn’t want to wake me.
But even as I think it, I know it’s not true.
I can feel it. He’s gone.
His suitcase is nowhere to be found. His briefcase is missing. There aren’t any men’s clothes in sight.
I look for a note, but there isn’t one.
Tears sting my eyes, and I try to hold them back. But finally, I give in and let them fall.
I knew what we had was only for one night. He told me that was all he could give me. But for some reason, as we lay in bed, both of us sweaty and sleepy, and he asked if he could see me after the flight, I thought maybe he’d changed his mind.
By the time I fell asleep in his arms, I had convinced myself that, even though it was a bad idea due to the distance, I wanted to see where this would go because I had fallen for him. For his charm, for his smiles that were few and far between, for the laughter that he seemed to reserve for me. During the short time I had been around him, I fell for his touches and kisses and words.
Fuck, even though I knew the score, it still hurts.
After my tears have dried, I take a shower, wanting to get his scent off me. I get dressed and call for a cab to take me to the airport.
I go about our preflight routine, and the entire time, I keep looking for him. I’m not even sure what I’d say to him. But it doesn’t matter because he doesn’t check in and he never gets on the plane.
Two seats, both assigned to him, are empty, and if I’m honest, so is my heart.
10
Dominick
“This is bullshit,and you know it!” Anthony barks from where he’s sitting in a metal chair, his hands bound behind his back.
We’re in the middle of an empty room in the warehouse where Matteo brings the people we need to interrogate when we know shit’s gonna get messy.
“No,” I tell him, pulling his pretty-boy hair and yanking his head back.
He’s already sporting a busted lip and swollen eye from fighting Matteo instead of coming willingly.
“What’s bullshit is that our father’s dead at the hands of yours, and somehow, the cameras got wiped. Now, I’m going to ask you one more goddamn time, and if you give me another bullshit answer, I’m going to be forced to pry the truth out of you. What the fuck happened?”
“I don’t know!” he cries, earning himself a punch to his face, courtesy of Matteo.
Blood, with a mixture of saliva, flies from his mouth, and he’s momentarily knocked unconscious.
“Sorry,” Matteo mutters. “I couldn’t stand listening to his voice for another second.”
“When’s your next fight?” I ask, noticing the way his shoulders tense.
“Next month,” he says. “With everything going on, I haven’t been to the gym in a few days.”
Since we were little, Matteo has been filled with an anger that couldn’t be contained, most of it directed at our father. It wasn’t until he started training at a gym in South Harbor Point—with a guy named Lucian, who took him under his wing when he saw the fury brewing in Matteo’s eyes—that he was able to find a way to release some of it.
The training eventually led to underground fighting, and now, Matteo’s one of the most notorious underground fighters in the circuit. Guys come from all over, hoping to take him down, but he’s never lost a fight.
“You need to get back in there soon,” I tell him, leaning against the wall while we wait for Anthony to wake up so we can continue questioning him.
