Page 137 of A Lethal Game of Trust
Touching him was instinct, a need programmed in my bones.
As we left the kitchen, one of the security guards went to follow and Dom turned with that lethal tone that caused my body to tighten with desire. “Stay here. It’s an order. Ensure no one kills him but her.”
This was the man he had become despite what happened to me. The one the past Leonie would have ruled beside.
“This is Sam’s car,” he said as he sat in the passenger seat of the Mustang, looking around, hands hovering over his lap as if he didn’t want to touch anything.
I turned to reverse and pull out around the SWAT team’s van. “And?” I asked, turning the wheel. “I think we have more pressing matters.”
“You going to marry him?”
The snort that left me was nothing if not ladylike. “What?Sam?”
Drama queen.
“You’ve been together for months — practically since you left. You’re driving his car—”
“Becausesomeonelocked mine up,” I grumbled. The day I left, Derek had taken me to the airport and the first time I’d returned to Darley, my people had told me Dom locked it up in his garage.
“Waiting for you,” he added desperately. “It was just on the road for a month. I wanted it to be safe for your return. Answer me.”
“I’m not marrying Sam,” I laughed, foot flat on the accelerator as we drove through the country lanes towards his parents’ house. “He’s my friend. We have an arrangement.”
“A sexual one?”
The nerve of this man. I focused on the road, not how he turned to face me.
“A business one,” I said through gritted teeth. “Someone needed to keep an eye on the Yuns; I decided to do it from the inside.”
He paused, seemingly thinking hard as he stared out the window. He shook off whatever thought he had and then promised, “There’s been no one else. I have spent my days—”
“I know,” I snapped before releasing a sigh. “Me too.”
At first, it frustrated me when Andy reported back that Dom was staying home, going to work and hardly anything else. I wanted him to find someone else — at least an angry fuck — so that I could do the same.
Because I deserved to do the same.
But there was no desire or lust. Only anger.
There was silence as I drove further to the Belovs’ house.
“It wasn’t my dad,” he said softly. “Leonie, he wouldn’t. Especially not ordering for them to die. He’d never hurt you.”
“What, when he knew your mum had an affair with his best friend? And produced a child that he thought was his? I’d say he had means, motive and, thanks to you, opportunity.” The words I spat were venom, poisoning any positive atmosphere between us. “His accounts paid Firdman.”
“As much as that may be true, why would he risk my life? I’m his son, his heir, Leonie. He wouldn’t send me into a massacre without some warning first.”
The thought had come to me multiple times. Above anything, Ivan valued family. Even if Issy wasn’t his, Dom was his pride and joy.
“He was desperate,” I reasoned. That was all there was to it. Desperate men did desperate things.
“What are you going to do?” he asked, voice broken.
I risked a glance his way. He looked as broken as he sounded. “Only what he did to my dad.”
His hands reached out to mine. “Leo, you can’t—”
“What happened to ‘I’ll kill them myself’, huh?”
