Page 30 of A Lethal Game of Trust
“Yes.”
I squeezed his hand with the one he inspected so he looked up at me. “Don’t. I still need him.”
“Needhim?” His voice was thick with repulsion.
My eyes rolled though I enjoyed that little spike of jealousy. “His dad works in Firdman’s prison. Why do you think I got with him in the first place?”
He blinked and slipped his hand from mine. “That’s clever, Leonie Lion.”
I cringed at the childhood nickname.
“There’s a gun under the bed.”
“Yours?”
I nodded. I hardly ever carried one anymore, but I still practised at the shooting range with Roc every week.
When I walked past him, he cleared his throat.
“Yeah?”
He ripped off another bin bag and loudly, forcibly waved it around to open it. The muscles in his forearms bulged, his protruding veins even more obvious.
Now I was finding domestic duties alluring. He could empty my bin any day.
He chucked me his keys with a smile.
In his car, I locked the doors and put on the radio, turning it down to a human level because, clearly, Dom liked to bedeafened.
My hand was still bleeding, the scrape whitening my skin around where the drawer had cut me. In his glove box, I found the wipes and a gun.
Minutes passed. I stared each one down on the dashboard, waiting for one of the men to appear.
Seven minutes. Seven whole minutes until Dom returned with two full bin bags and a blender. How he carried it all so gracefully was beyond me. I was scrambling out of the car to help him when he shook his head, dismissing me and throwing open one of the back doors to carefully place everything down.
I glanced at the house door. There was no sign of Jared.
“Do you want to carry the blender or should I put it in the footwell?”
“I’ll take it,” I said, already reaching. Holding it with both hands, he walked me to my side of the car and opened the door. Sitting there, he pulled my seatbelt across me and buckled me in, his scent of pine strong as he leaned over.
“You don’t have to put on my seatbelt. I can do it.”
He ignored me and moved to sit in his own seat before reversing out of the drive. Over my shoulder, the house stayed eerily quiet.
Dom’s jaw was tight, his eyes furious on the road.
“What did you say to him?” I asked into the blender as we rounded a corner.
“Nothing you’d want to hear,” he grunted.
“Is he hurt?”
He swerved the car onto the curb before halting. “I should have hurt him. Look!” he raged, lifting my pulsing hand, careful not to touch the tiny scratch. “Hehurtyou, Leo. We could find another way to fuck up Firdman.”
The anger radiated from him, tension twisted his face. If I didn’t defuse this, he may turn the car around and go back for round two.
“Dom, I’m okay,” I said softly, threading my fingers through his. I had no idea what came over me or why he didn’t push me away. He needed to know I was there and that I was fine.
