Page 53 of Corrupted Heir (Mafia Kings: Corrupted 1)

“I know you don’t,” she said, placing a hand over mine. “It may be hard to believe, but I promise that if I thought this marriage was a bad choice for either of you, I would speak up. I have done things…” She trailed off and looked down at her hands. It felt like she’d traveled to some far-off place, maybe to some distant memory before she came back to me. “I have done things to protect my family.” She met my gaze with a hard determination that told me this woman was no fragile doll. “I will protect you as well, Fallon. You will be part of the Luca family very soon.”

Part of her family? She squeezed my hand, but it felt like she’d wrapped her slim fingers around my heart and squeezed it. It had been so long since I’d felt like part of a real family.

The men who’d murdered my mother hadn’t only stolen my mother but my father as well.

I stopped recognizing my father the moment my mother took her last breath.

“Thank you,” I whispered and then dug into one of the mini cakes before the tears in my eyes could spill over.

I didn’t want this marriage any more than I had a moment ago, but I wanted what she was dangling on a hook in front of me. To be a part of something, to belong somewhere. Maybe I could even understand Dominic’s commitment to his family when I looked at it through Maria’s eyes.

When a person had something so valuable, wouldn’t they do everything in their power to hold onto it, to protect it? That was loyalty, after all—the willingness to go to any lengths for another person. And Dominic was willing to go to the ends of the earth for his family.

***

I was lying on the sofa when the front door opened and a sliver of light spilled across the living room. It was the only light in the apartment. I’d been drifting in and out of sleep for the past two hours. I couldn’t say for certain what had kept me on the sofa rather than retreating to the room I’d claimed as my own.

The door closed, shutting out the light and shrouding the apartment in darkness. I could have scurried off to the bedroom. If I crept quietly enough, he might not even know I’d been here, but I stayed where I was, listening as his footsteps strode across the living room toward the kitchen.

He moved more slowly than usual, but if it weren’t for the strange metallic scent that followed him, I might not have thought anything of it. As a veterinarian, I’d spent plenty of time around blood; the smell was unmistakable.

I sat straight up. “Dominic?”

He stopped walking. “Go to bed, Fallon.”

I stood up, searching for the light switch in the dark while my imagination went wild. I could picture him there with a dead body slung over his shoulder, dripping blood along the carpet. Or maybe he was carrying a human head in a bowling ball bag—that was a mafia thing, wasn’t it?Oh god.As my fingers found the switch, I hesitated. Did I really want to see what hideous thing he’d brought home?

Then I remembered him sneering at me about burying my head in the sand, and I flicked on the light.

There was no body slung over his shoulder. No bowling ball bag in his hand. There was blood. On his shirt, on his hands, even splattered on his jaw. My heart raced, and my stomach roiled violently.

I rushed at him, running my hands over his jaw, down his chest, his abdomen, searching for the source of the blood. He’d been shot. Someone had shot Dominic. It seemed crazy. Impossible. This was Dominic Luca!

I reached for the waist of his pants to untuck his shirt, now frantic because I couldn’t find the damn source of the blood.

He put his hands over mine, stopping me. “Fallon, what are you doing?” He cocked a brow and flashed me a small grin.

Damn it. Had he lost so much blood he was delusional? I pulled my hands out of his grasp and resumed my search, yanking the hem of his shirt out of his pants.

"If this is your new way of greeting me when I get home, I can’t say I’m opposed to it,” he said.

I rolled my eyes. “Where the hell is it, Dominic?”

“You might have to tell me what you’re looking for,limone.”

“The bullet, damn it. Where were you shot?”

He sniggered. “I wasn’t shot.”

What?I dropped my hands.

“I appreciate the concern. It’s a bit unexpected, honestly, but it isn’t my blood, Fallon.”

I took a step back. “Then… then whose blood is it?”

“It belonged to the man who told Tony about you.” He met my gaze, holding it like a vise. “He won’t be needing it any longer.”

“Is he…” The word got stuck in my throat, but it didn’t matter. I could see it in his eyes.

---