Page 33 of Sinner's Vows

“Is he hurt real bad?” I ask as Dominic rings off and pockets his phone. I got the gist of the conversation.

He opens the back door and slides into the seat next to me. “Marco’s coming to. Consider yourself very,verylucky.”

I chew my bottom lip and look out of the window as the garage rattles open. Dominic is pissed, and this doesn’t bode well for me. But even so, I’m not scared of him. Ever since he came and took charge and carried me out of that warehouse, his hands so gentle and caring, I haven’t been able to slot him in with the others where he belongs: violent and brutal Mafia.

The impulse to run, to fight my way out of every situation always sits shallow, but something broke me. I’m not sure if it was the weeks in that dungeon, or the fact that my vendetta against Franco and Randazzo has broken to pieces, but I’m winded. Portia’s precision shooting rattled me. I don’t run around naked. And Dominic?—

Earlier, when he warned me not to run away again, his clasp around my wrist had been warm and gentle, even if firm in warning. It had been enough to make my pulse skip several beats. I’m not used to being touched by men. I usually avoid it at all costs, and yet Dominic’s touch has never made me veer away in disgust or go rigid in fear.

A man walks out of the garage, closes it again, and then gets into the driver’s seat.

“He’ll be fine, boss,” the driver says. “Going to have a motherfucker of a headache, but he’ll be fine. Gus will stay with him for now.”

“Thanks, Stan. Pick them up once the doctor’s been and Marco’s good to go home. Keep me posted. As it stands, we’ve already lost a man this week.”

Unease chases down my spine as I recall the dead bodyguard slumped in the van when Franco kidnapped Carla.

“Yes, sir.”

I meet the driver’s gaze in the rearview mirror, knowing I’ve sealed my own fate. I blew my one chance to escape, and I’m not getting another. Everybody is going to be on high alert around me now. How was I supposed to know the clinic is as closely monitored as the Papal Palace? There was nothing giving it away.

Maybe I’m not ‘all there’ at the moment. I’ve landed in a Mafia-level hornet’s nest, and yet I’m slow to catch on. My weeks in that death-zone dungeon have done me in.

“Let’s head to the old house,” Dominic says to his driver. “I’ve activated Code Red, so…”

Another sentence left hanging to keep me guessing.

Dominic pulls his phone from his pocket, and I give him a surreptitious side-eye. He has dismissed me and is working on his emails.

As we drive in silence through the suburbs of Boston, the areas become more and more exclusive, the trees taller, the properties bigger, the houses mansions. Eventually, the road winds through patches of forest until we reach a gate. It opens slowly, the guard getting out of his gatehouse to greet the car. I doubt he knows who is in the vehicle because the windows are tinted.

“Where are we?” I ask, taking in the high wall hidden by the thick forest lining the street.

“Whatever it might look like, this isn’t my place,” Dominic says, answering around my question.

We drive into the compound, and I drag in a slow breath as I take in the extent of the lawns and garden, the road winding until a magnificent mansion comes into view.

“Wow,” I whisper. It’s a classical red brick house in a colonial style, two stories high, with a couple of steps to a white-columned front entrance. Farther along, there have been additions to the dwelling, but they blend in, and the massive structure ends with a conservatory…or an indoor pool? Heavens. Hydrangeas bring pops of blue and white to the red brick. It’s breathtaking, and the type of place I’d only ever see in a movie, not in real life. “It’s beautiful.”

“For a prison, it has its charms.”

Dominic shoots me a glance that says it all.Don’t try and escape here. Code Red has been activated.

Then I spot them. Armed guards at various points in the garden, patrolling with Alsatians on short leashes. And that’s only the surface-level security he’s implemented here.

Shit.I’m so screwed. Dominic isn’t messing around, and I know better now than to just take things at face value.

“My prison?” I ask, testing the waters.

He reaches across the seat to squeeze my hand where I have it clenched on my thigh. “Our prison, sweetheart.”

Thisman is in a prison? And here, of all places? What does he mean? He can’t escape either?

The car pulls up to the front door, and Dominic and the driver get out. I’m not making assumptions here, but I release the safety belt and open my door. When I look up, Dominic is holding his hand out for me.

I clamber out but pull free as soon as I’m out of the car. Instead of leaving me be, his hand settles on my lower back, and he guides me to the front door.

“Are you scared of dogs?” he asks.

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