Page 106 of Under Pressure

“I’ve been looking for you,” he said. “Ever since the day you and Dad ran away, I’ve been looking.”

Tears welled in her eyes again. Ugh, she sure had been crying a lot lately. “I’m so sorry. I never meant to leave you.”

Dom gave her one firm, but subtle shake. “You didn’t leave me. I stayed. I chose to stay.”

“Why?” Blue heard herself asking even though she knew the answer.

“I couldn’t leave Mom,” he said. “She was never strong like you or Dad. I couldn’t leave her even if she could leave us to save herself.”

An idea struck her. “You can leave now. Mom’s married again. Stay here. Don’t go back.”

Dom’s smile fell just a little as he shook his head. “Can’t. I have to report back that you weren’t here. Shouldn’t be too hard. It’ll just be a second case of mistaken identity.”

“Second case?” Blue asked.

“Yeah, I guess there’s some barber that lives here named Ryker Rockefeller,” he said. “What’s the likelihood of that? Anyway, Vito sent a hit out on him last summer. Poor guy almost got wiped out by a few of our stupidest hitmen—until they finally realized that Ryker was about twenty years too young to be Dad.”

Blue chuckled, though her heart was breaking again little by little. “Vito’s capo now?”

Dom smirked. “Just what he always wanted.”

“You couldn’t run away after that? Vito’s dangerous. Unhinged.”

“Which is why Dad took you and ran. But there’s something else Vito is. Stupid.” He shook his head. “No, I couldn’t run away.”

“Why not?” Blue feared the answer, but she needed to know.

“Because I have Vito’s trust, and I’m not leaving until I’ve torn every inch of The Outfit down, brick by brick,” he said. “No one will ever have to suffer what we have, or worse than what we have ever again.”

“That’s impossible,” Blue said. “People have been trying to end the mafia for decades. It always rises from the ashes.”

“Not this time, Blue,” he said, using his favorite nickname for her.

There was no fighting him. He had that look in his eye, the gleam that said he was up to something. Had a secret that no one else knew. There would be no stopping him. So she gave up trying. “This whole time, I thought you hated me.”

“I could never hate you.” He laughed. “You’re my big sister. My hero. I always looked up to you because you always had my back.”

“That’s what big sisters are for,” she sniffed and swiped at her nose.

“I never thanked you for what you did.” Dom looked down; the ruthless confidence that seeped out of every pour faded for a moment.

She grabbed his hand. “You don’t have to thank me for that.”

“I do because that shot would’ve killed me.” A dark cloud shadowed the light in his eyes that she’d started to believe would never fade until now. And that’s when it hit her. All these years, she’d thought she’d ruined him. Ruined her dad. Ruined Sean. Ruined every good thing in her life, but that wasn’t how the people she loved the most saw her. They didn’t think she was a ruiner, a hurricane. They loved her.

He straightened his shoulders then, his confidence returning in a blink. “And now I have your back.” He glanced toward Sean. “And I see I’m not the only one.”

Sean gave him a little salute.

Dom laughed. “I heard what he said in there, saw what he did. He’s a good man. I’m glad you have him in your life.”

“A good man with owl-like hearing,” Sean whisper/yelled in their direction. “Thank you!”

Blue and Dom laughed.

Blue reached up and pulled him in for another hug. “Thank you for coming. Thank you for . . . this.”

“This isn’t the end, Blue,” Dom said, pulling back. “We’ll see each other again.”

---