I snorted as I swallowed another mouthful of scotch. The hot liquid burned its way down my throat in a way that I found comforting. “Everything was handled,” I told him. “You used to appreciate my go-getting attitude.”
“Don’t do that shit.” He leaned back against the cushions of my black leather couch. Unlike Dom’s house, which was delightfully neutral even before he was married, my space was designed for a single man. Leather couches. Black paneled walls. This was supposed to be my sanctuary. My brother ruined that.
“You kept this girl from me because you knew I was going to make sure that you handled it my way.”
I rolled my eyes and walked towards the couch. “Your way is bullshit,” I said. “And it’s going to get us all killed.”
This time Dom snorted and shook his head. “You said that before, and things have turned out just fine for us.”
I wanted to remind him that things turned out well for him. I’d spend months worried that my life would be over. My entire life, I was groomed to be an enforcer. First, I was to serve my other older brother, but when he died, it became my job to protect Dom.
Dom took my silence for what it was, and I could see the anger drain out of him. “I know you,” he told me. “I know that you wouldn’t just kill an innocent woman. It wouldn’t sit right with you.”
I leaned forward so that my forearms rested on my knees. “You want to think that, but you are wrong.”
Dom’s lips thinned, and he brought his glass back to his lips. “We have an issue.”
I raised a brow. “I’m aware. She’s upstairs knocked up in my room.” I laughed slightly at my own joke. Dom didn’t find it as amusing.
“I’m serious.”
“You are always serious.”
Dom stretched his neck out slightly. As only an older brother could, he looked ready to throttle me. Dom might be wound tightly these days, but he hadn’t strayed too far from the person he had always been. When we were kids, he was always easy to rile up.
“Adrian’s mother reported him missing.”
“Shit,” I muttered under my breath. I had thought that Adrian would simply disappear, and everyone was going to assume he’d hauled ass out of the city. Dom probably hoped the same thing.
“Shit indeed,” Dom told me, his tone smug.
“Even more important that we get rid of the only witness to the crime.” I was starting to feel as though I were even more right about getting rid of the girl.
Dom’s hand tightened around the glass, and I knew that he was never going to agree to kill the girl. “If I remember correctly, you were willing to kill your own wife when you first met her.” Dom might have forgotten his own darkness, but I hadn’t. My brother wanted to pretend to be a gentleman, but he’d been more than willing to kill the woman he now loved if it meant keeping his power.
“That was different.”
“Because Sasha’s father was the Pakhan of the Bratva?” I asked. “She was just as innocent, more so, than the girl in my room.”
Dom’s eyes grew stormier, and I knew that I was pushing him too far, but I was beyond caring. I wasn’t going to allow Dom to make me feel bad for being the person I was, which was the person he needed me to be.
“Did you know that Red’s has cameras in the hallways?” he asked. The way he spoke, I knew that I’d been captured on camera. I wanted to kick my own ass for not thinking to case the hallway for security before I went after Adrian.
“Do the cops have the tapes?” I asked him. His answer would determine my next steps.
He nodded. “One of our guys let me know you’re on the tapes.”
“Fuck me,” I muttered. I felt cold sweat break out on the back of my neck as I recalled my time in jail. I wasn’t scared to go back. I just knew that I would lose my fucking mind if I were cooped up in a jail cell again.
“It gets worse,” Dom told me.
I pressed my glass to my temple and slid down in my seat. “How the hell could this get worse? I’m on camera, and I’m assuming my gun is too.”
Dom nodded. A small smile played across his lips, and I knew that a part of him was enjoying this. He wanted me to learn a lesson, which was that I shouldn’t ever go against him.
“The girl is on camera too. The cops know that she was in the alleyway with both of you. According to my guy, the cops were sending someone to the club tonight to pick her up.”
I blinked several times as I worked to process the information. This situation kept getting worse and worse, and I wished Dom would just stop speaking. “Anything else?” I asked.