51. Stand Down

Leonie

Everything was twisted; I hated and loved him. I saw my whole future with him, but more than anything, I saw myself putting a bullet through his skull.

Then he whispered, lips a breath away from mine, “Take your anger out on me, lioness.”

Adorable. So I slapped him hard across the face.

He reached, kicked out my leg and span me to shove my back into the wall, my hand held above, trying to keep my grip on the gun.

Fucker.

Rocco laughed behind us, and when I looked over Dom’s shoulder to face him, he had his arms crossed, leaning against the wall. “She won’t kill you, Dom. She loves you too much.”

“She doesn’t seem so sure,” Dom snapped, but as he spoke, I stopped fighting.

If I went for him again, there was no telling what the SWAT team would do.

His eyes roved my face and I couldn’t look back at him. I glanced away until he released me and then put the gun back in the holster around my leather jeans.

“Let’s sit. You, me, Rocco. Let’s sit and talk this through,” he begged, his thumb stroking my cheek. I tried not to melt into his touch or his smell of bergamot, but I inhaled and became lost in it for a moment. It had become a comfort. It had been That Night in this kitchen too.

He’d hardly changed in seven months. His stubble was longer than usual, his dimples harder to spot. But other than that, it was like my absence meant nothing.

Twenty-nine looked good on him.

And finally, taking him in, I could sob. I could sob for what we could have and what we could no longer have.

He was made of contradictions that were tearing my heart in two.

He was gunpowder and lilies. Before me, he was the symbol of everything I lost and everything I could ever want.

Because after tonight, he would hate me. Maybe even hunt me.

But not like he had hunted me these last few months.

Hunt to kill.

The SWAT team still hadn’t lowered their guns. So I stepped back, hands raised.

“Stand down,” Dom ordered, not taking his eyes off me.

There was the shuffling of them disarming over Firdman’s never-ending moaning. His sniffing made me never want to swallow again. So I shoved the gag back in his mouth.

Two days ago, he had started closing his eyes when he saw me, wincing when he heard my voice.

And Dom’s expression wasn’t the one of distaste I had seen over and over, nor was it the wonder I had secretly hoped for.

Surely, he knew this was always something I was capable of.

The betrayal from the Belovs was just what topped it off.

Rocco pulled out a file from his rucksack on the floor and chucked it onto the dining table for Dom to read. He sat dutifully, going through what we had collected over the last few months.

But he took his time as the security team shifted awkwardly, watching over us. I only glared at Firdman. I would kill him, but I needed him for the next phase.

When he got to that certain document, I needed to gauge Dom’s reaction carefully.

“Wait, what?” he spluttered, staring at the last page. He blinked down at it, lifting it closer to read again. Then, exasperated, he scanned my face, searching for the punchline. There wasn’t one. “This is bullshit.”

This response seemed genuine.

“It’s not you,” I told him. “It’s Issy. I found it in my dad’s office when I came back.”

“You came back?” he asked, hurt clear in his voice.

“Snuck in with the gardening team one day.” I shrugged. I’d returned many times. Just wait for him to find out where I’d been staying.

“This is legitimate?” he asked, lifting the paper an inch in gesture.

Rocco nodded this time and I cringed. None of this was Issy’s fault, but she would be hurt either way.

“We did our own test,” he said, looking at Firdman. “It’s true.”

“Fuck,” Dom muttered and the deep timbre of his voice reminded me of all the times he’d sworn in my presence. Even now, he had so much power over my body.

I was keeping it together, but I knew I would break if he wrapped his arms around me. With what I was about to do, there was no room for the weakness that was him.

“She doesn’t know,” Rocco urged. “Not yet.”

Dom only grunted again, his palm to his forehead.

“I’ll wrap up here,” Rocco said, looking at his friend with concern.

I nodded. The next part of my plan needed just the two of us before we went to the Belovs’. I told myself that, knowing I really just wanted a moment. One moment of us alone before there was no turning back.

With the gun, I could order Dom to stand and walk out to my car, but I grabbed his hand again because, against my better judgement and the hatred in my stare, my body had missed his.

Touching him was instinct, a need programmed in my bones.

As we left the kitchen, one of the security guards went to follow and Dom turned with that lethal tone that caused my body to tighten with desire. “Stay here. It’s an order. Ensure no one kills him but her.”

This was the man he had become despite what happened to me. The one the past Leonie would have ruled beside.

“This is Sam’s car,” he said as he sat in the passenger seat of the Mustang, looking around, hands hovering over his lap as if he didn’t want to touch anything.

I turned to reverse and pull out around the SWAT team’s van. “And?” I asked, turning the wheel. “I think we have more pressing matters.”

“You going to marry him?”

The snort that left me was nothing if not ladylike. “What? Sam?”

Drama queen.

“You’ve been together for months — practically since you left. You’re driving his car—”

“Because someone locked mine up,” I grumbled. The day I left, Derek had taken me to the airport and the first time I’d returned to Darley, my people had told me Dom locked it up in his garage.

“Waiting for you,” he added desperately. “It was just on the road for a month. I wanted it to be safe for your return. Answer me.”

“I’m not marrying Sam,” I laughed, foot flat on the accelerator as we drove through the country lanes towards his parents’ house. “He’s my friend. We have an arrangement.”

“A sexual one?”

The nerve of this man. I focused on the road, not how he turned to face me.

“A business one,” I said through gritted teeth. “Someone needed to keep an eye on the Yuns; I decided to do it from the inside.”

He paused, seemingly thinking hard as he stared out the window. He shook off whatever thought he had and then promised, “There’s been no one else. I have spent my days—”

“I know,” I snapped before releasing a sigh. “Me too.”

At first, it frustrated me when Andy reported back that Dom was staying home, going to work and hardly anything else. I wanted him to find someone else — at least an angry fuck — so that I could do the same.

Because I deserved to do the same.

But there was no desire or lust. Only anger.

There was silence as I drove further to the Belovs’ house.

“It wasn’t my dad,” he said softly. “Leonie, he wouldn’t. Especially not ordering for them to die. He’d never hurt you.”

“What, when he knew your mum had an affair with his best friend? And produced a child that he thought was his? I’d say he had means, motive and, thanks to you, opportunity.” The words I spat were venom, poisoning any positive atmosphere between us. “His accounts paid Firdman.”

“As much as that may be true, why would he risk my life? I’m his son, his heir, Leonie. He wouldn’t send me into a massacre without some warning first.”

The thought had come to me multiple times. Above anything, Ivan valued family. Even if Issy wasn’t his, Dom was his pride and joy.

“He was desperate,” I reasoned. That was all there was to it. Desperate men did desperate things.

“What are you going to do?” he asked, voice broken.

I risked a glance his way. He looked as broken as he sounded. “Only what he did to my dad.”

His hands reached out to mine. “Leo, you can’t—”

“What happened to ‘I’ll kill them myself’, huh?”

“It doesn’t make sense, Leo. Let me talk to him. Let me do this for you. If you’re wrong— when you find out you’re wrong, you’ll be broken. I wouldn’t forgive you. You wouldn’t forgive yourself.”

Forgiveness was a funny thing and I had spent a long time over the last few months thinking about it. It wasn’t black and white; it wasn’t I forgive you, or I don’t. It wasn’t even forgive but not forget. Forgiveness was something earned slowly, imperceptibly, if it were possible at all.

“Well, then maybe that makes two of us.”

And forgiveness was about trust more than anything. This was a lethal game of trust for both of us.