2. Streak of Dominance

2

STREAK OF DOMINANCE

SOPHIA

Caddell's voice rings with a command when the word, "No," leaves his mouth with force.

I ignore the finality in his tone. "I'm still alive hours after Knox kidnapped me. Why? Does your little girl want me to snag her a T-shirt from the tour? Don't feed me any more bullshit or drag this out any longer than it has to be." My eyes burn with exhaustion. "Just do it. We both already know you're capable of an atrocious crime like murder."

"Unlike your father, I never lie or … kill anyone." There's a heavy dose of sarcasm laced in his malicious words.

"It wasn't your hand that pushed me down those steps, but it was your men. You sent them. You killed my son." I bite out the words as bile rises in my esophagus like a swimming pool on the verge of spilling over after days of rain. "You're a monster hidden behind a cheap tie and an army of minions." Hate coats my words as pent-up venom toward the man responsible for my child's death spews from my mouth.

Caddell's cold glare meets my accusing wrath. If words were enough, I'd show him no mercy. There'd be no remorse for his death. Just like there wasn't when his pack of leather-clad bandits left me lying at the bottom of that staircase, clenching my swollen stomach in agony.

We're suspended in a battle of wills, both refusing to look away first. I refuse to give him one ounce of power over me despite how dirty I feel under his steady scrutiny. My throat is raw with unspoken protest. The misery of not knowing who Roman's father is haunts me to this day. It's a truth I've accepted I'll never have the privilege of knowing.

A painful knot forms in my stomach when Caddell finally breaks the silence. "You got pregnant after a one-night stand following a tattoo convention in Chicago."

Eyes no doubt ringed with black circles meet his as I thrash in my chair, muscles screaming from my strain.

Unmoved by my sobs and thrashing, Caddell continues his assault, slicing at an already-gaping wound. His words are salt burning my flesh. "Do you miss home—Chicago?"

Whirling with confusion, my head swirls with a flashback of ten years ago. My life in Chicago feels like a dream, or a nightmare, a bleak blip on my life's radar. Momentarily rebuffing his deception, I straighten my spine. The story he's trying so desperately to weave can be read in any romance book available for purchase nationwide. One-night stand. He thinks he pieced an integral puzzle together, a glass mosaic. He doesn't know jack about me or my past.

I steady my erratic pulse. "Too many people in the Windy City, so, no, I don't miss it."

"Does that mean you don't visit his grave then—Roman's? "

My son's name rolls off Caddell's tongue, and a metallic taste dances in a tango over my tongue as I bite the inside of my cheek. My senses are drugged by his acid-dripped words causing my breathing to become labored.

"I did once." He has the gall to appear sincere. "I genuinely feel bad about what happened. You have every right to call me a monster. Losing someone you care deeply about changes a person."

My son's name ricochets like a ball, lost in the frenzy of my thoughts, it pounds against my skull against another name that jars my recollection. Rosella . The Italian word for little rose.

That name plagues my memory, threatening to choke the air from my lungs. Questions hammer from my subconscious. My stomach knots tighter as Caddell's imposing glare cuts me at the knees.

I cling to the memory of my sweet son's face like a life preserver in the capsized mess that has become my reality when hot tears slip down my cheeks. A choking cry yanks itself from my chest, tethered to a firm warning. "Don't you dare say his name!"

The last trace of resistance on Caddell's face vanishes. "There's no father listed on Ro—your son's birth certificate. Which leads me to believe that you really don't know who his father is … was . You should be thanking me. I did the legwork for you."

"Hell will freeze over before I thank you for anything." I've never wanted to commit murder more so than I do in this instant. If I could just free one hand …

"Not even for all of my detective work?" The slimy excuse for a man presses on, a smile etched on his worn, weathered mouth. "Around seven or eight months following the convention where you met Mazen, a baby was brought into the world. Unbeknownst to him, of course. By the look on your ghostly face, you still don't believe me, but you will. We'll get to that—the good part—in a minute."

Caddell's thin lips move, although I can't be certain I'm comprehending the words he's saying. "Sadly, my men roughed you up a little too hard when I sent them to give you a message. That was a tumble down the stairs. I am truly sorry for my part in his death… "

Both my mind and body are immobile in an emotion-charged stupor.

Have you ever had an out-of-body experience? That's what I fear is happening right now as my senses blur. My wrists burn from the rope, tight against my flesh. I pull in a fervent attempt to free myself, all the while clenching my jaw to quiet the sobs threatening to erupt from my throat. The thick rope bites into my flesh, finally drawing blood from my incessant pulling.

"I draw a line at hurting children."

All rational thoughts are pulverized by the influx of grief that tightens around my throat like a chokehold of epic proportions.

"You're sorry? For what part? For making the call to sic your unstable goons on me to collect a debt my fucking father owes you or for ruining my life? You have to live with being a murderer. So, no, I don't want you to ever say his name out loud again, but don't you ever fucking forget it. You killed him! You stole him from this world, from me … and I swear on every star in the sky that you will wish he were earthside. Because now that he's gone, I don't have anything holding me back from hunting you and ending you."

His smile doesn't meet his eyes. "While I love intimidation tactics, you're the one tied to a chair." A long pause builds between us. It's thick and ireful like my rage. "My guilt is precisely why you're not dead already. Despite your constant pleading. Well, that and the fact that I want what's owed to me. Regardless, I couldn't give an order for Knox to kill you without offering my respects for your loss face-to-face. That's the real reason you're still breathing, Sophia."

Julian Caddell's personality switches—between donning his monster mask and seeming almost concerned—is giving me whiplash.

"Contrary to what you think of me, I didn't intend for death to be your child's fate or yours. I just want my money!"

I scoff, and all rational thought flies out the window and my mouth. "Go to hell, where you belong. You and your piece-of-shit nephew. Did you hire him to get into my pants too? Was that a part of his act? Screw me into oblivion and then coax me into signing over my business to you as payment or something?"

"Knox thinking with his dick was all on his own terms. Trust me. I told him you were bad news, tainted by your shithead father. That's why I'm so proud he was able to get the intel about your flight back to Tampa. I really thought he had formed a soft spot for you. He proved me wrong there, too, when he gave you that shiner."

I thrash against the chair again. Arms pulling against the rope that binds them, my feet kicking wildly, trying to break free in a fury like I've never known before.

"We're getting way off subject." He settles into a chair adjacent to mine, unbuttoning the bottom button of his suit jacket with an unhurried flick of his wrist. "Don't you want to know how I know Mazen is your son's father?"

"Where is your son?"

The question that Mazen asked me before I boarded the flight to rush home has played on repeat in my mind for hours, like unending movie credits.

I was so distracted by Lacey's call that I refused to see what was right in front of me. My head is dizzy as I recall Mazen retreating to his room to open fan mail. When I saw him again, he held a manila envelope in his hand with a death grip. I missed the flared temper of Mazen's scowl and the scalding fury in his steel eyes because I was too preoccupied by my own angst to notice the waves of it rolling off his hard jawline. The faint flare of his nostrils when he saw me makes sense now.

He looked like he had been gutted and lived to tell the tale. Bearing the scars of a truth that wasn't his to know. A truth that I'm not sure is even a real possibility.

Someone tipped him off that I had a child, and that someone is sitting right in front of me with a devilish grin on his face.

"I'm listening," I spit out contemptuously. "Enlighten me as to why you think he's the father of my son." Bile rises in my throat as the words leave my mouth.

"It's a wild story, really. You see, his father, Lorenzo Wilde, and I go way back. He was my college roommate."

Of. Fucking. Course. Kismet can kiss my ass.

Caddell's earlier confession about Mazen always being a pain in his father's ass hits me like a brick to the face.

He admitted he knew Mazen personally, and through the pain and panic in the forefront of my mind, I foolishly didn't let that comment register.

Thoughts flash back to the night of Murphy and Vanna's wedding, when I met Mazen's father. He put off bad vibes like the toxic pollutants when some idiot burns a tire. I knew that night that Lorenzo Wilde was trouble. I know just how much now if he's friends with Julian Caddell.

The web of deceit could house a thousand spiders.

"He called me, claiming that his son had fallen in love. Then asked me to do some digging. This type of work was usually your father's forte. With him behind bars for some foolish mistake, like laundering money from the hand that kept him fed, Knox took on his role within my organization. Imagine my surprise when he stumbled upon credit card charges that both you and Mazen swiped at the same hotel in Chicago on the same evening."

Frustration claws at my mind, but I sit still, listening with conflicting emotion.

"The twist was the connection you had before the hotel bar camera caught all the flirting. Some more digging revealed there was a tattoo convention that same weekend. Don't you recall tattooing him?"

Think, Sophia.

"The footage we hacked from the convention showed you tattooing a young man with dark hair and no other ink visibly in sight. Later that night at the hotel, footage showed you and Mazen—the same guy you'd tattooed earlier in the day—both walking, stumbling rather, right into your hotel room."

Decade-old memories assault my already-throbbing head. I recall meeting a guy that night. He was a tattoo virgin. I tattooed a small rose above his left pectoral muscle. The guy had a quiet charm that intrigued me just enough that I remembered him when he later approached me at the bar in the hotel's lounge. We shared some laughs and drinks, and when his featherlight lips found the shell of my ear, he asked to walk me back to my room like a gentleman. I dived headfirst into the smoldering pit of his persuasion.

The illusion he had painted of himself—as the coy, misunderstood, aspiring musician—was a front. Because when the elevator doors closed and we were all alone, his true colors came out, along with a streak of dominance. I remember panting breathlessly and staring into his inky-silver eyes as he shifted to pick me up and pin me up against the wall. When our lips met, a savage harmony echoed in the small space. His kiss was as challenging as it was rewarding, and the handsome stranger made me work for him up until the very end.

When daylight came, he was gone. Like a bandit in the night. The only trace of him was a note sprawled on the hotel's napkin.

A throaty voice grabs my attention once more, steering my wayward thoughts back to reality. "The next thing of interest we uncovered were charges on your credit card for copayments at your OB/GYN's office."

My skin crawls, like a bucket of ants have been dropped over my body and I'm a contestant on Fear Factor . "Aren't medical records supposed to be confidential?"

"Is anything in this life really ever confidential?"

Apparently not. How does he have this much pull to gather all this intel?

"Don't discredit my resources again, or you'll have a matching pair of black eyes." He waits for a protest that doesn't come, so he continues. "The records indicated your date of conception was dangerously close, spot-on really, to the night you and young Mazen had met. Even though Lorenzo met up with Knox and provided a DNA sample, I can't confirm it. I'd need a sample of Roman's DNA to be certain. I can only speculate that Lorenzo would have been a grandfather. But he's willing to go to great lengths to end his son's music career, and as you know, I'm willing to go to great lengths to collect what is rightfully mine."

An undiluted laugh floats up from Caddell's throat. He's back in devil mode, waving farewell to the facade he keeps flaunting that leads me to believe he might have a heart in his malicious body. Pain swells in my chest, along with the distinct mockery of my captor.

Hysteria rings in my tone as I ask the most pressing question I've ever asked in my life. "Did you tell Lorenzo about Roman?" My mouth feels like I used mouthwash with acid. "If he provided a DNA sample, you must've told him why you needed it."

Did Lorenzo tell Mazen I had a child?

There was nothing but cold resentment in Mazen's eyes when he asked me about my son before I boarded my flight. Either Lorenzo told him or the envelope he had informed him I had a son.

"Why would you get involved in this?" I pry, not understanding. "Their feud doesn't concern you or my debt."

"I'm tired of fucking waiting! I want my money. If I have to stir the pot to kick your ass in gear, I will. What were the chances that Lorenzo asked me, out of all people, to dig up dirt on his son's new piece of ass?"

I know with certainty that there's no coming back from this. Not that I really thought I'd be able to casually fly home, save my sister, evade Caddell for the second time in my life, and then return to the men who had wormed their ways into my heart like nothing suspicious had ever happened anyway. Still, the far-fetched desire of being with them again—all three of them—sends a joyous glint of admiration to the deepest part of my soul.

Caddell's sharp eyes bore into me, and I glance at him quickly, questioning him with my own impassive coldness .

His thick voice holds a challenge when he admits, "Lorenzo wasn't told why we needed his DNA. I mailed Mazen an item, informing him that his current lover was keeping secrets. Big secrets. Secrets that might warrant his attention. That's all. For now. Consider your secret my leverage to keep you in line."

I've never been more relieved in my life.

Forcing my consuming emotions into order, I attempt to conceal them from the bastard who has just imploded my life for the second time in a fucking decade.

Mad props to you, asshole .

Julian Caddell has taken too much from me already. I refuse to let him bask in the delight that he's won simply because he thinks he's solved a mystery. Without Roman's DNA, he hasn't solved anything. He can't confirm his suspicion. That's not why he brought it up. No. He wanted to plant the seed, to watch me squirm.

Another question barrels into my mind. Why would Lorenzo want Mazen to fail at being a musician?

One dilemma at a time. I tell myself.

My head swirls with doubts that he'll see straight through if I'm not careful. There's a slight hesitation as I choose my words cautiously. "Even if I did believe you, we're not really together. He's not my lover. He's never been my lover. If this elaborate-as-hell story holds any truth to it at all, he was a one-night stand, nothing more. You and your daughter have sadly been mistaken if you believe what the media says about me and him. It's fabricated. All of it."

His kiss in the hot tub didn't feel fabricated. It felt like I was free-falling off the highest mountain top in the world and sprouted wings that carried me back to the top, just to jump off over and over again. Kissing Mazen was sinful, like I was Eve and tasted a forbidden fruit and couldn't get my fill, no matter how wicked I knew it was.

"Don't you wonder why Knox is so distraught? Beside himself with anger. So much so that he'd willingly kidnap you without batting an eye."

I can't tell if it's his rambling, jumping from topic to topic, or if the dizzy feeling settling inside me is from the start of dehydration or delusion.

"He thought the baby was his. You spent so much time riding his dick while he was reporting back to me over the years." He laughs. "You thought he was just your mentor."

Anger beats like a drum in my chest, hammering against my breastbone. "Knox is a coward. A deceitful scumbag. Fuck him."

"That mouth of yours." His composure evaporates, welcoming a chilly edge to his voice. "Keep running it, you little bitch, and I'll end all their lives, not just your precious Mazen's. Sources say you're with all the members of Kings of Jupiter. Do they all rock your world?"

A battle of personal restraint ensues.

I'd rather be dead than listen to Caddell's nonsense for a second longer. Biting the inside of my cheek for the thousandth time, I permit my harsh thoughts to break through the wall of what-ifs I have refused to truly consider, to give light to. Allowing them to steal my attention from the vile man in front of me, I zone out, my mind drifting into a ruthless reality. Could Mazen actually be my son's biological father?

Knox has long been ruled out based on the date of conception given by my doctor. Much to his disappointment, apparently. Why didn't I consider the man who had slept with me and held me tight against him like he was afraid I was going to slink into his dreams after the convention? The same man who melted my hard exterior with his boyish charm and then left me alone and confused the next morning.

Embarrassment of my sexual prowess weighs heavy on my shoulders in a hefty coat of shame. I didn't think of him because I had meaningless sex all the time. I couldn't narrow down who the father might be, so I didn't even try.

Sleazy Sophia is how I should start introducing myself if I live to see tomorrow.