Page 2 of Scorned Beauty (Scorned Fate #5)

Chapter

Two

Sloane

“Do you always attack first, ask questions later?” Dom staggered toward the van and sat on the step up.

“You surprised me,” I said lamely, even when relief swooshed through me.

The boss of the De Lucci crime family wasn’t at the top of the list of people who wanted to do me harm despite the unfortunate incident when I accidentally shot him.

Luckily he had on a bulletproof vest then, but every encounter with him since felt like a debt that needed to be paid.

It didn’t help that he was ridiculously attractive, and his knowing appraisals always made me squirm. Although right now, I wasn’t sure why he was in front of me.

“Same excuse last time.” He glared at me from beneath his bleeding brow. “We need to work on your nerves. You’re too jumpy.”

Indignation ignited my temper. “My nerves are fine. You have the uncanny ability to startle me,” I whisper-yelled my outrage. I peered closer. “Let me see.”

Dom lowered his hand to inspect the blood on it. “You’ve put a scar on my brow.”

I rolled my eyes. Dominic “Dom” De Lucci was the New York mob’s fashion icon.

Though no admission of belonging to the mafia was ever on record, it only increased public titillation, especially the women who loved a bad boy.

To add to his infamy, a popular men’s magazine awarded him New York’s Most Eligible Villain title for a second year in a row.

Forget heroes, villains were in.

“It’s not deep enough to require stitches.”

Angling his body to the right, he exposed his white shirt underneath his dark suit. “It might not, but this might.”

His white dress shirt’s entire left side was steeped in dark red.

Realization dawned on me. “You were at Grigori’s poker game!”

Instead of answering me, Dom muttered, “Come on.”

“Come on, where?”

He opened the passenger side door of the van and got in. I was still reeling for a silence of two seconds before blurting out, “I’m not driving you anywhere!”

“Get in.” Dom propped his head against the headrest and, without looking at me, said, “I’m about to lose consciousness.”

“Dom!” He was so aggravating. And I wasn’t sure what I was feeling. I didn’t want the responsibility of driving a wounded mafia don around, but I was also worried for him. And what if he died while in my company?

“Hurry up, beautiful. You’re the reason I’m bleeding out.”

What did that even mean? And what was the deal with him calling me beautiful? I was always Sloane or Miss Scott to him. He must be delirious with blood loss. I slammed the van’s side door and hurried to the driver’s side. “I’ll take you to the hospital.”

“No.”

“I don’t want you dying in my van. You’re bleeding all over it.”

I felt Dom’s gaze on me. Somehow, even in his weakened state, I could feel his humor drilling into me. “Are you worried about me messing up your van or me dying?”

“Don’t get cute,” I mumbled.

“Your home,” he said. “In Jersey.”

“I know you don’t want to be questioned at the hospital, but Bianca’s house is closer and I can stitch you up there.

” Bianca was his cousin who was married to Sandro, the current Rossi boss.

The Rossi and De Lucci crime families used to have a cold war, but with the marriage between Bianca and Sandro, that had ended.

I knew Sandro and Dom conferred with each other all the time, which made their house the most logical place to drop him off.

“I don’t want the Rossis involved. Those who need to know have my whereabouts.”

“That you’re with me?”

“Yes.” He raised his arm to point at the road that would take us to Jersey. “You better take this ramp on your next turn.”

“You’re so bossy, even if you’re bleeding half to death,” I retorted. “It will take me an hour to get to Hoboken. I need to look at your wound.”

“I’ll be fine. It stopped bleeding.”

“You said you were bleeding out.”

“I lied,” he grunted. “Stop arguing and just drive.” If he wasn’t in any way injured, hot mafia boss or not, I would leave him on the side of the road.

But an edge sharpened his voice, hinting that he was trying to keep the mood light.

After another twenty minutes, we entered the tunnel on our way to New Jersey.

I shot him a quick glance. His head was thrown back and his eyes were closed. The night had taken a weird turn, and I had a feeling I was in the middle of a power play. What did Dom mean by I was the reason he was bleeding out?

I met him last year when I helped Bianca escape to prevent further escalation of hostilities between the Rossis and the De Luccis.

But that wasn’t the end of it. As it turned out, someone in Sandro’s past had come for revenge, which resulted in Bianca getting kidnapped.

During her rescue, I accidentally shot Dom.

He had a supernatural ability to make me jumpy.

Yet when he appeared tonight, the jitteriness I had felt during and after I left Grigori’s job faded.

It was as if I was finally safe. Like Dom was my armor against the Russian bratva.

Conflicting feelings seemed to be my default mode when it came to him.

I tried to avoid him at De Lucci gatherings, but he always made his presence known.

A secret smile would play on his lips. He would never approach me but watched me across the room.

Like two months ago at Bianca and Sandro’s wedding, his burning gaze willed me to look at him.

And I wasn’t imagining his attention because when I did glance at him, he raised his glass to me as if in a toast. I was a mouse, and he was the cat toying with me.

But this? “You okay?”

“I’m alive.”

“Don’t be dramatic.”

A chuckle reverberated in his chest as he shifted in his seat. A pained groan escaped him. “Don’t make me laugh.”

“I’m not.”

“Now is the time to get rid of me if you want to.”

The drive through the tunnel was smooth. He wasn’t wearing his seat belt, and I presumed it was so it wouldn’t rub against his left side. I was glad that I’d disabled that aggravating sound that was a reminder to buckle up because I frequently put heavy loads on the passenger side.

“Tempting,” I replied. “Anyone want you dead?”

“How much time do we have?”

“Wow, that many?” We had another thirty minutes to my apartment.

My peripheral vision caught him turning to me. “Bad idea to confess to you.”

“The Russians?”

“No, my injuries are not because they want to kill me. At least, not Grigori.” He muttered something under his breath that sounded like “I hope.”

“Kolya?”

“What do you know about Kolya?”

“Nothing.” That was the right answer, even when I knew something.

You learned not to give direct answers that could come back to bite you in the ass when you were talking to anyone connected to the underworld.

And Dom, despite his man-of-Wall-Street, trust-fund demeanor, was very much in the mob.

“I probably don’t want to know why you’re bleeding out because of me. ”

“Oh, it’s really because of you.”

“You defended my honor?”

A quiet beat of tension descended and I could feel whatever scrap of humor get sucked out of the van. In its place, a pulse of raw fury hit me from the side.

“Is there a reason to defend your honor from the Russians?” His voice was gravelly, his breathing more ragged. I was tempted to pull over and check on him.

“Well, you said it was because of me.”

He exhaled a hiss of air. “Later. We’ll talk.”

“How about we don’t,” I replied. We exited the tunnel and I made the turn toward Hoboken. “Look, I don’t know why you think I’m involved with whatever shit you have going with the Russians.”

“Stop talking.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your voice,” he muttered. “Your voice makes me hard.”

“What the fuck?” My cheeks flamed. “You did not just say that to me.”

“Shit.” Dom gave a pained chuckle again. “Blame the blood loss.”

“Shut up, then, so I will.”

He grunted and shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

I clamped my mouth shut, irritated he had to remind me again of my disadvantage.

Usually, I could regulate the huskiness by staying hydrated, but nights like this when I was exhausted, there was no disguising the natural raspiness of my voice which an ex-boyfriend once described it like I’d screamed myself hoarse while he was giving me an orgasm.

As if. Fake orgasm maybe.

I concentrated on getting us quickly to my apartment and prayed that Dom was telling the truth and he wouldn’t expire in my van. Also, I didn’t think I could haul his…what? Six-four, two-hundred-plus-pound frame up to the fifth floor.

It was just luck a Ford sedan pulled out a block from my building. I lived in a busy neighborhood and it was a Friday night…well, Saturday morning already. There were folks coming home from one-night stands or a booty calls.

I gave myself a mental shake at my jadedness.

I cut off the engine. “You need help getting out?”

“No.” He shoved his door open.

Still, I made it to his side before he fully cleared the van.

“I’m fine,” he gritted. “Lead the way.”

I held up my arms in surrender—for my own mental health and I’d practiced this enough with my brother.

If a man said he was fine, he was fine. I never wanted to read between the lines, and I didn’t know Dom well enough to waste a brain cell wondering if it was his Italian machismo that made him resist my aid.

I walked ahead of him toward my building.

A rent-control ruling enabled me to afford it at a reasonable price.

I was doing better financially, but I was by no means swimming in cash.

Lost in my annoyance with my brother and the Russians, I failed to notice that Dom wasn’t walking in a straight line.

Just as I turned to him, his right foot snagged at the edge of a step.

It wasn’t a tall step, but Dom lost his balance and disappeared into the hedges.

My mouth fell open, blinking at the sight of one of the most feared mafia bosses in New York in an utterly undignified position.