Page 26 of Sweetest Sin (Tempting Love #1)

Peyton

“I want a tree like that,” Damien says, cuddling into my side as I close The Giving Tree —his recent favorite book that’s about a tree who has a special friendship with a boy as he grows up. “Can we get a tree like that?”

He looks up at me with a serious expression, and I stifle a chuckle, not wanting my three-year-old to think that I’m mocking him.

“We’d have to grow it,” I tell him. “And that would take years.”

He sighs and thinks for several seconds before his eyes light up. “Or we can find a tree no one wants and then dig it up and bring it here.”

“Where would we put it?”

“I don’t know,” he says thoughtfully. “We need a yard like Frankie.”

Frankie is his friend from preschool. Ever since Damien went over to his house for a playdate, he’s been begging me for a yard with a swing set and a pool.

It’s tough, living in an apartment complex with a child.

The place is small, and there isn’t really any room to play.

Because it’s a one-bedroom apartment, we share a room.

As he gets older, he’s going to need more space, but in order to find a bigger place, I need to get a better job.

I could easily go full-time at the company I work for, but that would mean flying for longer flights, sometimes even overnight, and I don’t want to be away from Damien that long.

“One day,” I tell him, kissing the top of his head. “Now, get some sleep. You have school in the morning.”

He nods, his eyes already closing. “I’m gonna draw a picture of the tree,” he mutters.

“I can’t wait to see it.”

I kiss him once more, then tiptoe out of the room. I’ll be back in a few hours to go to sleep as well, but I tend to work in the living room to give him a chance to fall into a deep sleep.

I’m working on my laptop, applying to every job possible that will get my foot in the door with my degrees, when I hear some shuffling near the front door. The only person with a key to my apartment is my babysitter, Lisa, but she’s not scheduled to come by tonight.

There’s more shuffling, and I stand, wondering what’s going on. Maybe Lisa forgot something when she babysat for Damien.

“Lisa, did you forget—” I start, unlocking and swinging the door open.

Only, instead of Lisa standing on the other side, two men shove me back inside. They’re dressed in black with balaclavas covering their faces.

Out of instinct, I scream and then attempt to run, but one of the men catches me by my waist while the other man stalks past him, heading straight for my bedroom.

To Damien.

“Stop! No!” I yell, kicking and flailing about. “Let me go!”

The man tightens his hold on me, and I know I don’t stand a chance against him, but I refuse to give up. Reaching behind me, I try to claw at his skin. I kick his shins and try to elbow his chest.

“He’s not there,” the guy says, stalking out of the room just as the front door swings open and more men pour into the apartment.

Before I can get a good look at who they are, the man standing in front of me hits the floor. I glance down at him and spot a tiny red hole in the center of his forehead.

Holy shit, he’s dead.

I turn to see who killed him when my attacker lets go of me, falling to the floor as well. Then, I’m being swept off my feet and carried out of the apartment.

“Wait!” I beg. “My son …”

The guy said he wasn’t in there. How could that be?

Did someone take him?

“Dominick has him,” the man says, not stopping until we’re in a black town car and driving away.

The man who saved me places a call on his phone and says, “I have her. Two need to be cleaned up.” Then, he hangs up.

I want to ask him what’s going on, but my heart is pounding so hard in my rib cage that it’s hard to catch my breath. So, I focus on breathing.

In, out.

In, out.

When I’m somewhat calm, I glance at the gentleman, and despite his eye color being blue instead of gray, his features are similar to Dominick. Tanned skin. An angular jaw, covered with stubble. A Roman nose—but where Dominick’s is perfectly straight, this guy’s is a bit crooked.

“Dominick is my brother,” the man says, as if he can read my mind. “My name is Matteo Antonov.”

“How did you know …” I shake my head. “Your timing …” Tears prick my eyes as I imagine how scared my little boy must be. “I need to see my son. Please. Are you sure Dominick has him?”

“I’m sure,” he tells me. “We’ll be with them soon.”

“Where? Where are they?”

Now that my heart rate is somewhat back to normal, I have so many questions. “Who were those men? Why did they break in?”

And then it hits me. “You … you killed them.”

“It had to be done,” Matteo says. “Dominick will explain everything.”

The rest of the ride is silent. Matteo makes a few phone calls, but I have no idea what he’s saying since he switches between English and another language, which I think might be Russian. When he’s not making phone calls, he’s texting.

The moment I see the Coral Bay airport come into view, my stomach sinks. Dominick warned me that he was coming for Damien and me, and he did. And now, he’s taking us to Harbor Point.

Instead of pulling up to a terminal, the driver takes us around through another entrance and then, just like in the movies, drives us directly onto the tarmac.

There’s nobody else here, and my heart drops. I pray Matteo wasn’t lying and that Dominick really does have our son.

The second we step onto the plane, I scan the area, but he’s not here.

There’s nobody here.

I’m about to yell at Matteo, demand to know where my son is, but when I turn around, Dominick steps onto the plane with our son sleeping in his arms.

“My baby,” I choke out, rushing over to them.

I pull Damien out of his arms and hug my little boy tightly.

He jostles in annoyance, but doesn’t wake up, and I’ve never been so thankful that he’s such a heavy sleeper. I could vacuum around him, and he wouldn’t wake up.

“There’s a bed in the back,” Dominick says. “Lay him in there.”

While I’m tucking Damien into bed, I think about everything that happened tonight.

The intruders—one held me back while the other went after Damien. But he was already gone.

Shortly after, Matteo showed up. He wasn’t shocked to see the men. He was prepared and killed them quickly. The car was waiting for us. The plane was on standby.

At the time, I thought I was a victim of a random attack. But this wasn’t random at all …

Dominick is dangerous. Violent. He’s rumored to be part of a criminal organization. He runs his city with an iron fist. I witnessed him kill a man …

“Oh my God,” I breathe. “This was because of him.”

I quietly leave the room, closing the door behind me, and then stalk toward the front of the plane, finding Dominick, Matteo, and another man sitting in their seats, talking quietly.

Dominick sees me coming first, but before he can say a word, I’m in his face. “You did this!” I whisper-yell. “You have been in our lives for two damn minutes, and I was attacked, and my son was almost kidnapped!”

“Calm down,” Dominick says. “You’re going to wake up?—”

“Wrong answer,” one of the other guys mutters.

“Don’t you tell me to calm down!” I shove at his shoulders. “And don’t tell me what to do with my son. I told you to stay the hell away, and you didn’t listen and now?—”

“Enough!” Dominick stands and towers above me. “I fucked up,” he says. “I left you at that run-down apartment with no security, and it’s on me. I know this.” He swallows thickly. “But it will never happen again.”

“You can’t know that,” I hiss. “This is your world. Violence and corruption and death. I told you I wanted no part in it, but you didn’t listen.”

“It’s too late,” he says, his gray eyes locking with mine. “I was being followed, and the second they learned about you and our son, you both became a target.”

“Who’s they ?”

“We’re trying to figure that out right now.” He sighs.

“Of course.” I scoff. “You have so many enemies. You probably have to play a game of elimination to figure out which one is trying to get to you this time.”

Somebody snorts, and Dominick glares.

“You knew this was going to happen,” I accuse. “That’s how you got to us so quickly. This is exactly why I told you I didn’t want you in Damien’s life. We were almost taken!”

“I handled it,” he says.

“You handled it.” I laugh, but it comes out manic. “You handled it? There shouldn’t have been anything to handle! Normal people don’t get attacked in the middle of the night! Kids don’t get kidnapped while they’re asleep!”

“You’d actually be surprised,” Matteo says.

I nail him with a death glare.

He simply shrugs, unfazed. “I’m just saying, violence and corruption and death are everywhere. You just don’t see or hear about it.”

“Tell me what happened,” I say to Dominick. “Who were those men who are now lying on my floor with bullet holes in their brains? They almost … almost …” I choke out, the reality of the situation hitting me hard.

My legs wobble like Jell-O, and I drop onto the sofa, afraid I’ll fall if I don’t sit. “They almost got our little boy,” I whisper, looking up at Dominick, my vision blurry with tears.

“I would never let anything happen to him,” he says, his voice cold and confident.

“Yet, had you arrived a few minutes later, he would’ve been taken.”

“I know,” he says. “I fucked up. I got a couple of cryptic texts, and we traced them back to Coral Bay, but I didn’t think they knew about the two of you.

” He looks at me, his eyes filled with raw emotion.

“We didn’t know they were going to go after you and Damien, but Matteo insisted on coming to Coral Bay after he saw the texts.

We were just pulling up to your place to demand you and Damien leave with us when we watched them walk up to your door. ”

He curses under his breath, clearly affected by what happened, but I don’t have it in me to comfort him because he did this.

“I went around back while Matteo and Scotty, one of the men who works for us, took the front. I grabbed Damien while my brother got you, and Scotty handled the guys.”

“Who were they?” I ask again.

“We don’t know yet. Our guy is running their prints to see if anything pops up. Normally, we’d interrogate them, but …”

“But they’re both dead,” I finish.

“We weren’t risking it with you and our son,” Dominick says. “But I can assure you, once we figure out who is responsible, we will take care of them.”