Page 63 of A Seed Of Peril

“That was…” he said, struggling for the words. “That was…”

“Wow,” I lazily finished for him.

We laughed, both of us smiling.

Everything was fine again. The world resumed spinning. Nothing would have ruined this moment, no matter how hard it tried. Dominic was home and safe and unhurt.

Pulling his face away from mine by just a few inches, he let go of my wrists and cupped my face in his palms. He just stared like he was taking in every line on my face. Every blemish. Tattooing me into his brain.

I only imagined the hell he endured just by having to be away from me for so long.

“So many sleepless nights,” he murmured.

“So many,” I agreed, remembering my absolute restlessness the first four days after he left. That was hell.

This right here, with him… This was heaven.

“So…” I spoke up, Dominic’s words from earlier replaying in my head, “he’s in the chamber, isn’t he.” It was a statement rather than a question. Why else would he have called for us to bloody our hands?

That sexy, dangerous… Mischievous smirk I loved possessed his lips.

Behind that doorwas the man who arranged the hit on my life. My baby’s life. Katrina. Anthony and Angelo. All of us dodged bullets on that afternoon—literally.

I wanted to see him suffer.

I wanted him to bleed.

Beg for mercy he wasn’t deserving of.

I looked down at my belly, rubbing it, and then looked back up at the red, steel door—red symbolizing shed blood. I swallowed, working through my anxiety of facing who could’ve been my maker.

Justice was coming today.

Justice was promised in the chamber. Always and forever.

Dominic and Dino walked through the tunnel, carrying one of those fancy recliners for guests we had in each makeshift hospital room in our unit.

“Did you remember to grab me some blood?” I asked both of them, turning around to face them. After a beat, Dominic sighed.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

I stifled my laughter.

“Let’s get this in there,” Dino suggested. “I’ll run and get it for her after.” Another beat passed. “Can you get the door, Lil?”

Dino set down the chair and shoved his hand in the pocket of his jeans, phishing out the key for the chamber. He handed it to me and picked his side of the chair back up. I held the key card over a built-in sensor just above the door handle until the light flashed bright green and the latch clicked, unlocking the door. I gently pushed on the door and then immediately pulled the handle, walking backward and off to the side as I opened the door. It wasn’t a light door by any sense of the word but not impossible for me to open.

I kept my head down as Dominic and Dino entered the chamber, gathering the courage to confront Nico Nasuti. It wasn’t that I was afraid of Nico because I wasn’t. Whenever I thought of being shot at and how close it came to my son and loved ones getting injured or dying, it choked me up, especially the thought of losing my son. The bond I already felt with him was intense, and I didn’t care if I had to walk barefoot over burning coals, jump out of a window twenty stories high, or die to save him, I would do whatever it took. The thought of losing him ripped my heart out.

Walking just past the room’s threshold, I lifted my head long enough to see Nico suspended in the air far down by the back wall, his wrists bound by steel shackles that connected to a set of chains hooked to a rail. The rail was bracketed into the ceiling. He was stripped naked—marks and cuts already marring his skin. He faced the wall, straining to make noise, like he was either drugged or dazed.

Dominic loosened my grip on the door’s handle and closed it, the latch system loud as it clicked into place. He then stepped in front of me, firmly gripping my arms.

“If at any time you want to leave, just say so.”

I nodded, looking past him at one of the tables lined with tools. Just then, a loud crack of a sound, like leather striking flesh, filled the space, followed by Nico’s anguished hollering. Dino, using a long, black strap, was lashing Nico over and over until Nico sagged, letting the chains support him while blood oozed from his open wounds..

Dino angrily threw the strap off to the side, then delivered a swift kick to the back of Nico’s thigh, eliciting a pained groan from him.