Page 93 of The Club

The tires squeal as I peel out, nearly smashing into the barricade arm. It lifts just in time and I go racing through the city, desperate to reach the very man that I swore would never be able to crook his finger at me again.

***

I don’t wreck until I get to Dominic’s estate. The property gate is open, and I go flying through onto the gravel drive. The huge house looms ahead, a dark shape in the darker night. Faint starlight catches on a vehicle parked in front. As I race closer, I recognize Dominic’s Audi.

I’m so fucking angry with him.

At first, I was only terrified, thinking about what was happening to him. But a thirty-minute ride gave me time to think about why it was happening.

He got a message in the middle of the night while I was sleeping. He slipped away without waking me. He put himself in this danger.

Thank god he at least told Rocco, who had the sense to tell Noah. He and Dante are somewhere on the grounds.

When my phone wouldn’t stop vibrating inside my jacket, I stopped and talked to Noah for a minute.

Apparently, the Collector couldn’t get into the house. Dominic plugged the security holes after the last attack.

With the Collector holding Dominic within the high-walled pool patio and there being men posted at both entrances to it, there’s no choice but for me to go in there.

Not that I was considering anything else. Even Noah barely tried to argue with me. The thing we don’t know is how many men the Collector has on the property or where his getaway vehicle is.

Frankly, I don’t give a shit about that right now. I just need to see Dominic alive and unharmed. I need itright fucking now, and that’s why I come in so damn hot that when I hit the brakes, my bike slides on the gravel. I try to save it, but I’m not that focused.

The bike tips, sweeping out from under me, sending me tumbling across the gravel while the bike smashes through the bushes into the front of the house.

I roll to my feet, rip off my helmet, and draw my gun. Not hurt beyond bruises that I barely feel, I race around the side of the house. My only hope is speed and the likelihood that I’m meant to be taken alive.

As the walled patio comes into view, along with a guard whose rifle is trained on me, I hear, “Halt!” but I fire.

The rifle kicks out a spray of bullets, but they sweep in a high arc as the man falls and goes still.

The patio gate stands open. I bolt through, daring to hope I’ll get lucky a second time—

A gunshot cracks. Stone chips blast from the wall near me—a warning that I ignore. But it’s too dark and I can’t identify all the figures quickly enough. They’re scattered around the patio, with Dominic bound in a chair at the far edge of the pool and someone behind him with a gun.

It’s hopeless. There are too many factors, too many men. I yield, just as I knew I would have to. Just as I did with Noah when Moretti threatened him. It’s what you do for people you love, whether you’ve spoken those words to them or not.

Though it’s dark, I know, I justknowthat the man behind Dominic is not the Collector. He’s a guard, a thug, but his gun pressed to the back of Dominic’s head is lethal all the same. Dominic muffled shouts are furious, his body language straining and desperate in the chair at the pool’s edge.

I’m already putting my hands up, already yielding my gun before it’s ripped from my hand.

The guard who took it circles me, keeping his gun raised as he unzips my jacket. His caution is unnecessary. I can’t do anything with Dominic under threat. My eyes are roaming wildly, hunting for the real danger as the guard walks behind me and yanks my jacket down, stripping it away, along with most of my knives. His quick pat down robs me of all but the one in my boot, but the hope that leaves me with is impossibly small.

There’s a gun at Dominic’s head and one at mine, and I can’t locate—

“On your knees, Rafael.”

An awful, involuntary sound breaks from my throat at the familiar voice and the familiar command. I shudder so hard thatwhen there’s a kick to back on my knee, I collapse all the way onto my face.

Then he emerges from the shadows.

I hear his footsteps. I feel his presence as he crouches over me. He hasn’t even touched me, not yet, but my body reacts as though he has. I start sweating. I start shaking. My heart is pounding so hard that the blood is racing through my body in an endless loop of terror and anticipation.

I know what’s coming.

On the other side of the pool, Dominic is shouting against his gag. When a gun cocks near me, Dominic’s muffled shouts cut off.

“Why did you have to start hunting me, sweetheart? I was content to check in on you from time to time, to slip into your club and watch you, to leave again and let you be. But now … well. You’ve forced my hand.”