If The Seas Catch Fire (32 page)

Dom turned onto his back, and Sergei molded himself to him. He rested his head on Dom’s chest and Dom wrapped an arm around his shoulders.

Sergei took a breath. “After tonight, things will get—”

“I know.” Dom kissed the top of his head. “But let’s have tonight. We’ll deal with tomorrow when we get there.”

Sergei met his gaze.

Neither of them said it, but it was there in Sergei’s eyes as surely as it was ringing in Dom’s ears:

Let’s have tonight.

Because this is all we have left.

As the dust settled, they lay in silence, still tangled up in each other in the warm glow of the bedside lamp. Dom’s strong arms were wrapped around Sergei, Sergei’s arm draped across Dom’s chest. Somehow they always ended up like this, but it felt less like lazy affection tonight and more like something much needier.

“You know what’s kind of crazy?” Dom asked after a while.

“Hmm?”

“I was talking to my cousin one night. The psychopath.” Dom’s fingers ran lazily up and down Sergei’s arm. “And we talked about the Georgian.”

Sergei’s neck prickled. “Oh really?”

“Mmhmm. I don’t even remember what we were talking about, but at some point I said, ‘well, if the Georgian ever gets that close to me, it’ll be to suck my dick.’”

Sergei pushed himself up and locked eyes with Dom, staring down at him in horror.

Dom’s lips were twisted slightly as if he were fighting a laugh.

Then Sergei snorted. So did Dom. They both burst out laughing. It was gallows humor of the most morbid kind, and laughing at it probably made them the sickest fucks on the planet, but laughing beat the alternative, so Sergei didn’t fight it.

“You aren’t serious,” he said.

“I am,” Dom laughed. “I was being a cocky idiot, and I knew it would horrify Felice, and… apparently it was truer than I thought.”

Sergei laughed again, shaking his head. “Well, if I’d known you were into that kind of thing…”

Dom rolled his eyes. Then he drew Sergei down and kissed him again. “If I’d known sex with the—with you, would be that good, I’d have come looking for you a long time ago.”

Sergei grinned against his lips. Slowly, though, his humor faded, and reality settled back in. Yeah, they’d found each other. And like it or not, Sergei was still the Georgian, and Dom was still…

He sighed, trailing the backs of his fingers down Dom’s chest.

Dom sobered too, and touched Sergei’s face. Quietly, they cuddled up together again, Sergei’s head on Dom’s shoulder and Dom’s arms around him.

As they lay in silence, Sergei’s mind rattled with all the things they’d learned about each other tonight. All the things they were. All the things they wished they could be. All the things that had put them both on the path to where they both were now.

After a while, he whispered, “Can I ask you a question?”

Dom let his hand drift from Sergei’s face to his arm, and rested it there. “Can’t promise I’ll answer.”

Sergei managed a soft laugh. He shifted a bit, since his elbow and shoulder were starting to ache from holding himself up. “What happened to your father?”

Dom stiffened. “What?”

“Your father.” Sergei swept his tongue across his lips. “I… people around town talk, you know? I’d heard of you, and they all said your uncle adopted you after your father died. After he…” He hesitated, not sure how raw this nerve was. “Betrayed the family.”

Closing his eyes, Dom clenched his jaw. His fingers twitched on Sergei’s arm.

“You don’t have to answer,” Sergei said. “I’m just curious.”

Dom’s Adam’s apple bobbed. After a moment, he opened his eyes, but looked up at the ceiling instead of at Sergei. “The short version is that my father was turning state’s evidence. He’d been arrested a few times, and the last time, he was going to prison for narcotics traveling. Which is a hell of a sentence.”

Sergei nodded. “So I’ve heard.”

“That’s exactly why the Mafia Commission back in the 1980s didn’t want the families involved in the drug trade.” Dom scrubbed a hand over his face and sighed. “Because drugs meant huge sentences, and huge sentences meant plea deals.” He turned toward Sergei. “The feds cut my father a deal. If he could get them bulletproof evidence tying my uncle and the rest of the family to the narcotics trade, they’d put him—and my mother and me—into witness protection.”

“But he got caught.”

Dom winced. “Yeah. I don’t know exactly what happened. I was twelve, so…” He lifted one shoulder in a heavy shrug. “I didn’t even know about most of this until years later. I just know he made a mistake somewhere, or… something. I don’t know. Someone caught on, and it got back to Corrado that he was talking to the feds. So my uncle…” He swallowed hard. “Took care of the problem.”

Sergei cursed in his native tongue. “When you were twelve?”

“Yeah. My uncle took in my mother and me, and then she died when I was fifteen, so he adopted me.” Dom again stared up at the ceiling, eyes unfocused and lips taut. A long, silent moment passed before he said, “If my father had lived, there’s no way in hell I’d be a made man. He even told me when I was a kid, that if the time came and my uncle wanted me to get made, that I shouldn’t.” He closed his eyes, letting out a long breath. “When that time did come, my father was dead, and my uncle had put the fear of God in me. He made me watch my father
die
, for fuck’s sake, so I was terrified of him, and I was terrified to say no.” His eyelids fluttered open again, and when he met Sergei’s gaze, Sergei swore he caught a glimpse of that fear, of that young, traumatized kid. “And now this is my life.”

Those soft spoken words shook Sergei right to the core. It wasn’t the first time Dom had expressed how much he would’ve given to be away from this world, but Sergei hadn’t known his backstory involved the same kind of deep-seated trauma as his. That his fate had been sealed in the blood of a parent murdered before his eyes.

Most of the made men in this town—or those doing everything they could to win enough favor to
be
made—embraced the Mafia life. This side of it, a man who’d been caught up as a child in wheels that were turning without his control, was nothing Sergei had ever seen before.

“I’m sorry.” Dom cleared his throat and shifted onto his side. Touching Sergei’s face again, he said, “Completely killed the mood, didn’t I?”

“Well. To be fair.” Sergei moistened his parched lips. “I asked.” He caressed Dom’s face. They weren’t much different, were they? All the hell they’d been through, the inevitability of getting tangled in all this because of what people before them had done…

Dom swallowed. “I don’t know if the guys who roughed me up outside your club would’ve killed me or not…” He smoothed Sergei’s hair. “But I’m glad they didn’t. At least I got to find out what it was like to fall in love.”

Sergei laughed to keep himself from breaking down, and pressed a soft kiss to Dom’s lips. “Now you’re just being sappy.”

“I don’t think most sappiness starts with ‘that time those assholes tried to kill me.’”

And it usually doesn’t end with one of us having to kill the other.

He banished that thought and leaned in for a longer kiss. “I’m glad it brought us together too. Even if things are…”

He didn’t know how to finish that thought.

He didn’t have to—Dom drew him down.

Kissed him again.

And held on.

*              *              *

For once, the nightmares didn’t come. It wasn’t a surprise, though—Sergei couldn’t dream unless he was asleep.

And sleep wasn’t happening. Not with Dom lying next to him, alive and well.

Every breath Dom took was dangerous. If he didn’t kill him, Sergei would find himself very high on the family’s shit list. Another day or two, and there’d be a contract on his head as well as Dom’s. These were orders written in blood and carved in stone—there was no rescinding a contract, and no backing out once accepted.

But the whole point of being a contractor for the Mafia was to take out those who’d killed his family. Killing the only person he loved besides Mama? He couldn’t. No way.

Question was, how did he keep Dom alive
and
stay alive?

Dom shifted, and then rolled on his side, facing him. “Still awake?”

Sergei turned toward him, just barely making out his silhouette against the darkness. “Not the only one, apparently.”

Dom laughed and kissed Sergei lightly. “Big shock, I guess. Kind of hard to sleep after…”

“Yeah.” His conscience clawed at him. Finally, he reached for the bedside light and turned it on. They both winced, covering their eyes for a moment until they adjusted to the brightness. “There’s something you need to know.”

Dom chewed his lip. “I get the feeling there’s a lot I don’t know yet.”

“Probably a lot you don’t want to know, but…” Sergei propped himself up on his elbow. “Remember the night I had the bends?”

Dom shuddered. “How could I forget? Scared the hell out of me.” He inclined his head. “Wait. Why?”

Sergei took a breath. “I wasn’t just out fucking around in the water that day. I was on a job. On… your cousin’s yacht.”

Dom’s eyebrows rose slowly, as if the pieces were coming together. “You’re the one. You killed Privitera.”

Sergei nodded. “The thing is, I was under orders to kill the second highest ranking man on the boat.”

Dom paled.

“No one specified who that was, so I assumed someone was trying to send a message to Felice. But once I realized you were the mark…” He shivered. “I couldn’t do it. Not even then.”

Dom put a hand on his shoulder. “You could’ve been killed.”

“So could you. You were supposed to be killed.”

“But you didn’t.”

“I had the opportunity. I… I thought about taking it, but…” He shook his head. “Not a chance. I couldn’t do it.
Can’t
do it.”

Dom was quiet for a moment, as if absorbing it all and trying to make sense of it. “How did you—” He stopped, eyes losing focus. “How did you even get on and off the boat? We would’ve seen scuba gear just lying around.”

“It was under the boat. Against the hulls. I put it there the night before, then hid on the boat until everyone boarded. After I’d made my move, I went off the back, swam up in between, and got my gear.”

“That’s…” Dom laughed softly. “That’s actually pretty impressive.”

Sergei chuckled halfheartedly. “There’s a reason I stayed alive.”

Their eyes met, and they both sobered.

Dom touched his face. “Does it ever bother you?”

“Which part?”

“Killing. Does it ever bother you?”

“No.”

“Never?”

“Never. The only people I’ve ever killed have been directly involved with the Mafia, and after what the fucking Mafia did to my family…” He avoided Dom’s gaze. “The only time it’s bothered me has been when I knew I’d hurt you.”

Dom studied him for a long moment. “What happened to them? Your family?”

Sergei cringed.

“You don’t have to—”

“My father got caught between the Maisanos and the Cusimanos,” he said. “I was pretty young, so I don’t remember much of the details. Only that Papa was worried about it. That both families were making demands. Trying to play him against the other. He tried to make it work, but…” Sergei shuddered.

“You don’t have to tell me.” Dom kissed him softly. “If it hurts that much.”

“
Can
I tell you?”

Dom blinked. “Of course you can. If you want to.”

“I haven’t told anyone about it since it happened.” Sergei swallowed. He sat up a bit, and lounged back on the pillows, lacing his hands together behind his head. “I was eight when it happened, so I didn’t really know what was going on at the time, but I’ve figured it out over the years. I guess my father owned a couple of warehouses down near the south end of the Cape. The Cusimanos ran that part of town back then, but the…” He glanced at Dom. “Your uncle decided he wanted to get in on the south side. Raffaele Cusimano was already bleeding my family dry with protection money, not to mention helping themselves to shipments that came through the warehouses.”

“That sounds right, yeah,” Dom said quietly. “I… I was a kid back then too. But I remember.”

Sergei nodded. “Anyway, my father refused to play nice with either family, so they started harassing us. All of us. And then one night, Giacomo Maisano and some of his buddies attacked my brother and his girlfriend. They…” Sergei shuddered at the memory. He hadn’t seen what had happened, or understood at the time exactly what the words meant, but the aftermath had told him it was horrific. “They threatened to rape his girlfriend. Made him beg for her life. And when he did, they…”

Dom pulled him closer.

“They raped
him
instead. And made her watch.” Sergei swallowed the nausea trying to rise in his throat. “All of them. One after the other. I guess they figured that would send a message to my father. And in a way, it did. My father was ready to pack up the entire family and get the fuck out of town before anyone else got hurt, but my other brother took matters into his own hands. He hunted down Giacomo, and he shot him.”

Dom fidgeted, but said nothing.

“My father was furious with my brother for doing that,” Sergei said. “He knew damn well Corrado would kill us all, so he got all of us in the car, and we headed out of town.” Sergei hugged himself, shivering away a chill as that night played over and over in his mind in horrific detail. “We got out on the 103 somewhere. A car blocked us. Then another came up behind us. My father told my brothers to cover me with blankets, had me hide down on the floorboards. They all said no matter what happened, I had to stay there, not move or make a sound.”