The Dominator (66 page)

The rage emanating off him intensified, “We both know that was a game, Pop. I saw what you had your guys leave. And was that you fucking with my phone, too? Trying to get Tia to send nude pictures?”

Tom Sr. snickered, “Yeah, my boy. You been digging round in my business, you think I don’t know all you’ve found out? You think I haven’t been a step ahead of you every step you’ve taken? There’s something you haven’t figure out yet, son.  A kitten can’t fuck a tomcat.”

“So what now? You ending my life, Tomcat?” Tommy shrugged, “That’s how little I matter to you? What about Dare? What’s his punishment gonna be? Gonna fuck with the brakes in his car?”

Tom Sr. snickered.

I stared at Tommy’s gun that he’d dropped. It was two feet from me. I could lunge for it and put a stop to this. I looked up at Tommy, tears in my eyes. He still wasn’t looking at me. I wanted to get a message to him with my eyes, to tell him I could grab for the gun but he wasn’t looking at me. It was like I was invisible.  Tom and he were in a faceoff and they were staring one another down.

“You out of the picture, your brother’ll come back into the fold.” Tom shrugged.

“He’s no puppet.” Tommy answered.

“He looked up to you but he was jealous of you. Jealous you were my namesake, jealous you were getting the keys to the kingdom. Jealous you got the girl,” Tom Sr. motioned to me with his chin, “You outta the way, he’ll be happy with all he’ll get. Maybe I’ll gift her to him.”

Tommy glanced at me and I glanced at the gun. I saw something in his eyes shift, a flare of his eyes in warning. He didn’t want me reaching for it.  But how else were we getting out of this?

Tom casually wandered over to the bar and as he did, I inched a little toward the gun. Tom didn’t seem to notice. He poured another drink and drank some, his gun still pointed at his son.

I looked at Tommy’s face and he didn’t look at me but he jerked his head in a ‘no’. He knew my plan to reach for the gun. I moistened my lips and decided on another tactic.

“Tom?” I called out.  Tommy’s father’s attention snapped to me.  I shifted ahead on my knees and sat back on my heels. My back was to Tommy and now the gun was behind me, between Tommy and me.

“Did you kill my mother?” I asked.

The color seemed to drain out of his face, “No,” he said softly, “I did not. She won the game the only way she knew how. I refused let her go so she took herself from me.”

I covered my face with my hands and pushed away my emotions. The look of pain on his face when he’d said those words made me think it could distract him.

“I loved her like no other woman, would’ve forgiven her for anything. I forgave her for leaving me, for your father, for the abortion. She was it for me. Everything. But she didn’t feel the same. She couldn’t take me as I was.”

A chill slithered up my spine. The silence in the room was near deafening.

“I love your son unconditionally,” I whispered, taking my hands off my face, tears burning in my throat.

Tom looked at me and shook his head, with pain, with skepticism, jealousy, I didn’t know. I couldn’t read his expression. 

“Let us go. Don’t take it from him. You said you wanted to give him what you didn’t have. If you meant that, really meant it, he has it. He has it. Let us go. Maybe in time you and your family can heal from this.”

“Tia, don’t.” Tommy answered behind me but his voice was hoarse.

Tom looked at me with tears glistening in his eyes and after a moment, said “Go.” he shrugged. The hand with his gun in his hand dropped to his side but as I got to my feet a sneer spread across his face and he raised the gun in my direction.

“Tia; fuck!” Tommy’s voice was urgent behind me and suddenly he hauled me behind himself and at the same time produced a gun from somewhere on his body and he fired in his father’s direction.

Tommy

A split second after I fired my gun and hit my father in the forehead with a bullet, Tia went almost limp in my arms. I knew my speed and my aim was better than his. He always had others do his dirty work so he was out of practice. I also had two guns on my body, not just the one in my hand when I walked in.

She was staring at my father’s body there on the floor in a pool of blood. I jerked her out of the daze by pulling her hand, “C’mon.”

We left the building. She looked numb, looked like she was in a trance. I led her outside toward the jeep where Nino, Dario, and Dex sat. The guards were all dead on the front porch.

I got into the back seat with her; my brother was back there, too.

“Call JC for cleanup,” I told Nino, who was in the passenger seat.  Dex drove away. Dario and I exchanged looks. My brother’s expression softened for the first time in weeks and then he looked out the window.

She didn’t completely lose it until we were back at the farm. I had the guys drop us off there, knowing it’s where we’d need to be.

When we got up the stairs she walked ahead of me to the sofa and sat down on it stiffly, staring off into space.

I went to the fridge and pulled out two bottles of water and then sat down beside her, putting the bottles on the floor in front of us.

“Baby?” I whispered and her eyes traveled up my body to my face.  The fog seemed to lift and then she fell against me and then I crumbled.

Tia

2 Weeks Later…

I woke up and my head was on his chest, on his right peck and in my line of vision was ink on his left peck. I lifted up on an elbow and looked closer. It was surrounded by skin that was reddish, a tiny bit swollen-looking due to being new. It was shiny, probably with some sort of ointment, and it was beautiful.

He’d gotten in last night late, after I’d been asleep. Over his heart was a tattoo that looked very much like the tribal art on his shoulder trailing down his arm but this was a small owl on an olive branch, the Greek mythological Athena symbol I’d seen a million times in my life. Below the olive branch, it said my name, but instead of my given Goddess name, it said Tia and it looked like my own handwriting, like I’d drawn my name on myself.  A lump formed in my throat and tears started to fill my eyes. His eyes opened and he saw what my focus was on. He looked at me lovingly and caressed my cheek.

“The forgiveness you’ve shown me for all I’ve done to you, baby? It means everything,” his voice was sleepy, sweet, “You’ve written your name on my heart so I wanted it visible. I saw the artist who did my other ink. I think he integrated it all really well.”

“It’s beautiful, Tommy.”

He kissed my cheekbone, kissing a tear away, “The way you trace my ink all the time after we make love, I want you tracing your name on me, too. So I had it written just the way you’d do it. Went through your boxes to get a writing sample. I’m branded. You own me, baby girl. Body and soul.”

“Will you marry me?” I asked, through tears, looking at my Ice Cream parlor hottie, my dream man.

Every time he gave me a big smile I thought it was the most beautiful smile I’d ever seen. But right then, laying together in the little bed in the hayloft where I’d truly fallen in love with him, he gave me the
most
beautiful smile I’d ever seen yet and then he said, “I’ll think about it.”

I scrunched my nose up at him and he leaned over and kissed my nose.

Later that morning we drove back to the city to finish packing our things. We were starting over somewhere else.  We didn’t want to live in the house Tom bought, the house that I now knew was bought because it was my own mother’s dream house. Tom’s distorted entitlement put all this in motion and we wanted nothing to do with it. We were getting on a plane and taking some time for one another before the family flew down to meet us for our wedding.

I went into the kitchen and Sarah handed me a cup of coffee. When I took a sip I could swear there was not a grain of sugar in it.  My eyes narrowed at her and she gave me a sly smile and turned around and resumed packing a box of dishes.  I was about to reach for the sugar but noticed the sugar bowl had already been packed away.  I sat down at the island and decided to see if I could live without my 3 sugars. I took a second sip and really, it wasn’t all that bad.

Epilogue

Tia

We planned to get married a month after Tom Sr. died. We were doing it in Costa Rica with Tommy’s siblings, Eddy, Bianca and Nino, Sarah, Lisa, and all the kids. Tommy and I are moving there and starting over. I haven’t said goodbye to my old friends and my old life. I just can’t go there right now. It’s too raw and I’m too different. My friends are in school, dating, working part-time jobs, and being teenaged girls. I’ve changed so much in the last few months. Maybe someday I’ll go back and see them. Or maybe it’s better to just move forward. I wrote Rose and Cal a letter, it was vague but heartfelt. I mailed it to them before we left.

Dario’s taken the company over and he’s going to transition it into something clean and wholesome and then he says he’s going to sell it and become a commercial airline pilot. That’s what he dreamt of ever since he was a small child. I asked Tommy what he dreamt of. He never answered the question honestly, gave me a storybook ‘happily ever after with my ice cream parlor maid’ kind of answer. I know that’s not true because he never envisioned himself settling down before he met me. I know he envisioned himself at the helm of Ferrano Enterprises. I don’t know what he’ll do with his life but I know he is too driven and too smart to stay idle for too long. He just needs time to heal, to figure out what he wants. We both do. Then we’ll see what pearls life’s oyster offers us.

My father is still incarcerated but he’s still alive, at least. Tommy’s father’s death along with the death of the guards that were also there was reported in the newspapers as having to do with mafia business gone wrong and related to a cartel in Mexico. I guess JC, whoever he is, has good clean-up skills. Thank God Tommy had the foresight to put a GPS in my engagement ring. It was crazy stalkerish of him to do it but it probably saved my life. Would Tom have killed me to teach his son a lesson? We’ll never know.

Since we’ve been here in paradise, Tommy’s been having nightmares and I finally convinced him to get therapy after he woke up in the throes of one of those nightmares with my throat in his hand and I was turning blue. He agreed, after a big argument where I stood my ground and won, to start Skype counselling sessions with a therapist in the UK that has excellent credentials and experience in helping men like Tommy come to terms with their dominating personalities.

I don’t know if it’s the counselling, the guilt, or the grief over all that happened but he hasn’t wanted to play any sex games. I’ve tried to initiate them for stress relief, or thinking it’d help bring his spark back but right now he’s quiet, subdued, reflective, and seems to be all about the vanilla. He’s sweet and attentive and he’s my ice cream parlor hottie. And he’s sad and troubled and he’s not the same. I’m missing the blackjack berry thunder. We just have to give it time. I hope. I know he feels regret for all the pain and hurt and I know he loves me but I kind of miss my dominator. Yes, he’s possessive and protective but he’s too… vanilla.

Tommy

We got married at sunset on a beach in Costa Rica with our family around us. We were both dressed in white. I danced with her to our song and she put on the ring with the gold and black knots. And I was in heaven for she
was
truly mine at last. I didn’t deserve her but she gave herself to me anyway. She’d stared into my eyes and promised to love, honor and obey, which made me smirk, which then made her smirk. I gave her a look of promise and her gaze went heated and the justice of the peace that married us had to clear his throat to get our attention back on the ceremony.

When the song ended and another one began, I whispered into her ear,

“Wife, when your husband takes you to bed to consummate our marriage, he’s going to rip that fucking vanilla dress off you and fuck you like you’ve never been fucked.”

I continued, but looked into her eyes, they were huge and she was panting, “I’ve got handcuffs and a spreader bar, some toys, and a tub of blackjack berry thunder ice cream.”

She had a full body shiver.

(I’d gotten a local chef to recreate it from the approximate recipe of the brand back home.)

I was ready for our life together to truly begin and while I had a long way to go with therapy and making sure that I never went overboard with her again and while I’d given up my birthright as mafia crime boss, I had not given up the right for my life to have flavor!

The End



Or is it?

Like DD’s Facebook page at
http://www.facebook.com/ddprincebooks
to be informed about the timelines for the next installment of The Dominator Series. The Dominator II; Truth or Dare. This story will offer you a glimpse into Tommy’s brother Dario’s life, Dario’s transition with Ferrano Enterprises, Dario’s love life, and how he moves on after the death of his father. You’ll also get to check in to see how Tia and Tommy are coping with married life in paradise.

And also planned: