DOM: Alliance Series Book Three (38)

No one is paying attention to me.

I thought someone finally cared.

But Dom never cared about me.

He did this for The Alliance.

He married me for The Alliance.

King darts his hand out and grips the front of Dom’s shirt. But Dom does the same back to King, not backing down from King’s fury.

I don’t want to be this close.

I don’t want to be this close to these dangerous men.

I try to shrink away, but Dom won’t let me go.

“Tricking Val into your bed doesn’t mean shit,” King snaps.

And his words slice between my ribs.

Tricking Val.

It’s exactly what Dominic did, so why does hearing King say it hurt so much?

And what does he mean doesn’t mean shit? What part doesn’t mean shit? The sex part?

Or the me part?

Dread hits me.

What if Dom did all this, only to find out I’m not family enough?

What if his plan doesn’t work?

What will happen to me then?

I reach up with my right hand and press it over my heart.

I’m already a nobody.

“You owe me. Remember?” Dom says slowly. “A wife for a wife, King. Val is mine now.”

Val.

I don’t think he’s ever called me that. It was always Valentine. Or Angel. Or Shorty. Or…

When he called me Mama at the airport.

My eyes squeeze shut.

When I followed him into that little room. When I had sex with him.

Numbness starts to wash through me. Starting at my toes. Up to my ankles.

I’m such a fool.

It’s at my knees.

Such a sad, pathetic, love-starved fool.

My hips.

So desperate for love, I believed that the hot man on the airplane was desperate to be with me.

My belly button.

So goddamn broken, I believed every compliment.

I clung to every nice thing he said.

My rib cage.

So fucking lonely, I drunkenly married him and…

A fresh layer of sadness sinks into my chest, and I look up at Dominic Gonzalez.

“Were you even drunk?” I ask the thought out loud.

I have to blink to see through the tears, but I know the answer in my heart.

And the blank expression on Dom’s face as he looks down at me is all the confirmation I need.

So I nod.

He wasn’t drunk. Just me. Because he needed me to be. Because he needed me to marry him.

It was never about me.

The numbness rises to my shoulders, the horrible ache in my heart finally dulling as I let the disassociation win.

He’ll never love me.

No one ever has.

King lets go of Dom’s shirt with a shove. “Get out of my fucking house.”

I don’t look up to see if he’s talking to just Dom or to both of us.

Because it doesn’t really matter, does it?

I don’t belong here either.

I don’t belong anywhere.





CHAPTER 16





Dom





Val comes with me willingly.

She walks at my side, not flinching away from my hold on her arm. Not shoving me away when I put my hand on her back. Not protesting when I help her up into the vehicle. She doesn’t so much as look at me when I reach across her to buckle her in.

She doesn’t react to any of it.

But she never stops crying.

Silent tears continuously roll down her cheeks. And they make me feel…

They make me feel.

Not trusting King not to shoot me in the back, I reach into the glove box and take out my pistol.

Val’s pretty brown eyes are staring right at it, but I’m not sure she sees it. Not sure if she realizes now that this is my vehicle. Just like the one in Vegas. Just like the driver in Vegas. Just like the witnesses at our wedding.

I’ve been building this world out of smoke and mirrors. Carefully. Meticulously. All for this. For what just happened.

Because I had to.

Because I need this.

And I won’t apologize for it.





“Valentine.” She flinches a little at my voice but doesn’t reply.

We’re two hours into the six-hour drive to Chicago, and she hasn’t said a thing. She hasn’t adjusted the air. Hasn’t asked me to play music. Hasn’t said anything.

I knew she’d be upset.

I have enough sense to know that this was all going to blow up in my face, and I braced myself for it.

Figured she’d yell and scream and probably try to hit me. Thought I’d have to carry her out of King’s house, kicking and screaming, while fending her brother off as he tried to wrestle her back.

But none of that happened.

She just shut down. And King… Fucking King just let me take her.

The outcome is exactly what I needed, because I need Valentine in order to leverage King’s, and therefore Nero’s, cooperation.

But King just let me take her. He let me walk his sister out of the house.

Val was standing there, fucking crying, and he did nothing.

But I guess there isn’t much he could do, because King knows I’m right. He knows that he owes me one. Because when his wife ran away, straight into the path of a human trafficker, I stepped in and protected her.