after her. She slipped and hit her head.”
Vincent looks at me with questioning eyes. I don’t dare say a word until he speaks to me first and even then, I’m not sure I want to speak today.
“What took you so long?” Marco asks in frustration.
“Feds were following me. I had to ditch my cell and make an unplanned stop at the dry cleaners to lose them. Operation is off tonight. She won’t do us any good with that bruise on her cheek anyway,” he says about me. I hate that they use me to deceive the others.
“She’s riding back with me so I can drop her off at home. I will meet you at your place in an hour so we can discuss where to go from here now that the Feds are involved. I told you not to piss off Antonio!”
~
We don’t speak the entire drive home. Vincent drops me off in front of the building. He must not be planning on coming back tonight. I take the private elevator to the top floor of our penthouse. My head is pounding and feels fuzzy. Once inside, I go straight to the kitchen to get some ibuprofen. Just as I lift the glass of water to wash down the pills, everything starts to fade to black and I drop the glass as I pass out onto the floor.
“Adaline. Adaline. Wake up, Adaline.” Dominic is leaning over me. I’m lying in his bed.
“I think you have a concussion.” He sits down beside where I’m laying and tries to sit me up more, propping me up on his pillows. “You need to keep your eyes open please. Tell me what happened to you tonight.”
I feel woozy and like I need to throw up. I try to tell him but know that if I speak it will happen.
“You look really pale. Do you feel sick?”
I close my eyes and try to move my head to answer him. He hops off the bed and quickly brings me the small waste basket from beside his door just in time as my stomach heaves and the pizza we ate earlier expels from my body.
Dominic sighs. “Yeah, you have a concussion. I know it’s really late, Adaline, but you can’t go to sleep. I’m going to get you a bottle of water.”
Once he’s back and I’m able to take a few sips of water, I finally tell him everything that happened tonight.
“He did what?” he seethes when I tell him about what Marco almost did to me. It finally hits me that I was almost raped tonight. My body starts to shake and I break down into a hysteric cry. Dominic lies down and pulls me to him so my head is on his chest as he wraps his arms around me in a tight hug in attempt to comfort me.
“I’ll make sure that you are never alone with him again. I promise. I had no idea he was having Marco take you there after your orthodontist appointment. If I’d known, I would’ve gone along, too.
“Can we please talk about something else?” I ask. My eyes want to shut and I know that I can’t fall asleep just yet. If I’m going to stay awake, I need something interesting to keep me alert. “Tell me some more about your mom. I love hearing stories about her.”
I like to live vicariously through Dominic when he tells me stories of his mom since I never had one.
“Okay, hmmm. Did I ever tell you that when she sang, it was the most beautiful voice I’d ever heard?”
“No, I haven’t heard about that yet. What was your favorite song she sang?”
“Don’t laugh. I know it sounds cheesy, but she always sang You Are My Sunshine to me when it was bedtime. That is how I always remember falling asleep. It was so peaceful. My dad hated when she sang to me, though. He always complained that she loved me more than him.”
“I don’t think it’s cheesy at all. It’s sweet. And who wouldn’t love you more than Vincent?”
That gets a laugh out of Dominic. It’s sad that something like that could be amusing to us.
“Don’t be mad at me for saying this, but, I’m glad that you were brought to live here. I know that sounds selfish of me because of the hell you live being here, but I don’t think I could survive without you. I know you wanted a family, and you thought when my dad fostered you that