Inaya's POV

"What does he want me to do?" Dominic asks Benny.

"He wants... he..."

"Get to the fucking point!" Dominic raises his voice.

Benny sighs, looking down. "He wants her dead. He wants Princess dead."

Princess... me? My body is paralyzed his words. Dominic's father wants me dead. I must've really landed on his worst side.

Dominic jumps to his feet. "Fuck, no."

I pull on Dominic's sleeve to tell him to sit back down.

"What did Inaya do?" He asks Benny.

"He's going around spewing nonsense about how you've turned into a, excuse my language Boss, pussy after meeting her." I can tell Benny's having a hard time saying all of this.

Dominic's fists are clenched so hard that his knuckles are turning white.

"This man has never let me breathe. Now he's threatening my wife using my brother as a leverage. If he wants war, he'll get war." Dominic says through clenched teeth. "Prepare. Tell our men to hold off the negotiations with the rival territories until we solve this."

"But Boss, holding off negotiations can be dang—"

"Do as I say. I'll handle the Camorra and Chicago." Dominic rubs his temples.

Benny nods, knowing there's no arguing with the Boss. He shows himself out.

"I'm already dealing with the mess with the Chicago Outfit and now my own father wants to start shit."

I place my hand over his. "It's okay. Your brother—"

He flinches away my hand. "It's not fucking okay! You don't understand the fucking extent this is going to!"

"I-I'm sorry... I..." I wanted to say that I haven't ever been in a situation like this, I don't know how to go about things.

On top of that, this is happening because of me. I'm the main problem... again.

Maybe all I do is bring people horrible luck. Maybe by merely associating myself with people, I bring them nothing but misfortune.

"Don't make that face." Dominic brings me into a hug. "You're making me feel shitty, I shouldn't have yelled at you like that."

"I'm sorry. This is all my fault." I whisper.

"No, don't blame yourself. None of this is your fault, do you understand? None of it. My father has always been like this, none of this is new on his part." Dominic says.

"But if I didn't come into your life, your father wouldn't have taken Nick. In fact, you would've had it so much easier without a burden like me around." I hold him tighter, afraid to let go.

"Don't say that, I don't want to hear it." He leans his forehead on mine. "If you didn't come into my life, fuck, I would've been holed up in some whore house, wasting away my useless life. Besides, my father would've found something else to blackmail me with. This was inevitable."

I close the space in between our lips as my tears slide down, giving our kiss a salty taste.

He wipes away my tears while caressing my cheek. "It's not your fault. Don't beat yourself up for it."

But I couldn't help but feel sorry. I couldn't help but feel this could've been avoided if I didn't exist. I shouldn't think like that but I really can't help it.

The rest of the day, Dominic disappeared. He said he had to talk with his men about how to go about to getting Nick back.

I felt lonely without him; I felt cold, empty, and just alone.

Caterina's parents had told her to stay indoors because the atmosphere amongst the crime families is in musty waters because of the inner conflict between father and son.

It's, apparently, dangerous for anyone related to the scene to be out and roaming at this time.

Couple of hours go by and there's an unsettling feeling at the pit of my stomach. Dominic had finally given me a encrypted iPhone for communications so I send him a text and a missed call.

But he doesn't reply back to either.

Those couple of hours turn into more than 12 hours as the clock strikes 1 AM. I switch between sitting at the edge of the bed and walking around. I try to take my mind off of everything by cleaning, then organizing the closet, then pacing, then I ran out of things to do because nothing is giving me peace.

I hear the click of the bedroom door and my head whips into that direction.

Dominic walks in but there's splotches of red leaking through his shirt. My heart drops to my stomach and my blood runs cold.

My hands fly to my mouth and a loud gasp escapes my lips. "Dominic?!"

He puts up a hand and shakes his head. "It's nothing serious. Just a few blade marks."

"Just a few blade—Dominic, you're bleeding, like, everywhere!" I run to grab the first aid kit from the washroom.

Dominic takes a seat on the love-seat in our room but he doesn't look like he's in a lot of pain. In fact, he doesn't look like he's in any pain.

I slip over his shirt, revealing his chest with the fresh wounds. The blade marks aren't deep. It looks like he was dodging the attacks and only got a few scratches from it.

"I'm fine." He states.

"You're bleeding." I repeat myself again. "Who did this to you?" Who would even dare to do this to you, is what I wanted to ask.

"One of my father's men. I was attacked while I was getting to my car." He says this as if it's the most casual thing in the world.

"What happened to him?" I was referring to the man who attacked him.

"Lets just say, his time on Earth has been served..." Dominic says with a straight face as if it's no big deal again.

I don't dare to ask what Dominic did to him.

As I clean his wounds, I can feel his fiery gaze on me. He tucks a few pieces of my hair behind my ear and suddenly pulls me onto his lap.

"I could fuck you right now. I want to fuck you right now." He licks his lips

"You can do that later." I frown, he never takes his injuries seriously. He pulls me in closer and I almost brush against his cuts. "Dominic!"

"I've been through worst than this, amore mìo. I don't feel one fucking bit of pain from this." His voice is low and hungry.

"Still!" I argue as I place protective bandages on him.

Every time my fingers graze his hard chest, the butterflies in my stomach intensify.

"Kiss me." He says with his lips only an inch apart from mine.

I have no control over my senses when he's like this. I place my lips on his and hold his face in between my hands.

He grabs my hips, slowly sliding down to my pyjama bottoms. He slips his hands under my bottoms, his fingers rapidly beginning to explore my body.

"I wanna rip off your clothes and fuck the shit out of you right now." He murmurs against my lips, sending shivers down my whole body.

I can feel the space between my legs trembling at his words but I'm still really sore from last night.

"I don't think... I can't tonight." I sigh. "It still–it's sore."

"Then, the taste of your mouth will be just fine." He smirks against my lips.

I pull away to take a look at how he's doing, how he's really doing. My fingers run through his hair, giving him a form of scalp massage.

He lets out a groan of relaxation as his eyes roll back. "That feels really fucking good."

"Dominic?" I call out to him.

"Hm?"

"Will you be okay? Against your father?" My voice lets out the obvious worry I have stored in me.

He gently opens his eyes and strokes my bottom lip with his thumb. "I won't let him get to you. The only way he'll get to you is over my dead body."

I quickly cover his mouth out of sudden panic. "Please don't say things like that."

He only lets out a deep chuckle. "I really fucking love you, Inaya."

His words should bring me comfort but I'm so afraid, so afraid that I'll lose someone I love all because of me. But I'm also too selfish to let him go because I'll lose myself if I leave him behind.

- - -

A/N: I literally forgot today was the day I was supposed to update omfg sorry guys! Here it is!

The story will end soon, if you can't already tell lol, but I just wanted to give y'all a heads up.

Next Update: Sunday, January 19, 2020.