Unsurprisingly, Sergei didn’t sleep much. He dozed off for a little while, long enough for a few nightmares, and woke up feeling like he hadn’t slept in weeks.
But then he was suddenly wide awake—the bed was empty.
He looked around. Dom wasn’t in the bedroom. His heart sped up. Had Dom slipped out during the night? Run like hell the way any sane man would with a contract on his head?
Sergei quickly grabbed a pair of shorts off his dresser, pulled them on, and went looking through the rest of his apartment.
He found Dom on the back patio, sitting on the edge and gazing out at the morning sky.
You idiot. You shouldn’t have stayed.
God, I’m glad you’re here.
As Sergei stepped out through the sliding glass door, Dom turned. Then he rose.
“Hey,” Dom said. “I didn’t want to wake you up. Sounded like you’d finally fallen asleep.”
“Yeah.” Sergei shrugged. “Sort of. You want some coffee?”
“Sure. Yeah.”
They went into the kitchen. Despite the daylight casting an entirely different set of shadows and colors on the plain white cabinets and dingy laminate, there was no ignoring that this was where he and Dom had stood last night. Where Sergei had confessed the truth, and they’d brawled until Dom had calmed down. On the cabinet beside the oven, there was a smear of dried blood. His? Dom’s? No way of knowing. Not that it mattered.
His mind going a million directions, Sergei went through the motions of starting some coffee.
“So,” Dom said. “I’ve, uh, been thinking about our situation.”
Sergei’s hands stopped. In an instant, he couldn’t remember how to work the coffee maker, and didn’t really need the caffeine anyway. Facing Dom, he said, “Okay?”
Dom stared at the floor for a moment before meeting Sergei’s gaze. “I think we need to come to terms with some things that are out of our hands at this point.”
“Such as?”
“My cousin wants me dead. He’s going to make sure it happens. That’s…” He paused. “That’s why they called in the best for the job.”
Sergei winced, forcing back the bile climbing his throat.
Dom took a deep breath. “The contract is out. One way or another, I’m a dead man, and if you aren’t the one to pull the trigger, you will be too.”
It took a second to read between the lines, but when Sergei realized what he was getting at, he jerked away from Dom’s grasp and stepped back. “Don’t even say it, Dom. I won’t. I can’t.”
“You need to.”
“Fuck no. I can’t do it, Dom. I don’t…” Sergei shoved a hand through his hair and started pacing across the kitchen, which seemed almost too small for pacing now that there was a broad-shouldered Sicilian standing in it. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I don’t think you have much choice.”
“No. No fucking way. You’re—”
“Sergei, listen to me.” Dom closed his hands around Sergei’s shoulders. “I’m dead no matter what. At least I can—” He winced, then softly added, “At least I can trust you to make it quick.” His eyebrows rose slightly, as if to ask, Right?
“I’d never make you suffer,” Sergei breathed.
“Then you have to—”
“No.” Sergei set his jaw. “I’m not—”
“Sergei, for God’s sake, just do it. Then you can walk away from this town and never look back. You don’t fill this contract, you’re going to be wearing a bull’s eye for the rest of your very, very short life.” Dom swallowed. “Because they will find you, and they will kill me. And I think we both know that they won’t just put a bullet through your head.”
Sergei shuddered, his mother’s screams echoing through his mind as she stared at the bodies of her slowly dying husband and sons. “Dom…”
“You know how this works. We both do. And I don’t want you being tortured for letting me live. They’re going to kill me either way, so—”
“No. There’s enough money. We can… we—”
Dom gripped Sergei’s shoulders tighter. “Look at me.”
Sergei met his gaze, though it was a struggle, and the pain and desperation in Dom’s eyes only made his heart sink deeper and deeper.
“These people have taken everything from me too,” Dom said. “I got roped into this life, and I’ve done things I’m not looking forward to answering to in the next one. The bottom line, though, is no matter what we do, someone is going to make sure I’m dead.”
“Dom, we—”
“Listen to me.” The hurt in Dom’s eyes intensified as he held Sergei’s gaze. “The only variables here are how I die and if you do. If I can’t get away from all this alive, then I would rather go down knowing that you’re going to make a clean break and get out of here. If you promise me you’ll do it quickly, and then you’ll leave Cape Swan forever and go have the life neither of us have ever been able to… I can’t think of anything that would give me more peace.”