“Here.” The kid gestured at a bench beside a bus stop. “Sit.”
Dom didn’t argue. With some help, he eased himself down onto the hard bench, groaning as blinding pain ripped through him. “Fuck…”
“You really need to see—”
“I’ll be fine.” Dom moistened his lips, pausing to gingerly tongue the sweet raw spot where a fist had apparently shoved the tender flesh against his tooth. It had stopped bleeding as near as he could tell. His mouth tasted metallic, so he couldn’t tell spit from blood anymore, but the wound didn’t seem too severe. And he hadn’t lost or cracked any teeth, so… He’d call it a win.
He lifted his head and blinked a few times, trying to bring his eyes into focus. Whoa. If this kid was selling sex, he was in the right line of work. He was slim and ripped, the contours of his muscles standing out thanks to the harsh overhead light. The blanched light made his bottle blond hair almost white but didn’t quite pick out the color of those intense eyes. Or maybe it was just because Dom couldn’t focus his own enough to tell if they were blue, or black, or… whatever. Piercing, that was for sure, especially coupled with those sharp Slavic features.
Dom gingerly drew a breath. “You never told me your name.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Who am I gonna tell? The cops?”
The kid glared down at him.
“You asked my name,” Dom said.
“Yeah. I did. Anyway, you’ll be good here till help shows up.”
Dom glanced at the phone in the stripper’s hand—those gloves didn’t seem like part of his ensemble—then at him. “You calling, or am I?”
“You are.” The stripper tossed him the phone. “I’m out of here.”
Dom eyed him. “You’re pretty tough for a hooker.”
He bristled. “I’m not a hooker. I’m a stripper.”
Dom didn’t laugh—his ribs wouldn’t allow it anyway, and he really didn’t want to piss off this kid till he had a better idea what he was dealing with. “My mistake.” He gestured at the piece tucked into the kid’s waistband. “Strippers always pack heat like that?”
The stripper looked at the gun as if he’d forgotten he had it, and then shrugged. “This is a shit part of town. Everyone’s armed.”
Dom glanced around. His vision was a little fuzzy and doubling around the edges. He was up the road from the marina, that much he knew. This area was all too familiar.
How the hell had he gotten here tonight? In the trunk of one car and the backseat of another, that much he knew, but at the beginning of the evening, he’d been clear on the other side of Cape Swan. He’d been parked behind an upscale restaurant, palms sweating and stomach sick over a date he didn’t want to be on, when the assholes got the drop on him. How long ago had that been? Shit. He had no idea what had happened, or when, or where…
All he knew was that he was fucked up and he needed to get out of here. He turned on the phone. It didn’t require a passcode, fortunately, and thank God he’d committed a few key numbers to memory. “Do you need me to get you a cab or something?”
He lifted his head, but the stripper was gone.
He scanned the deserted road as much as his sore muscles and shitty vision would allow, but there was no sign of the guy. Not even footsteps fading into the night.
They got ninjas working as strippers in this town or something?
Well. Whatever. He was alone now.
He shifted his gaze back to the phone, gave his eyes a second to focus, and entered a number. It rang several times, before Biaggio, his uncle’s consigliere, picked up.
The sleepy, irritated voice muttered, “Hello?”
“It’s Dom. I need help.”
He could almost hear the old man snapping to attention. “What’s going on? Are you all right? Where are you?”
“I’m… down by the marina. Couple of blocks from the gate. Banged up.”
“What? My God, what’s… Are you all right?”
“I’m… I think so? I just need to get out of here.”
“I’m on my way. Do I need to call Rojas?”
Dom knew damn well Biaggio was going to call the family’s physician either way—better safe than sorry—but he still croaked, “Yeah. Call him.”
Biaggio swore in Italian. “Where exactly are you?”
Dom gave him the intersection, and after they hung up, he leaned back against the bench, but that only aggravated the bruises on his back.