The Dominator (41 page)

“What’s that?” he sounded like he was in a restaurant or something like that; there was a lot of background noise.

“Um, I can’t find your brother. I went to the ladies room, he went to the men’s room, and I’ve been waiting outside the door for a long time, like almost half an hour. Someone told me the washroom is empty, he’s not there. I don’t know what to do.”

“Where’s security?”

“Tommy let them go have time to themselves.”

“Shit,” Dario said.

“Yeah,” I agreed.

“Okay, someone said the washroom was empty?”

“Yep.”

“Go in the washroom and check every stall, make sure he’s not passed out or something,” he told me, “Keep me on the line.” Then I heard him shout in the background to someone, “Gimme your phone.”

I walked into the mens’ room and followed his directions. I pushed every door open and there was no one there. I could hear Dario’s voice muffled as he probably had his hand over his phone while, I imagined, calling Nino and James on someone else’s phone, “Tia where are you?”

“The Mandalay, in the shopping part between the hotels. The bathroom’s definitely empty.”

“Go to the concierge’s desk in the Luxor and tell them you need security immediately and then put me on the phone with the concierge. Get out of that fucking washroom in case someone’s behind this. Now. Keep me on the phone as you make your way to the front. Tell me if anything looks suspicious. The guys are on their way.”

What now? I couldn’t wrap my head around this. Was this life, my life from now on, going to entail one drama after another? Had Tommy been kidnapped or something? I prayed there was a logical explanation for this.

** ** **

The fact that the concierge didn’t even make a weird face when I told him I needed immediate security and then passed my phone to him was beyond wonky to me. I guess in Vegas they are accustomed to weird requests.

My phone got passed back to me and Dario said, “I’ve got people on it. Don’t stress. I’m sending someone to pick you up.”

I thanked him. I was taken to an office and offered refreshments and then I sat there, fidgeting with the water bottle I’d been given, until Tommy walked in. I was shocked and relieved to see him. I jumped up and threw my arms around him, “Thank God. Are you okay? What happened?”

He gave me a little smile and a big squeeze, momentarily lifting me off my feet, “We’ll talk after. Let’s go.”

Tommy

Flying colors. She’d passed again. The way she’d handled that was just about perfect.  She could’ve hocked the engagement ring and the earrings to get out of here, get away from me. She had at least $250 in her purse, too, as I’d given her pocket money for tips. The jewelry would’ve given her enough money to get gone and possibly even stay gone if she was smart about it. She could also have handled things the wrong way, called the cops and reported me missing and involved them or something stupid like that.

But she didn’t. I saw her mind working from a security booth; I knew it’d crossed her mind to run. It was almost like I could see the thought bubbles above her head. I could see it in her body language as she chewed her lip, chewed her cheek, looked around herself, blew her hair out of her eyes like she was faced with a dilemma. But she did the right thing. The exact right thing. She called someone she knew I trusted and got advice.

There was only one problem.  I needed her to misbehave. I needed her to misbehave so I had a reason to punish her. I was about to crack. Yeah, it was good to see she could handle an emergency but why I probably
really
ran this test today was because I knew there would be fall out. I needed fall out.

When she’d put my necklace on me that morning it had floored me, made the reason for my mood swings and my needs so clear to me, and it hadn’t even done much good to wear it. I was tired, yeah, hadn’t had a lot of sleep in the past few nights but I was craving confirmation and release. Confirmation that she was really mine and fear that she really wasn’t. And sexual release. I was fucking exhausted but had all this unused bottled-up sexual energy. Last night didn’t help, either, when Ben Goldberg, the real estate developer I’d met with to talk about a new club here in Vegas, lined up some of his girls for us. I could’ve taken that redhead in the red leather dress wearing the bondage collar and grabbed the collar and fucked her up against the wall roughly but I didn’t want her. I’d stared at her, thinking about that collar on my Tia.

But the desire I had to be ice cream shop guy for her was overshadowing things. It was fucking with my head. That, the sheer fucking exhaustion, and the million things goin’ through my head… so I got loaded, feeling sorry for myself instead, which was something I didn’t do. I needed a release, to get back to feeling in control again.

Our limo was out front waiting for us.   She got in and then I told the driver to just drive for a while, so we could figure out where we were going next. I closed the privacy glass.

“What happened to you?” She was wide-eyed and had her palm against her heart, like she was filled with relief, relief that I was okay.

I ignored the piercing sensation in my chest at that and I took a deep breath, “I wanted to see what’d happen if something happened to me in a place like this without my security around. You handled it beautifully. If, God forbid, there’s a next time don’t stand around like a sitting duck for an hour, though.”

Her mouth dropped open and I started to feel guilty. But I pushed it back.

“If you haven’t figured it out already, being with me means you have to think on your feet and think in a certain way. I thought I’d have to coach you on all of this stuff, so you’d know how to handle things, but it’s like you were
made
for this life. Good job, baby girl.”

Her fingertips shot up to her temples and she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, holding it in for a long time before exhaling. Her mouth was still wide open. I waited. She kept her eyes closed and massaged her temples and then her mouth shut, shut tight. I could see her working her jaw muscles by clenching her teeth.

“Tia?”

“Mm.”

“You alright?” I leaned over and put my hand on her knee.

She recoiled right against the car door, as far away from me as she could get.

“I’ll just give you a minute, shall I?” I suggested and snickered.

Her eyes were still closed but she was shaking her head slowly and I could see she was working up toward a royal fucking fit.

Tia

“How many more times are you gonna do this?” I finally asked, eyes closed. There was throbbing in my head. I had a tension headache coming on, a whopper of one!

“As many as I feel I need to,” he said softly, his voice laced with warning, “As many as
I
think I need to put my mind at ease.”

“Put your mind at ease about me not running away?”

“That, and about you being equipped to deal with emergencies. This was probably more about emergencies.”

I guffawed.

“You got a problem with that?” his tone of voice grated on my nerves. I should just open the car door and walk the fuck away from him.

“Was that roughing me up this morning part of the test? Piss me off by being a total prick and then leave me alone to see if I run away?” I finally met his eyes with mine.

“That was just me,” he said softly with a shrug. He looked so arrogant, so unapologetic.

And that was worse because that meant that on top of everything else, every frightened and helpless emotion he’d just put me through, that he really
was
an abusive asshole.

The car stopped at a red light and then I did what was probably the stupidest thing I’ve done since meeting him. I thrust the door open and I got out of the limo and stormed off between other waiting cars and then down the street in the opposite direction.

An instant after I did I caught the view of someone running, from the corner of my eye. It was Nino. He’d gotten out of a small smart car behind our limo and he was on his phone, talking while he was following me. Figured. The whole thing was staged; I was probably never alone at all.

I shot Nino a dirty look over my shoulder and I kept right on walking. My pocket dinged. I kept walking, but faster, more determined Then I was through a revolving door, Nino not ten feet behind me, and inside of a casino, I didn’t know which one, and I was storming down the trippy-looking butt-ugly carpet and because I’d ignored it the first time, my pocket dinged again. I ignored it again. Suddenly I felt fingers grip my arm at my bicep. My heart hit the bottom of my stomach.

“Read your text,” Nino told me. He was not smiling.

I shrugged him off and thrust my hand in my pocket and pulled the phone out to read the text from Tommy,

“Fine, cool off. Nino will keep you safe. Be back at the suite in half an hour. I’ll be waiting.”

I responded to his text without hesitating,

“FUCK YOU!”

The read receipt popped instantly and I turned the phone off and then thrust the phone back in my pocket. My heart sank but that sensation was below the surface of my anger, which was bigger than my fear or my common sense right now, so I resumed walking and Nino followed right along behind me. After a few minutes I was beyond annoyed with him walking right behind me and I needed to lose him. I just needed five damn minutes by myself, totally by myself.

I saw a blonde woman in a skimpy outfit carrying a tray of drinks and I saw a drunk-looking middle-aged Asian guy approaching her so I suddenly took off running past him, sort of bumped him, and he knocked her drinks all over the place. This happened like it was carefully rehearsed choreography, right in front of Nino and I was off…half walking half running hoping casino security wouldn’t think I was suspicious and try to stop me, zig zagging through rows of slot machines and then card tables and roulette wheels. I finally got the nerve to glance back and there was no sign of him.

I found my way out into the lobby of that hotel and left. I went to a café a few doors down and sat and drank an iced cappuccino and took my time about it. The longer I sat there, the angrier I got. How dare he! What the heck was his problem?

Better question: what the heck was
my
problem? My heart sank. Provoking him like that? I had no idea how pissed he’d be but I was pretty pissed, too, and the way I was feeling I’d have no problem articulating that to him.

After over an hour in the café, I hailed a cab out front.  I asked the driver to take me to the hotel. I had no death wish desires so, no, I wasn’t running away right now. I guess I was just teaching him a lesson. How dare he do that to me and then have the audacity to ‘give’ me half an hour to cool down?

I paid the cabbie and then I strolled up to the concierge’s desk and told him I was with Tommy Ferrano, gave the suite number, and said that I’d forgotten my room key.

He punched some keys into his computer and told me he remembered me from the other day and that he’d escort me up in a moment and asked me to just have a seat.

I had to stand my ground. If we were going to have a real relationship, one that was a two-way street, I had to have a voice he paid attention to.  If he really wanted me for me, he’d understand that he couldn’t keep doing things like this.  And he’d have to learn to rein in his temper, too, because what’d happened this morning was totally unacceptable!

The concierge came over a moment later and told me he’d escort me to my suite. Once inside I kicked off my shoes and then I poured a glass of wine from the ice bucket in the bedroom. It was from last night and the ice had melted but it was still chilly. I sat down on the bed and I waited, arms crossed. I was ready for a showdown with my fiancé.

I turned the phone on and saw there were 2 missed calls and 2 texts,

“Tia! Turn around right now and meet Nino at the front desk.”

Another one.

“Are you seriously stupid enough to do this? I fucking hope not”

Nothing since then. It’d been over an hour ago. I answered with a text,

“Cool your jets. I’m in our room.”

Immediately he read it and those three dots appeared, showing he was typing,

“big fucking trouble baby”

I wrote back,

“You know what? Bring it on. I’m so fucking pissed at you. This relationship needs to be a 2 way street. You want to test me and play games with me over & over again? Treat me like crap & like a piece of property and then expect me to have zero reaction at you playing mind games? Wrong! If you want me to be the faithful and dutiful fiancee I SUGGEST you start treating me with respect!!”

My phone rang almost immediately after he read the message.

I answered it practically spitting, “What?”

“Be ready and waiting, baby girl. When I get there, I’m gonna paint your sweet little ass black and blue.”

Click.

All my bravado drained out of me and I instantly felt like throwing up. I am such a stupid naïve little girl. I thought I was so tough,
so
determined to stand up for myself, but here I was now quaking, wondering what sort of rage I’d be faced with when he returned. His voice was so angry, so scary, that I wished I had an undo button for that conversation.