Dominion (Alpha Domain #1) (7 page)

“We’re hitmen, Amber.”

I turned wide, incredulous eyes to John, blinking owlishly for a moment before cutting my gaze back to Allen. He didn’t move— just watched my face closely for reaction.

They were serious.

My stepbrother was a hitman.

Shock didn’t even
begin
to describe what I felt in that moment.

“
A
mber
? I asked quietly after a long minute of staring at her face, frozen with shock.

“Hmm?” she hummed in response, and I knew immediately that she was so lost in her thoughts that she wouldn’t hear a word I said even if I did continue.

I looked over to my best friend and shot him a deadly glare, silently berating his complete lack of finesse in handling difficult manners. John gave me a small shrug and a shake of his head as if to say, ‘
What? I didn’t do anything
.’

I wanted to punch him in the face. But that would likely cause more problems that it would solve.

“Hey,” John said as he reached his hand down to pat Amber on the shoulder. “You aren’t going to faint again, are you?”

That seemed to snap her out of her daze and her eyes refocused right before she shook her head.

“Surprisingly, no. I’m... I’m alright. John, can I talk to Allen alone for a moment?”

Uh-oh. This can’t be good.

“Sure thing. Just give me a shout when you guys are done,” he said as he stood up and started heading towards his bedroom.

After we were alone, Amber turned to me with her lips pressed into a fine line. “You told him to watch me.”

“I did.”

“Why?”

“I knew Chris was in trouble with the Sanchez family,” I offered with a shrug. “I just wanted to make sure you were alright.”

“Why John though? Why not you?”

I leaned back and crossed my arms over my chest. “Gathering intel is below a man in my position. Don’t get me wrong— it’s below John as well. But I trust him more than the others.”

Amber’s jaw dropped open. “There are
others
? A man in your
position
? Allen, what the hell is going on? What happened to you?”

The hysterical disbelief in her tone made me frown. “Yes, there are others. John and I have five other men in our employment full-time, as well as a few contacts that we hire on a job-to-job basis.”

“Jobs? You mean
hits
? Like killing people?” she ground out angrily.

“Yes. Among other things.”

She shot me a dry look and mimicked my stance, folding her arms across her chest. “Such as?”

“Such as gathering intel,” I said with a smirk.

Amber clearly wasn’t as amused by my tongue-in-cheek response as I was.

“Some jobs are... less savory than others,” I vaguely stated.

“I don’t get it. What’s less ‘savory’ than murder?”

“Kidnapping comes to mind.”

Amber froze and looked at me seriously. “You... You kidnap people?”

“Not to sell them,” I added quickly. “We don’t... we aren’t like them. We rarely get those types of jobs, but they’re usually just for ransoms. No one gets hurt or stays missing.”

“Do you
really
think that makes it okay?” she shouted, standing up from the couch and flailing her arms around aimlessly as she began to release her anger. “Spying on me? Murdering and kidnapping people? What the FUCK happened to you in the past few years, Allen?”

I stayed as calm as possible, even though my mind was screaming at me to take action.

“Amber, nothing
happened
to me. This is just who I am.”

“Is this who you were when you nearly beat my boyfriend to death all those years ago?”

“Yes. I’m the same exact person. In
every single way
,” I added, stressing the words and hoping she would get the hidden meaning beneath them.

Judging by the way her eyes softened, she did.

“Allen—”

“I heard shouting. You two alright?”

“Get the fuck out!” I screamed at John, hopping up from my perch on the coffee table and pointing in his direction. “We’re trying to have a conversation.”

Amber jumped and I instantly regretted shouting at John. I was about to apologize when he stalked into the room and poked me in the chest with two fingers.

“Dude. Knock this shit out. Remember the conversation we had earlier?” he reminded me quietly, neither of us wanting to attempt to explain to Amber that we had already agreed to share her in some sort of twisted polyamorous relationship.

She probably wouldn’t like to hear that considering she didn’t seem too happy with either of us at this point. Still, the reminder deflated me. I had agreed to it for a myriad of reasons.

“I know,” I whispered back, then raised my voice as I said, “I’m sorry.”

John patted me on the back and grinned. “We’re all good, brother. Amber? You mind if I hop back in? I’ll mediate.”

“Whatever,” she said as she sat back down and huffed, pouting so adorably that the desire to kiss her was nearly overpowering.

But I somehow managed to hold myself back. Probably because I was damn sure she would’ve slapped the shit out of me the second I leaned in.

“Allen!” John called before letting out a short whistle to capture my attention. “You’re zoning.”

“Sorry,” I repeated, shaking my head as if it would help clear it.

As it was, I had gone back to the memory of watching Amber and Chris as they undressed and almost had sex and inserted myself in the place of Chris.

Even though John had attempted to get me out of my thoughts, I couldn’t help them from running rampant from there. I could vividly picture myself taking off Amber’s top and dipping my head down to trace her stiff nipples with my tongue. I could hear the sound of her moan from the other night replaying in my head and I imagined that it was me who pulled that sound from her throat.

I would look up at her with hooded eyes and dip my head towards her lips, drawing that pouty bottom one between my teeth and gently biting down on it.

My fantasy abruptly shifted and I pictured John standing behind her, his hands accidentally touching my arms as he ran them up her hips and around her front, gripping her breasts as she strained up to kiss me. Our eyes locked in a brief moment of mutual understanding before my attention returned solely to the woman I loved.

The most surprising part about where my fantasy had gone was just how at ease I was with the idea of it. John and I had been best friends for years and had lived together for nearly the entire course of our friendship. We’d been stuck together in life or death situations countless times and had relied on each other so often that I trusted him more than anyone else.

So the idea of sharing Amber with him wasn’t as unsavory as I thought it might be. I knew I could trust him with her, just like I trusted him with my own life. Maybe this whole thing would work out alright after all.

Assuming Amber was even wiling to entertain the idea.

“
A
LLEN
!” I shouted as his eyes glassed over once again.

I reached over and gave him a not-so-gentle punch on the shoulder, rolling my eyes as he finally snapped out of his daze. Amber looked like she was torn between rolling her eyes right along with me and just bolting out the front door, which was the last thing we needed to happen.

Because I couldn’t speak for Allen, but I had absolutely no intention of letting Amber out of this house for the next week at least.

“What was I saying?” Allen asked and I curiously wondered where his thoughts had wandered off to.

“You were saying that you two are kidnapping murderers,” Amber said coldly.

I frowned. “Oh no, sweetheart. Someone must’ve gotten their wires crossed. I don’t kidnap people. Neither does Allen.”

“Well, then your ‘
people
’ do.”

Ahhh, now it made sense. Allen must have mentioned that we have others working with us. She seemed stuck on the kidnapping angle and I wondered if telling her that we only had two people on the entire team who were morally loose enough to do those jobs would make her feel any better.

“Amber, I know this must be a shock to someone who grew up as sheltered as you did, but this shit
does
happen in real life,” Allen said slowly, as if he was speaking to a child.

I winced and braced myself for her outrage. To my great surprise, it never came. She just blinked and stared at Allen as he continued.

“But you have to believe me when I say that the things the Sanchez family does are far worse than anything me or my team has
ever
done. I hate to phrase it like this, but you’re going to have to choose between two evils. And I guarantee that we’re the lesser.”

“The devil you know,” I added with a chuckle, gesturing between the two step-siblings.

Amber looked between the two of us with a furrowed brow, finally understanding the severity of what she had been pulled into. She sighed and nodded, the resignation clear in her eyes.

“Alright, alright. Point taken. So what do I need to do?”

“Just stay here. Stay with us,” Allen said, his voice taking on a pleading tone. “John and I will keep you safe.”

I nodded. “Yeah. At least one of us will stay with you at all times while we work this out.”

“Do you really think you can fix it?” she asked hopefully.

“We will,” Allen promised. “One way or another, we
will
get you out of danger.”

I could sense Amber’s hesitation, but she ultimately accepted the graveness of the situation and nodded in defeat.

“Aright, fine. I’ll hole up in here while you two... do whatever it is you do. Just don’t give me any gory details.”

“We won’t,” Allen assured her. “Come on, I’ll show you to the guest bedroom.”

She stood up and started following him and I trailed behind the duo, listening to Amber as she asked, “What about clothes and stuff? I can’t live out of my purse.”

“I’ll buy you new clothes. Just give me your sizes and a list of anything else you need.”

Amber scoffed. “Like I would trust your sense of fashion.”

“It’s not like you’ll be going out in whatever I buy you,” Allen pointed out.

“Haven’t I lost enough of my dignity what with being spied on and nearly sold into sex trafficking or whatever?”

“I’m not going to buy you shitty clothes, Amber. My fashion sense has evolved since high school.”

“You couldn’t tell by that outfit,” she mumbled.

Allen stopped and looked down at his khaki pants and light blue button down shirt with a frown. “What’s wrong with this outfit?”

“You look like you’re going to go door-to-door selling bibles or something,” Amber said as she crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s not hot. Like, at all.”

Allen growled and kept walking as he clipped out, “I need to do laundry, this was all that was clean.”

“Oh, I’m sure.”

I laughed out loud and the pair stopped to turn around, regarding me curiously as I doubled over and clenched my stomach as wave after wave of uncontrollable laughter shook me.

“What’s so funny?” Allen demanded.

“You two...God, you two bicker like you’re really brother and sister,” I explained as I wiped a tear from my eye. “It’s fucking hilarious.”

The glare Allen leveled me with was marginally less hilarious.

But I noted with curiosity that Amber had also frowned, seemingly upset with the comparison. They both were blushing as they turned and began walking up the stairs to the second floor and I leaned against the railing with a smirk.

“How interesting,” I murmured once they disappeared from my sight.

Very interesting
.

T
he bedroom Allen
dubbed as mine for the duration of my stay was at least five steps up from the shitty room I shared with Chris in his friend’s apartment. Every room inside the house was surprisingly luxurious—a stark contrast to the outer appearance of the home.

After Allen showed me to my room, both him and John left me alone to settle in for the rest of the day. I wandered out to find a bathroom at one point and ran into John who told me that Allen had already taken my sizes and gone out to buy me some clothes to replace the duffle bag full of them I had left at the apartment.

I was thankful I had my purse and cell phone on me when I ran into John again. Otherwise, I could just imagine Chris and those men combing through my text messages and call log looking for a clue to my location.

And even though it was pretty obvious I was now done with Chris, I really didn’t like the idea of him going through my messages and seeing the conversation I had with my father a few weeks ago—when I had pleadingly asked for a place to stay so I could leave Chris for good.

Of course, if my asshole father would have said yes, I wouldn’t have ever been put into this situation. But he’d turned me down, much like I expected.

It wasn’t like Chris treated me terribly. He never hit me—even though there were a number of times when I thought he might. But our relationship had gotten to a point where I was just sick of being with him. I was sick of coddling him and trying not to judge him for his bad habits.

My endless amount of patience for him and his bad choices hadn’t paid off at all considering he was going to trade me into slavery just to pay off a debt.

What an asshole.

It was getting close to the time when I typically ate dinner now and I still hadn’t heard a peep out coming from the rest of the house. I stuck my head out of the bedroom and looked around, walking out when I realized nobody was there. I went for the stairs and headed to the ground floor, hoping I’d see John or Allen so I could find something to eat.

“Hey, girl!”

I startled at the sight of John sitting on the couch, looking up at me with a goofy smile as he dug into a container of Chinese food. My stomach roared at the sight and John laughed when he heard it, gesturing for me to sit down beside him.

“There’s plenty to go around. Allen brought a ton.”

“Where
is
Allen?” I asked curiously.

John answered around a mouthful of noodles. “He ran back out to the car to grab your clothes. I would’ve offered to help but… meh.”

I rolled my eyes and plopped down beside him on the couch, grabbing a random container of food and opening it up.

“I would offer to help if I was allowed to leave the house.”

“Your excuse is far better than mine.”

I shoved a forkful of chicken into my mouth and nodded. “Mm-hm,” I murmured in agreement.

I had managed to get a few bites in when I heard the doorknob rattling followed by a low curse as Allen stumbled into the house. I was setting the carton down to go help him when he appeared in the doorway of the living room, his arms crammed full with a variety of different bags.

“What the fuck?” John asked from the couch. “Damn, no wonder you were gone all day.”

“I might have gone a little overboard,” he admitted with a half-shrug as he started to deposit the bags on the floor.

“That’s an understatement,” I mumbled as I wondrously took in the designer names on the bags. “
Jesus
. How much did you spend?”

“That’s not important,” Allen dismissed with a wave of finality. “Let’s eat now, then I’ll carry these upstairs for you. You can pick through the bags and take the stuff you like.”

“What about the stuff I don’t like?” I jokingly asked.

Allen’s face remained passive while he searched through the containers on the coffee table and shrugged. “Just throw out anything you don’t want.”

“You want me to throw out designer clothes? Are you
high?
”

“No, I want you to
wear
the clothes. But if you don’t like something, I’m not going to make you wear it,” he explained.

I frowned. “So return them.”

“It’s not worth the hassle. I don’t need the money.”

“Murder and kidnapping must pay pretty well,” I commented dryly, earning a chuckle from John and an unamused glance from Allen.

“You still hung up on that?”

My eyes widened as I looked to Allen incredulously. “Um,
yes
. How the hell would I not be ‘hung up’ on the fact that my stepbrother gets paid to kill people?”

Allen shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m certainly not losing any sleep over it.”

“Maybe that’s because you’re a sadist.”

“And here we are again, ladies and gentleman. Another sibling cat-fight. Is it going to be like this all week?” John asked with a chuckle.

Despite the logical part of my brain’s protests, I still took offense to the comment. I didn’t particularly like being lumped with Allen as siblings because we
weren’t
. We never had been. We were steps, sure, but we didn’t grow up together and never felt a sibling-like bond with each other. At least I had never felt one for him.

Considering how he felt about me all those years ago, I’m pretty sure the feeling was mutual.

I couldn’t work out why I was so upset though. If I was honest with myself, it was likely because even though I spent years trying to convince myself that Allen’s feelings for me were total bullshit or just a teenage crush, I couldn’t deny that I had also felt something for him in return. Just a sliver of affection— something that went far beyond a familial feeling.

Not that I had ever admitted that aloud.

But the truth was— Allen scared the hell out of me. Ever since the time he beat my boyfriend to a bloody pulp, I had been afraid of him. It was a surprise to find out that he does far worse things than just beat people up, and yet, I felt nothing. No fear. Just a weird sense of acceptance.

Maybe it was because I was certain that Allen would never hurt me or allow anyone else to do so, but I felt incredibly at ease here. At ease enough to jokingly argue with him even if my heart wasn’t really in it.

Of course, John had to go and ruin our playful banter with the sibling crap again. I sighed and shoveled another forkful of food into my mouth, ignoring the concerned glances coming from both the men in the room.

“I didn’t mean to offend you,” John said carefully, making me look up from the carton at his apologetic face. “I was just—”

“It’s fine,” I said hurriedly, not wanting either of the men to look too hard into why I would be offended by his statement. “I’m not offended. Just a little stressed.”

I forced a smile in an attempt to reassure them. John took it at face value and turned away, but one glance at Allen told me that he hadn’t bought it. I looked away from his intense stare, wondering how in the hell he could still read me so well after eight years apart.

Regardless of whether he believed me or not, he let it slide, at least for the time being. The three of us ate in a slightly tense, but not totally uncomfortable silence and when John finished his meal, he stood up and dismissed himself with a wave.

“It’s getting late and I assume you’ll be wanting to go to bed soon.”

“Yeah, that sounds good. Are you guys going to be out all night doing your evil deeds?” I asked, trying to keep my voice light and jovial.

John chuckled. “Something like that. But Allen will be with you tonight so you have nothing to worry about.”

I looked from John back to Allen and gulped. Even with the ugly clothes he was wearing, Allen was still attractive.
Too
attractive.

In fact, I was almost afraid to look at him for very long because in the past eight years, he had done a whole lot of bulking up. I didn’t want to look at him and notice all the ways he had grown into a man since I had last saw him.

Allen wasn’t even attractive. No, it was too mild a word. He was flat-out
hot
. Sexy. Jaw-and-panty dropping gorgeous.

The idea of being alone with him felt incredibly dangerous.

“See you in the morning, darling,” John said with a wink before nodding to Allen. “You too, man.”

“You know what I need?” Allen asked solemnly.

John nodded and Allen nodded back, the silence thick as they communicated with their eyes once again. After a brief moment, John turned and left, heading right out the front door. Not even a minute later, I could hear the engine of his car roaring as he pulled onto the street and drove off.

Leaving my stepbrother and I truly alone for the first time in eight years.

The last time we were alone together, he had told me he loved me then kissed me. I couldn’t even imagine what would happen if he offered a repeat.

It certainly would involve me stripping off those awful khakis.

With a start, my back went straight and I forcefully shoved away the thought of taking off Allen’s pants. I may have been a coward for running, but it seemed better than the alternative of wading through the awkward tension crackling in the air around us.

“I’m getting pretty tired,” I said as I stood up. “Do you want me to...?”

I gestured down at the cartons of food, unsure of whether or not Allen wanted me to clean up. I wouldn’t mind helping, but if he wasn’t going to ask me, then I’d gladly just run upstairs and hide for the rest of the night.

“No, I got this. Just help me carry the bags upstairs?”

I had almost forgotten about the bags of clothing Allen had purchased for me. I nodded and grabbed a handful, pointedly not reacting when he bent down close to me and grabbed a few bags before he began following me up the stairs to my room.

It felt a little weird referring to it as ‘my room’ already, but Allen had been pretty insistent that I make myself at home. So even though it was pretty strange, especially considering just this morning I had been staying in a completely different place, I was finding myself easily adjusting to the change of scenery. Much to John and Allen’s delight, I was sure.

“You can go through these the morning. Go ahead and get some sleep,” Allen whispered after he deposited the bags near the walk-in closet.

“Thanks again. For everything,” I added sincerely. Even though my dry comments might have said otherwise, I truly was grateful that I had him and John looking out for me.

“You’re welcome,” he said with a slightly bashful smile.

The sight of it immediately took me back to prom night and the events that followed it, back to when he kissed me and I was too shell-shocked to respond with anything other than kicking him out of my bedroom. It was damn near impossible for me to describe my reaction, even to this day.

Part of it had been out of anger— I felt like Allen had already fucked with my life enough.

Part of it was because the moment his lips touched mine—I knew he was telling the truth.

He really did love me. And in the split second when I allowed myself to just barely kiss him back, I could feel the fluttering of emotion in my heart.

But how could I possibly explain that to him now without sounding like a total nutcase? Sure, refusing to speak to him had been a massive overreaction on my part, but back then the biggest concern of mine had been my reputation. After the embarrassment with Don, I couldn’t stomach the idea of sullying my reputation any further.

And dating my stepbrother would have done irreparable damage.

“Goodnight,” I said awkwardly, wincing a little when I saw the disappointment in his eyes.

“Sweet dreams, Amber,” he said before turning around and leaving the room, the door softly clicking shut behind him.

When I was alone, I flopped down on the bed and rubbed my eyes, wondering if I would even be able to sleep tonight after all the excitement of the day. Being almost traded to slavery then taken by a stranger to my long-lost stepbrother who was also in love with me was quite draining, but at the same time, I also felt more alive than I had in years.

Knowing I wouldn’t be able to sleep, at least not right away, I quietly sat up and slipped off my shoes, padding softly around the room as I gathered up the bags of clothes Allen bought me and dumping them out on my bed.

For better or worse, this was my home now and I was more than a little surprised to find that I had no problem embracing that fact. I just hoped it would become clear sooner rather than later whether it was going to be a good thing or a bad thing.