Page 9 of Rock the Boat
“Guest, assistant…it’s all the same.” I could picture him running his hands through his dark hair, grinding his teeth, and pacing either in his apartment or in the clinic. He had helped me set everything up, yet it didn’t surprise me that he was having second thoughts.
“Don’t do this. It would make you no better than him.”
“That is where you’re wrong, Dom. I’m worse.” I hung up without another word and slid my phone into my purse. We’d gone round and round about this for the last couple of weeks, and I was tired of the same diatribe.
It had taken me two years to get to this point. Two years of investigating, of planning, of seething. Nobody was going to take this away from me. I’d completely reinvented myself, distanced myself from who I used to be, so much so that sometimes I wondered if the old me ever existed. She was too trusting, too naïve, too needy. The new me needed and wanted no one, and while I trusted Dom to a point because he did save me, I was terrified to let him get too close, to trust him too much. What if he betrayed me too?
My heart squeezed, and I had to rub my chest. It was just heartburn. My heart was cold and dead. It felt nothing for anyone. Especially not a doctor with hazel eyes that changed colors with his moods.
It was too late for me. Dom deserved someone whole who knew how to open her heart. I might have survived my attack, but part of me still died on those rocks and was never recovered.
A ding had me stopping feet from the exit to the mall, and I inwardly growled, unsure of why I bothered checking.
DOM: Think of your parents.
I rolled my eyes and tossed my phone back into my bag, although I was tempted to throw it in the garbage can.
What he didn’t realize is I thought about them all the time. It took me months before I reached out to them, worried that Matthew would go after them. He never did. After he got rid of my phone, it was like I never existed. Still, I tried to limit my contact with them and told them Matthew abused me so they wouldn’t talk to him if he called. He never did. It didn’t stop the anxiety, though.
The best way to get rid of the threat was to cut off the head of the snake. Now, I wouldn’t say that I was going to do anything quite so literal, even if it might be a little fun, but he would pay for his crimes. I was his judge, jury, and executioner.
