ELENA

~•~

I waited up for Dominic in a way I never had before, sitting in the dark of the front room with my hands in my lap. Somewhere between the phone call and now I'd decided I was going to ask him, and I wasn't going to let myself chicken out.

He came in close to midnight. He saw me there and stopped, and I watched him get ready for another fight, his shoulders going tight before I'd said a word.

"It's late," he said. "You should be sleeping."

"I need to ask you for something." My ...