Dominated (Obsessed II)

36.

Bianca Dawson
Off guard

I stared at the screen, a little confused by the message staring back at me. Soon, the confusion turned into rage because there was nothing I hated more than being taken for an idiot. Time and time again, I'd shown people that I wasn't one to be messed with, yet somehow they always made the same mistake. They thought because I wasn't reacting, I hadn't noticed anything. The message stared at me, impossible to misunderstand:

She knows what you're planning. And she's coming for you.

Obviously I was the she in question, but what was I planning? Why would Dominik feel the need to send this to Jude? It was nothing but a scare tactic but why? Has he been aware of what I was up to without my knowledge. I could feel my blood boiling again but I had to calm down so I can think this through properly before the noises started in my head.

I read it again, then looked at the attachment beneath it. My fingers hovered over the trackpad before I opened it, and my stomach tightened when the page appeared. My handwriting, my words, a page from my journal.

Not just any page. A page from my journal that I have never shown anyone. I thought I left it back at that God forsaken facility but I guess I was wrong. Dominik had it and never returned it. My deepest darkest secrets were all there because I needed an outlet, and jotting things down weirdly gave me a relief. I usually guarded it as best as I could but I slipped up.

The fact that he didn't returned it simply means he probably read everything and was holding on to it for his... just in case moment.

Now that I really think about it. He had been different for the last few days, although I couldn't have explained exactly how if someone had asked me. Nothing obvious had changed. He still kissed me goodbye in the mornings, still came home when he said he would, still asked whether I'd eaten and complained when I stayed up too late. To anyone else, he would have seemed exactly the same.

But I knew him.

I knew the slight change in his tone when he was hiding something. I knew the way his attention drifted whenever his phone lit up. I knew that when he was lying, he became more careful rather than less. His answers felt too perfect, his expressions too controlled, as though he had already rehearsed what he was going to say before I even had asked the question. The way he weirdly sift through my thoughts and ask silly questions instead of contributing to the conversation.

A few days ago, he'd started taking his laptop everywhere, which was unusual.

Dominik had never been precious about it around me. He'd leave it on the kitchen island while he showered, on the sofa when he went outside, sometimes open on his desk for hours while he was nowhere near it. Suddenly, the moment I walked into a room, the screen would close.

I noticed.

I simply didn't say anything because in the moment I never thought too much of it.

That evening, he had been in the study for almost two hours when I went looking for him. I wasn't looking for his secrets. At least, not then. Richard had gone strangely quiet again, and that bothered me. I wanted to find the information Dominik had collected on him because there were still pieces of Richard's operation I hadn't accounted for.

The study door was open when I reached it.

Dominik wasn't there, if he's not in his study he could be anywhere this house is that big. I noticed his desk was crowded with paperwork which is weird because he's very organized. I began looking quickly when I noticed the laptop was buried underneath. Was this his way of hiding it? I almost scoffed.