Chapter 3

Dom threw his bag in the back room of the shop and collapsed on the couch, hoping to get a few hours of sleep. He'd rather be at home in his own bed but Letty had fucked that up. He wasn't going to think about it right now. All he wanted to do was sleep. Four hours later, he heard Vince and Leon in the garage working on the cars. Deciding that work sounded like the best thing to do, he pulled on a pair of overalls and joined them.

Leon took one look at him and knew things weren't good.

"What's the bitch done now, dawg?" he asked.

Disgust covered his features and he shook his head. "Fucked someone in my bed."

Vince was tightening a bolt and stopped. "You gotta be kidding me! Letty done that?"

"Man, that ain't right," Leon added. "What'd you do to her?"

It was then that Dom smiled. "Absolutely nothing. I left."

"Man, if that'd been me, I would've yanked her and the bastard she was with outta the bed and stomped a mud hole in both their asses!" Vince angrily answered. "What the fuck were you thinking, just walking outta there?"

Dom braced both hands on the frame of the car and looked at them. "Because I'm tired of her, tired of her shit, and that's that. It's over and done with, we're through. I don't care if she keeps racing with us or if she quits. I've put up with too much shit and I'm not taking it any more."

Leon started laughing. "Does Liz have anything to do with this?"

Dom's features softened. "You know, I've been thinking about a lot of things lately. I knew one day it'd get to this point with me and Letty, and now that it's here, I kinda wish it would have happened sooner."

"So what's up with the bag? You planning on going somewhere?" Vince asked.

"Right now I don't know what I'm gonna do, other than work on these cars so we can bring some money in," Dom declared, grabbing a wrench and diving under the hood.

The day flew by and before Dom realized it, it was dark outside. It felt good to lose himself in his work, not having to worry about anything other than making sure the job was done right.

The shop was always busy and he was making good money, but it wasn't enough. Dom pushed himself, pushed the guys to bring in more business. The money that the store and garage made went right back into them, but the money he made racing, that was his money. Everyone on the team raced and everyone made their own money. He helped them get started, but when they started winning, that's when he cut the cord. They couldn't live off of him forever.

Deciding that they'd worked long enough, the guys left Dom at the garage. He made his way into the back room and started the shower, ready to wash the day's sweat away. Stepping under the cool spray, he quickly showered and dried off, grabbing a pair of jeans from the bag he had packed earlier. He had walked back out into the garage when he heard a car pull up outside and then the side door to the shop open. Thinking it was one of the guys, he didn't bother asking who it was.

Out of nowhere, someone came at him with a 2X4, catching him across the back of his neck, the impact propelling him forward a few feet.

"What the fuck!" Dom yelled.

He turned to identify the intruder and when he did, several more guys jumped him. He got a good look at a few of them. Tran's thugs. Dom fought them off and in the process, tore the shop up. Bodies were flying through the air, landing on cars, landing on toolboxes and sending tools in every direction. At one point, several of the thugs held Dom's arms while another took shots at his face and abdomen. Adrenaline pumped through his veins and Dom totally lost it. The next thing he knew someone was trying to hold his arm still.

"DOM! You gotta stop! You're gonna kill him!" the voice yelled at him.

But Dom couldn't stop. He was so lost in a haze of fury that his body continued to lash out at the fuckers that dared to come into his shop and try to take him down. He continued to administer punch after punch to the intruder's face.

"DAMMIT DOM! STOP!" the voice yelled again.

Somewhere in the back of his brain he heard the voice. He slowly came back to himself and realized that the voice belonged to Liz.

"Oh my God, Dom. What's going on here?" she asked, grabbing his arm and trying to drag him away from the listless body lying on the floor.

Dom looked at the bloody body then up at Liz as if seeing her for the first time.

"What the hell happened?" she asked again.

He turned loose of the guy's shirt, dropping him onto ground as he got up. Liz couldn't believe that Dom was still standing. He had cuts on his face and bruises were already making an appearance on his ribcage. She hated seeing him like this and tears welled up in her eyes.

Dom looked around the shop and assessed the damage. It would take some time, but he'd get it cleaned up. Spying a few guys laying in different areas of the garage, he looked at Liz.

"Call Vince and Leon and tell them to get back down here."

"Why Dom? What are you going to do?" she asked, worried that they might do something worse.

Noticing the frightened look on her face, he lifted a bloodied knuckle up and brushed it against her cheek.

"Nothing. What's done is done. I'm going to have them dump their asses down at Tran's place and leave them there."

"You need to get to a hospital, Dom. You could have some cracked ribs. Look at the bruises coming up already," she said, gently touching his left side.

He winced at her touch. "No hospitals. I'll heal just fine, just like I always do. Now, go call the guys. Their number is on the board beside the phone in the office."

Once Vince and Leon had finished dumping Tran's guys off, they came back to the shop and found Dom, Liz and Mia in the office. Liz had called her when the guys left earlier.

"I don't get it," Liz said. "Why in the hell would they jump you? I thought you guys had an agreement or something."

Leon looked at Dom and wondered just how much he had told her about their lives.

"We do, or at least we did," Dom said as he held his left side. "Everybody stays on their own turf until Race Wars."

"So what's different? What happened to cause this?" Liz asked.

Dom took a deep breath and winced at the pain it caused. "I told Letty last night that it was over, that we were done."

Liz was shocked at his announcement. She couldn't believe it ... Dom had broken it off with Letty.

"But I still don't understand," she started. "Just because you two broke it off, why would some guys come in and jump you?"

"Because after I told her that we were finished, I slept on the couch in the garage. When I woke up, I went upstairs to crawl into my bed for a few hours and I found Letty in my bed with one of Tran's guys."

"Oh my God!" she exclaimed.

"I guess fucking someone in my bed wasn't enough for her so she had them come over and try to take me down," he said, now fully feeling the effects of his beating. His entire body ached from head to toe and he hated to think about just how much worse it was going to be tomorrow. "At least that's what I think."

"Well, it does make sense in a twisted kind of way," Mia added. "Dom, I didn't even know that she stayed the night. I thought she had left."

"Too bad she didn't," Dom commented. "Then I wouldn't be feeling like a semi ran over my ass," he said.

"Well, now that we've got the mystery cleared up, we're gonna head back home," Vince said, knowing that there was nothing else they could do. They were sure there would be repercussions because of what had happened, so they would have to stay on their toes.

"Mia, want us to follow you home?" Vince offered.

"That's a good idea, Leon. Follow Mia home and make sure everything's on the up and up. Or even better, why don't you two stay there tonight. I don't think they'd try something else so soon, but you never know with those sneaky bastards," Dom offered.

"What about you dawg? Where are you gonna bunk tonight?" Leon asked.

"I'm staying here tonight. I'll go back to the house tomorrow."

Liz interjected. "No you are not staying here tonight. Your ribs are probably cracked and sleeping on that thing you call a couch won't help them. You can come back to my place."

Leon and Vince laughed, Mia looked pleased, and Dom blushed. The man actually blushed.

"Well, you heard the woman," Dom said as he slid his body off of the desk that he had been sitting on, wincing as he did so. "I'll be back at the house tomorrow."

Once there, he would clean out his bedroom, removing all traces of Letty. He wasn't sure exactly how he was going to accomplish that with cracked ribs, but he'd manage. He was determined to do some Spring-cleaning if it killed him.

He closed up the shop and everyone went their separate ways. Liz tried her best to make their trip back to her townhouse as bump free as possible, but when you drive a car that's low to the ground, you feel everything. Dom braced himself as best as he could and was thankful when they finally pulled into the garage.

Back at the house, Mia and the guys made a beeline to Dom's room and started cleaning. They decided that since he didn't need to be moving around much because of his ribs, they'd clean it up for him. Grabbing a couple of empty boxes from the garage, they went through the room and threw all of Letty's things into them. They cleaned out the dresser drawers, the closet, and even the bathroom. She hadn't officially moved in, but she spent more time there than she did at her own place, which meant that she had quite a bit of stuff they had to pack up.

Mia stripped the bed and started a load of laundry, while the guys flipped the mattress over. They still couldn't believe that Letty had brought someone into Dom's bedroom, into his bed. What had the bitch been thinking? Mia put fresh sheets on the bed and cleaned up the room while the guys took the boxes downstairs and out to the garage. They didn't know if Letty would come back for her stuff, but at least it was out of sight now and Dom could rest once he came back home.