Page 8 of Jacking Jill

Jill smiled, blinking herself back into focus, then losing the smile when she remembered why Nina’s wedding was going to be complicated. “No worries. I’m sort of crashing it too.”

Jack frowned. “Wait, your so-called best friend didn’t even invite you? Oh, hell, now I’m really interested. What’s the deal? You two both in love with the same guy?”

“Ohmygod, no!” Jill almost shrieked out the indignant response. “Bobby Carmine? Yuck. Just the thought gives me the creeps.”

“Good,” Jack muttered under his breath before quickly turning his face and looking out his window, like he hadn’t meant to say that out loud.

Jill frowned when she picked up a hint of what felt like jealousy but of course couldn’t be jealousy because jealousy implied possessiveness and togetherness, and they were not together and Jack certainly did not possess her.

That last thought sent a chill creeping through her, but it wasn’t the chilly sort of chill and it wasn’t the creepy sort of creeping.

“Wait, Bobby Carmine?” Jack said now, whipping his head towards her, gaze narrowed to a sharp focus. “Tell me he isn’t part of the Carmine Mafia Family. He’s not one of those Carmines, is he?”

Jill shrugged noncommittally. “Nina says he is. That’s partly why she’s into him. She’s young and naïve, totally enamored with Bobby’s lame-ass macho bravado which is mostly fueled by all the drugs he’s always jacked up on. Nina’s got some unrealistically romantic image of mafia bad-boys stuck in her head. Doesn’t see that she’s marrying a violent womanizing addict who’s going to wreck her life if he hasn't already.”

Jack exhaled heavily, his face drawn with a seriousness Jill hadn’t seen in him yet. Gone were the cocky grins and the wolfish winks. “Listen, Jill. If this guy Bobby is part of the Carmine Family, your friend Nina has bigger problems than her soon-to-be husband’s drug habits or womanizing or whatever.”

“Oh, really?” Jill shot a sharp gaze at Jack before glancing back at the road. “Drug use and womanizing seem like pretty big problems for a marriage, if you ask me.”

“Yeah, they are. That’s my fucking point, Jill. That shit is just the tip of the iceberg with these sorts of crime families,” Jack growled. “Which is why you need to walk away from your friend Nina. Just forget about her. Once she’s part of that family, you want to have nothing to do with her, trust me. If you stay friends with her, the Feds will eventually get their hooks into you. They’ll arrest you on some bullshit charge, then force you to wear a wire when you hang out with your friend Nina and her thug husband Bobby Carmine. You’ll be forced to become an informant, and that’s a one-way ticket to being put on a mafia hitlist. Even if the entire Carmine Family goes to prison—which is pretty unlikely because they’re probably lawyered up with some of the best—it’ll eventually leak that you wore a wire. Someone will get to you and take you out. You’ll never be safe again. This is serious shit, Jill.”

Jill gulped back a rush of anxiety, managed to keep her focus on the road. She took a breath, then shook her head firmly. “Well, there’s no danger of me ever becoming an informant because I’ll never be welcome at the Carmine Family dinner table. Not if I pull this off.”

Jack stared at her with concern. “Pull what off?”

Jill said nothing. She glanced at the upcoming sign marking the distance to Philly. They still had ninety miles to go. Shit. Why did she agree to let him ride with her? She didn’t want to talk about this. Didn’t want to even think about it.

Because she was smart enough to know that if she really thought about it, she wouldn’t do it.

And she had to do it.

Even if Nina would hate her for it.

Shit, Nina already hated her, so what difference did it make, right?

“Talk to me, Jill. Pull what off? What the hell are you planning to do?” Jack’s body was turned towards her now, his warm masculine musk rising up from beneath his open jacket. There was a strange intensity to his concern that made it seem like they were more than just strangers, like he actually gave a damn about her. “Oh, hell, Jill. Don’t tell me you’re going to that wedding with some half-baked idea that you’re going to stop them from getting married! Please don’t tell me you’re going to walk into a fucking mafia wedding and try to stop it from happening!”

“OK,” Jill said, keeping her gaze fixed on the highway. “I won’t tell you that. Happy? Now, can we talk about something else?”

“No.” Jack crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head like his decision actually had some authority over Jill. “We’re talking about this. You are not going to that wedding, Jill.”

Jill snorted, her eyes going wide with disbelief. “Since when do you have any say in what I can and cannot do?”

“Since now,” Jack said with a firmness that should have made Jill angry but instead made her cast a curious gaze at this muscular square-jawed military man whom she’d started off thinking was a murderer, then a carjacker, and now . . . shit, what was he to her now?

“Look,” Jill said hurriedly, before her humming heart could answer that last question about what Jack was to her now. “I read about the Carmine Family online, OK? They’re not some big-time organization like you see in those old mafia movies. Besides, I’ve read that the mafia is pretty much dead in America these days.”

“You’ll be dead if you don’t listen to me,” Jack muttered, arms still crossed over his chest. “Look, the American mafia doesn’t operate like it used to in the old days. Back then protection, extortion, gambling, and maybe prostitution was what the big Mafia Families did. But that’s no longer where the money is, so the Mafia Families had to adapt. They’re all in the drug trade now, Jill. Working with Colombian and Mexican Cartels, using their own connections with dockworkers unions and customs to get drug shipments into the United States. That’s why those online articles say the mafia is dead now. It’s because they’re basically just big drug gangs now. It’s a dark world, Jill. And trust me, you need to stay far away from that world.”

Jill gulped back another wave of fear. Some part of her knew all this, but she’d locked that part of her away, told herself that loyalty was more important than safety, that she couldn’t turn her back on Nina, had to do what she could to stop that once-radiant little sunflower Nina from being totally destroyed by Bobby Carmine and his drug-infested world of violence and darkness.

A world that Jill knew already had its claws sunk deep into Nina’s soul.

“You need to let her go, Jill,” Jack was saying softly when she pulled herself together enough to listen to him again. “If Nina is a grown woman who is knowingly entering into a marriage with a drug-running thug, then you have to cut your losses and let her go. You have to know that, Jill. You’re smart enough to see it.”

Jill’s lower lip jutted out in that childish stubborn pout that used to work for her when she was a little girl but had mostly worked against her as an adult woman. Still, that stubborn streak was hard-wired into her personality, and it was being activated right now by Jack’s own stubborn declarations of authority.

“You don’t know a damn thing about me,” Jill pointed out hotly, lower lip still pouty and jutting, eyebrows rising in stubborn synchronicity as she felt her own claws digging in, holding on to the decision she’d made even though she was making it with her heart and not her head. Her heart that was heavy with guilt. “I know it isn’t the smartest thing to do, all right? But it’s not like I’m going to run in there screaming for them to stop the damn wedding, Jack. I’m just going to try to get Nina alone before the wedding. Talk to her, see if I can change her mind before it’s too late.”

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