Page 49 of Mob Star

I want to sigh and run my hand through my hair. Instead, I tighten my arms around her hips.

“I live with constant threats, so yes, I’m always in danger. But I still go about my life like I don’t. I just take precautions. There was a creed among the families that women and children were off limits. My family broke it. No one living did it by choice. The men responsible for that are dead. But it’s changed the rules. The best I can answer your last questions is possibly. If I believed with certainty that you’d be a target, I would never have come near you. I’m selfish in bringing you anywhere near me. I’m selfish to know I’ll lie to you and want you to accept that. I also know I don’t want either of us to walk away.”

“Maria. Her family is one of those families, right?”

“Yes.”

She sits contemplatively, and I have no idea what’s on her mind. I give her time to work through whatever she’s thinking.

“I know she has bodyguards with her, even at work, but I assumed it was because her family is uber wealthy.”

“They are.”

She looks toward the privacy screen with my driver/bodyguard on the other side. “You are too.”

“We are.”

I still don’t want to push her. But I’m desperate to know what’s going through her head. She hasn’t hopped off my lap or demanded we stop. She got into the car with me.

“She goes to work and clearly goes out on double dates with her cousin. If I didn’t now know who her family is, I would have assumed they were just two well-off Manhattanite couples. Totally normal.”

“In many ways, they are.”

Except Carmine and Matteo have both tried to kill me, and I’ve gotten even closer to killing them. Four times.

“We’re doing something totally normal, too. I mean, ax throwing isn’t one-hundred percent normal, but we’re having a normal date. We did last time, too.”

“I want us to.” There’s nothing I want more right now.

She leans against me, her head against my chest. I rest one hand on her arse while the other runs up and down her back.

“What do I do if something goes wrong? Like if you have to shoot someone, or they’re shooting at us?”

“You get away as fast as you can. I don’t care if you think I’ve lost a speck of blood or gallons of it. You do not try to save me. You get somewhere crowded where you can blend in, or you go to McGinty’s. As you get to know other members of my family, you’ll know where to go if you’re near enough. If you have to hide, my family will come and get you. Either way, they will protect you. Always.”

And they will. The guys haven’t given me as much shite as we gave Dillan when he was into Mair, but not yet dating. They know I have a far lower threshold for teasing. It’s not that I’m thin-skinned. I just won’t tolerate it. I’ll walk away or hang up. They know I won’t put up with a single thing that might be a jab at me that comes at Thea’s expense.

“Could I get arrested for dating you?”

I don’t want to tell her what happened to Mair. “It’s possible. But it’s very unlikely. The cops and feds know we don’t involve women in the business. It’s patriarchal. It’s archaic. It’s misogynistic. And we won’t have it any other way. All of us were born into this. No one in my generation or my parents’ asked to enter a syndicate. The legacy that’s passed down should only be the men’s burden since we created it.”

“But they could go after me to get to you.”

“Yes.”

She nods against my chest. “Am I going to find a lot of scars?”

“I have more than I’d like. I know you’ll recognize I’ve been shot before. You’ll see some that you can likely guess came from a knife. We have a family doctor. Short of a ruptured organ or paralysis, we do not go to hospitals. Our doctor stitches us up.”

“Because GSWs and stabbings require the hospital staff to call the police.”

“Which leads to questions none of us will answer. Can you accept this?”

When she pulls the hand away from her arse, my heart tightens. I don’t expect her to guide it beneath her dress, up her thigh, and to her pussy. She’s so fucking wet.

“Have you been like this for me all night, cailín? I notice your panties disappeared.”

“Yes, and they did.”

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