Page 49 of Blood Money

“And now he’s causing us more trouble?”

“No, sir. We’ve just had a run of bad customers.”

“As fun as it might be, we can’t slaughter all the bad customers. It’s not good for business, and it’s not good for the family. I don’t want to have to call in any more favors because you’ve decided to become someone’s personal protector.”

I squeezed my hand into a fist, wishing I could punch something or someone. I wanted to tell Dom that nothing was more important than Liam, but he wasn’t going to listen to that.

“Stay away from the club for the next few weeks. If the death rate goes down, I’ll consider letting you go back.”

I wanted to assure him I could stay there and things would calm down, but as long as Liam was there, and there was a chance of any man even looking at him wrong, I couldn’t make that kind of a promise. I could either do as ordered or openly challenge my father. What a great fucking choice. “Who are you putting in charge in my place?”

“I thought I’d let Vito have a try. Hopefully he won’t fuck things up even more than you.”

I could handle that. Vito would keep an eye on Liam while he was at the club. There was no one I trusted more.

“Hopefully Vito will meet your standards. I’ll take two weeks off from the club, but after that I’ll be back.” With Dom, there was a fine line between giving in and holding my ground. I was teetering on it, but I wanted him to know I wasn’t taking this lightly.

“We’ll see.”

“Good night, Father.” I ended the call and slumped back against the seat. Liam had closed the door of his unit. He’d said he wanted to shower, but clearly that wasn’t going to happen here.

I hated thinking about him covered in blood and unable to wash it off. I wanted to take him home, bathe him, give him my clothes to wear, then curl up around him and hold him for the rest of the night. The Marchesi family had given me a hell of a lot, but they’d taken a lot too.

How could I leave Liam here in a fucking storage facility? If I didn’t intervene, how long could this last anyway. Liam wasn’t good at hiding or watching out for danger. Someone would report him, then where would he go?

My bed. That was the only choice, but storming in there and taking Liam now wasn’t the smart thing to do. I needed to work out a plan, one Dom would accept.

I sat there in my car, watching the door and checking the area around me. If Liam was going to stay here, someone needed to be watching him. We had cameras on the place, but they weren’t monitored around the clock like the ones at our more sensitive locations.

It wouldn’t take a lot of skill to get past the alarms and get in. I knew how quickly someone could be taken or killed. No one would respond in time if they weren’t already on the premises.

It was possible Liam’s stalker had just been after the thrill of overpowering and fucking a man he was horny for, but until I’d investigated him, I wasn’t going to count on it. I hadn’t been subtle about my desire for Liam, and I had plenty of enemies. We tried to keep them out of the club, but I couldn’t identify everyone who hated me and all their associates. Even Dom couldn’t do that.

We had a good relationship with the Irish, but if he was still working for them, did that mean the John O’Keefe Liam’s father had worked for was the John O’Keefe currently doing time for racketeering? I needed to find out.

As the hours passed, I considered what I could do without risking my father taking Pound from me permanently or sending someone else to handle Liam’s debt.

I stayed by his unit until the sun was up. I was due to check in at the office where we conducted our lending business in a few hours. I knew if I knocked on the roll-down door of Liam’s unit, it would scare the shit out of him, so I called him instead.

He didn’t answer my first call, but I called again, and this time he gave me a sleepy “hello.”

“Open the door.”

“What?” My dick reacted to the thought of him all mussed from sleep, looking drowsy and confused.

“I’m standing outside your unit. Open the door and let me in.”

“I don’t…You’re here?”

“Yes.”

Seconds passed, then the door began to roll up.

I bent to step under it and was hit with a wall of heat. How the hell had he slept in here? I saw that he had a fan, but it wasn’t running.

“Fuck, Liam. You’re going to suffocate in here. Go get in my car.”

“I’m not dressed.”

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