Page 15 of Married to the Mafia

Mikey held his breath and counted to ten before letting himself speak. “What happened?” He gestured to her, finding himself unreasonably tempted to pull the sunglasses away from her face. “Who the fuck did this to you? Why couldn’t you call?”

Slowly, Brandi lowered her purse to the same chair and reached up, removing her sunglasses. She tucked them into the side of the bag, making sure they didn’t fall inside, and faced him. She looked like she’d been put through the ringer. Both her eyes were black, smaller bruises darkened the back of her jaw on both sides, and half her face was swollen from her nose down her cheek to her jaw.

That was just what he could see.

Mikey stepped closer without thinking. “Brandi. Tell me what fucking happened.”

She rolled her lips between her teeth for a moment, sucked in a breath, and said, “I still don’t know his name, or the name of the employer he supposedly works for. This man just … he’s just started letting himself into my condo in the middle of the night. He shuts down my security system somehow, then turns it back on when he leaves.”

“The man with the ripped earlobe?” He recalled her asking about someone the day before. He regretted not pushing her on that, more than he could have imagined.

She nodded slowly, as though the motion hurt.

Mikey swept his gaze over her. “How else has he hurt you?”

Brandi wordlessly pushed up the sleeves of her plain dress, revealing bruises on her wrists. “He hit me the one time Monday night,” she whispered, “then knocked me unconscious. It freaked me out real bad, but as far as I can tell he didn’t do anything while I was out of it.” She swallowed again. “Last night, he was pissed that I’d ditched him and he hadn’t known what I was doing. He thought I’d gone to the cops. So he was worse, and he made it clear tonight will … be worse than that.” A tear rolled down her cheek. “If I do nothing, he’s going to rape me. He might kill me when he never gets what he says he’s after. I can’t—”

Mikey cursed under his breath and, careful to avoid her bruise, caught her forearm and guided her to the sofa. He mostly kept it for when he was too tired from long nights to function without a power nap, but it was a sofa. It worked for sitting. She didn’t fight him. “Let’s back up for a second,” he managed to say. “What do you mean, ditch?”

She wiped at her face gingerly. “He’s been stalking me,” she said.

“What?”

Brandi nodded. “I first remember noticing someone following me about … a week and a half ago. I had no clue who it was, didn’t recognize the SUV, but they didn’t stop.” She drew a steadying breath. “The first time I saw him was Monday night. That was the first time he broke into my condo, that I know of.”

The erratic driving behavior from Monday and the rushed walking, hurrying to lock her doors behind her. All of it made sense. Fuck. He wanted to demand to know why she hadn’t said anything, but he bit the question back. It was unreasonable. He knew why. He wouldn’t have told her if their positions had been reversed. The logic did surprisingly little to soothe his anger.

“Do you know what he’s after? Is he stalking you purely to torment you?” If it were the latter, they could handle that tonight. She wouldn’t love the method, but it’d be done before the sun came up and a bad memory by the time the workday was done.

Frustration furrowed her brow. “He’s definitely getting off on it,” she said with a curl of her lips. “But he claims my father owes his employer money, and his employer is particular—they won’t take anyone else’s money. They want my father to pay his own debts. Which is super great, except for the part about how they’re willing to beat the shit out of me to shake it out of him.”

Mikey frowned. “Have you talked to your father?”

Brandi met his stare, her brows not moving properly over her swollen lids. “About repaying a debt? Seriously? If he hasn’t already, he doesn’t intend to. The last time I tried badgering him about paying something he owed he hit me so hard I blacked out. And when I came to, he said he’d be happy to pay that debt in my honor—but only with my life insurance payout.” She dropped her gaze to her lap. “The thing about my father is, nothing is more important to him than money in his pocket. He tends to view gambling as the possibility to gain a lot more with an impractically small investment, and that’s how his problem started. You’re smart. You know where it’s ended up.”

Mikey leaned back for a moment, needing to breathe through the intensity of his anger. He flexed his fists over his knees. “Do you have any idea who it is that’s trying to use you to pressure him now?”

“None.” Brandi traced the tips of her fingers over the edge of the smaller wrist bruise. “He’s not local,” she said. “He has some kind of accent I’m not familiar with.” She shrugged, then winced.

Mikey grunted, finding his brain hardly able to focus on the useful information. All he wanted to do was figure out a way to erase her pain.

“Oh,” she said, as if having a thought. “I don’t think he knows who you are.” She raised her gaze to him again, guilt mixing in the brown. “I had to tell him who picked me up after I lost my car, and when I said I’d called my boss he called you Michelle.”

Mikey’s lip curled on reflex. It was hardly the first time he’d heard that, sometimes from a genuine misunderstanding and often from a kid who thought they could bully him.

“Hopefully he won’t try to bother any of you. I downplayed it as much as I could.” She dragged in a breath. “I know it’s bad form, and I hate to do it, but I have to leave.”

Mikey blinked, refocusing, and found she’d shifted her stare outward in the direction of her suitcase. Of course. She was running.

“I can’t just let him do what he wants, and I know my father would….” She trailed off and fidgeted with her sleeves, rolling them back into place as if suddenly self-conscious. “If I tried to push, he’d probably shove me into my sluttiest dress and slather me in makeup and hand me over as some kind of bribe. He’s not going to save me. He’s never saved me from anything.”

I’m going to fucking kill her father. But he suspected the intensity of his anger wasn’t immediately meant for Wesley Richardson, so he kept the thought to himself. Although when he told Dante about this, he firmly believed his elder brother would jump on board.

Mikey reached out as Brandi made to stand and pressed his fingers to her shoulder just firmly enough to get her attention and keep her seated. “Wait.”

She blinked over at him, obviously surprised.

He looked into her eyes, taking in the surrounding bruises as much as the fear and the underlying determination. The woman he’d come to know was still there, she was only ducking back into a protective shell in the interest of survival. He couldn’t hold that against her. But he wouldn’t let her ruin her life because she’d been trapped with a piece of shit for a father, either. Not when he suddenly saw another way out. “There’s a way you can stay.”

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