Page 60 of Married to the Mafia

Mikey’s eyes narrowed.

Ramires arched up as if he were in pain, sucking in a sharp breath, arms attempting to flail.

Mikey looked down and saw Cris pressing a small, sturdy bludgeon into their captive’s knee. It must have been one of the tools that had been left behind.

“You don’t have a clear understanding of this situation, Gus,” Cris said. “We could still get you the medical help you need. You could still live through this—but only if you talk, real fast, real honest.” He dragged the heavy end of the weapon down Ramires’s shin and tapped in warning over the man’s ankle. “How ‘bout we start with the hard stuff, so the rest of this conversation gets easier? We want Coughlan. Where do we find him, and what do you know about who he keeps with him?”

Right. Mikey was upset about Brandi’s abduction, but that had only been a small piece of a larger puzzle. This was the biggest chance they’d ever had to solve that puzzle. He needed to not lose sight of that.

Ramires pulled in a breath and laughed forcefully. The sound was wet, raspy, and increasingly phlegmy, but he laughed until he couldn’t any longer. “Y-you dumb fucks,” he said, gasping for breath, “are dead. You got that?” He rolled his head to smirk sloppily at Mikey, revealing that his eyes had begun to glass over already. “Too bad … for your … bitch.” His chest deflated with the final word he’d clearly fought to push out and his pupils disappeared behind his half-mast lids.

The heart monitor screamed a moment later.

“Fuck,” Cris said. He let the tool fall to the bed and moved to silence the machine.

“Goddammit,” Mikey said with a grunt, taking a step back from the bed. “Is that really all he had in him?”

“Doc did say he didn’t have much left,” Cris replied. He faced the bed and folded his arms across his chest. “This was probably a waste of our time. I doubt he was really even aware of what we were saying.”

Mikey cursed again and turned away. “I’m going home. Call me if there’s something actually useful to do.” He had not followed Cris halfway across Newark, in the opposite direction of anywhere he remotely wanted to be, for a waste of his time.

Logically, he knew this kind of shit happened. Especially for the men who did the ugly work. He even recognized he was the one with the fraying temper. None of that understanding pacified him as he ducked back behind the wheel of his car and swung into traffic. He called Brandi from the road, the action simultaneously reminding him that she needed a proper replacement phone, too.

“Hey,” she greeted. “You can’t possibly be done already.”

“Wasn’t worth the drive,” he replied. “Where are you?” She was supposed to have gotten a ride home, but his family was always liable to have changed things on him. For that matter, so was his wife.

His chest tightened. He hadn’t thought that word would mean much to him, but he was already seeing where he’d been wrong.

“Home,” Brandi said. “Your mom stayed for a few minutes and made sure to say she loves the way the flowers brighten the place up.”

He switched lanes and thought he felt some of the tension slip away. “But she left?”

“I just stepped back inside from watching her drive out.”

Mikey drew a deliberate breath, having to make an effort not to over accelerate. “I’m five minutes away. Pick a room and wait for me.”

He thought he heard her breath hitch before she asked, “Whatever room I choose?”

“Whatever room, kitten.”

“See you soon, husband.” The line clicked and he felt his lips twist in a feral grin.

Brandi didn’t even hesitate to make her way to Mikey’s office. It was where he spent the most time, and would probably continue to do so. She wanted to leave a mark of her own, of some kind, in this space. And she couldn’t think of any better answer to that urge than marriage consummation sex.

He didn’t have a bed in the office, and they’d already fooled around on the sofa in the den more than once, but this would be different. She wasn’t entirely sure how he’d tie her up, but he’d told her only to worry about choosing the room. So that was all she was going to dwell on.

She smoothed her hands down the front of her makeshift wedding gown and let her gaze linger on the beautiful diamond shining on her finger. This feeling fluttering in her stomach was not at all what she’d expected after she’d agreed to marry Michele De Salvo. She recognized the sensation as excitement.

“Love should make you happy.” Felicity’s words from that morning whispered through her mind as she waited.

Was she happy? She wiggled the ring against her skin. It was too soon to say for sure. She’d definitely been less happy. And she sure as hell couldn’t deny her attraction. She was perched on the edge of a sofa in a half-lit office, waiting for a man who’d originally only promised her protection to arrive and hopefully fuck her senseless for crying out loud.

She heard him moments before he strode into the room, his loafers practically echoing in the hall. Her heart leaped to her chest and she found herself wondering what expression settled on her face when she drank in the sight of him. He was more or less as he’d been at the courthouse, though he’d discarded his tie and his blazer and undone the top button of his dress shirt.

The door clicked behind him as his bright, burning blue eyes locked onto hers. “Interesting choice.”

Brandi smiled. “This room still needs the most … me.”

---