Page 21 of Mated into the Mob

“I’ll make an omelet. It’s about one of the few things I can cook.” The father bustled around the pristine kitchen while I stood awkwardly, my hands at my side. It was a huge room with expensive modern appliances, and from where I stood, they looked brand-new. Did Flint cook downstairs too? Nah, he probably got his staff to fill the fridge.

He hadn’t cuffed me, but I couldn’t escape with both of them in the room. Flint stood behind me, the hairs on my arms rising. I closed my eyes, willing him to walk away because I couldn’t think properly with him so close.

“Sit,” his dad insisted.

“Is this how a kidnapping plays out? You kick the guy around, lock him in the basement to stew overnight, and then lower his defenses with food?”

The dad paused as he held an egg while his son snapped, “Just be thankful we’re not starving you.”

“Oh right. I should be grateful I’m just bruised and battered and still have all my limbs.” I twisted around, bile on my breath.

His fingers curled as if he was going to wrap them around my throat and squeeze the life out of me. The seconds passed, our eyes locked on one another, his chest heaving as if he couldn’t decide whether to kill me now or wait until his dad fed me. This family was obsessed with food.

“I see what you mean.” His father chuckled.

The dad was amused when his son could have strangled me as he was cracking eggs. This was one messed-up family. I couldn’t wait to meet the rest of them, assuming they weren’t all dead, their bullet-ridden bodies lying unclaimed in some dusty morgue.

I slumped onto a stool and rested my elbows on the kitchen island. Flint left the room to answer a call, but the low mumbling suggested he was just outside the door. The murmuring subsided, and I studied the scenery beyond the kitchen window. The bushes shaped like animals appeared to be dogs, but I was interested in what lay past the lawn. More wooded land, and the security guys were out there somewhere, probably a bunch of cameras too. I searched the kitchen for a landline. There was a bulge in the dad’s hip pocket. A phone? If I could grab it and call 911, I might survive.

“How can you be okay with this lifestyle? Your son keeping me prisoner. Your husband and father-in-law were murdered.”

His dad stirred the egg mixture, but his back stiffened. “I knew your father.”

He was changing the topic. Or was he? Was he saying Antonio was murdered too? I decided to play along while trying to hear what his son was saying. More like cursing and veiled threats. Or was I imagining how mobsters talked to people? I got up and edged closer to the door. His short, sharp sentences reminded me of a gun firing.

“He was part of our extended family. He ate many meals in this kitchen, though it looked a little different back then.”

The boss was quiet, murmuring, “No,” and “Yes,” and “Not yet,” and I returned to the stool.

“Did he kill for a living too?”

Rudy placed the food on the island and grabbed a knife and fork. But his son came in just as his dad was handing me the utensils. “No knives or forks, Dad.” He rummaged in a drawer and brought out plastic ones.

I grimaced and muttered, “Go green. Get rid of the plastic.”

Rudy’s eyes darted between me and his son. “How are you going to resolve this?”

He was asking us both. I raised a hand. “You fire me because I broke the rules, and let me go home. And you never hear from me again. The end.”

“The end,” Flint repeated. Damn, not the best choice of words on my part. “Nice try, but you’re not leaving here.”

12

FLINT

But I didn’t want it to end.

What I wanted was Tony by my side as my mate, the Alpha Omega, my partner and equal. But he hated my guts. I could mark him, but he’d still hate me. I could shift and introduce him to my wolf. He’d be terrified and still hate me. Not that I’d expect him to fall into my arms after I’d kidnapped him. But I had no choice. The universe saw to that.

His alpha father was a shifter, so he had shifter blood running in his veins. Perhaps something would stir inside him when he met my beast.

You aren’t going to kill him, are you?my wolf asked.

That was a given the moment he walked into my office, though I’d refused to admit it.

No.

I had to get to the office. There were urgent matters I had to deal with, and I couldn’t deputize my brother. Another mafia pack, one with a link to a pack that had shaped my life, was stirring up trouble. But every part of me yearned to stay close to Tony. He was my mate, my heart beat for him, and there would never be anyone else but him. I was intoxicated in his presence,making me lightheaded, and imagined myself at the top of a tall mountain with little oxygen.

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