Page 3 of Twisted Obsession

Of course, if things go south, there’s no prize for guessing who’s first in line to take the fall. The top guys always manage to slip the shit—even the fucking Viper, despite his reputation. They’re the ones with the money and the power. The small guys, the soldiers and associates, they can often squirm out of trouble since they aren’t that high on the food chain. They might do a little time, but nothing major. Which means it’s my neck on the line—mine and Kaiden’s. I swear that’s all Vito keeps the guy around for. There’s certainly no love lost between them.

All in all, I don’t blame Mika for asking me to keep an eye on Vito. This is his legacy, and his uncle seems to be going out of his way to fuck it all up. All while Mika himself is trying to claw the organization into the twenty-first century.

It’s a badly kept secret—at least among the higher echelon—that Mika despises some of the stakes Vito has talked Sal into backing. The skin trade especially. I don’t blame him. That kind of thing is archaic. And if there’s one thing that’ll take an organization down, the one thing the authorities areless inclined to turn a blind eye to, it’s people smuggling and enforced prostitution.

I’m startled out of my reverie by hammering on my door. I’m about to yank it open when I remember I’m not supposed to be a party to whatever is going down, so instead I shout, “Just a minute,” before stripping off my t-shirt, so it looks like I’ve just climbed out of bed.

I open the door to find a hard-faced Mika and glowering Vito. Never a good combination. “What’s up, boss?” I ask, seemingly at Vito, but quickly flicking my eyes towards my cousin.

“Gotta job for you,” Vito spits, clearly furious. “Need you to guard someone for me.”

From behind his back, Mika gives me the barest nod, and I can read between the lines enough to guess Mika’s maneuvered Vito into this situation but has been wily enough to let Vito think it was his own idea.

“Sure thing, boss. Just give me the deets.”

Vito is happy enough that he throws Mika a smug smile before turning back to me. “There’s a woman in my room,” he tells me, and I keep my face carefully blank. “She’ll be staying a while. Find her somewhere in…”

“In the main compound,” Mika interjects, and Vito thins his lips, even though the main compound is, ostensibly, neutral ground for both of them, since they each inhabit their own wing of this massive complex.

The Viper opens his mouth to argue, but Mika cuts him off. “You got your choice of guard. The girl stays elsewhere. You want her here, it’ll be under one ofmycapos.”

A low growl emanates from Vito’s throat, but he accepts the deal. “You find her somewhere suitable and stay with her unless you’re needed for a job,” he tells me, and I wonder if he thinks Mika might just let her go… which is entirely plausible. I know damn well my cousin is far from comfortable with this turn of events. Having the Maguire girl here is tantamount to declaring war, so we all need to tread carefully.

“Dominic, fetch the girl now and get her situated,” Mika tells me before turning his attention back to his uncle. “Vito, we’ll talk this over with my father first thing in the morning.”

I leave them to their differences and slip away to save the poor girl from whatever the Viper had planned for her. She might not know it, but Roisin Maguire has had a lucky escape.

Chapter

Three

ROISIN

My head feels like it’s stuffed full of cotton wool, and I have the sensation of flying.

At first, I think I’m half-dreaming, half-waking from a particularly deep sleep, but then my memory kicks in, and I start kicking and struggling in an effort to get away.

Well, in my head I’m kicking and struggling. In reality, I’m lethargic and slow, and couldn’t knock the skin off a rice pudding.

“Shh… don’t worry, you’re safe. Well, as safe as I can keep you, anyway,” a deep male voice tells me.

The unexpected words cause me to still my pathetic attempts to break free from the strong arms that are carrying me as if I weigh no more than a feather. Maybe that was his plan.

I look up into a pair of dark, fathomless eyes that feel like they’re pinning me in place with just the sharp intensity of his gaze. Fora few moments, confusion sets in. This isn’t one of the men who captured and chloroformed me.

I might have been his little princess, but Da made sure I understood the dangers of the world around me. One of the first lessons, when I was still a child, was if anyone tried to use an airborne substance to knock me out, I should feign unconsciousness immediately, then use the advantage of surprise to get away before I was put into a vehicle.

Of course, while it works great in theory, in practice, two burly thugs will almost always have the upper hand.

The second was to catalog as many details as you could. And that’s what I did.

As much as I want to fight, my head is pounding, and I feel like I want to throw up. My mouth feels like all the moisture has been sucked out of it, and for a few pitiful seconds of utter patheticness, I close my eyes and burrow into the surprising comfort of the solid, sheltered chest of the man who is carrying me.

Just for a minute, I promise myself. Just until I get my equilibrium back and can make another effort to extract myself from whatever hell I’ve tumbled into.

Of course, I never get the chance. Before I’m ready, I find myself set carefully on a bed, and I blink open my eyes to find myself in a lavish room which I nevertheless know is a prison.

“I need you to listen to me, Roisin.” My unlikely protector come jailor calls me by name, so I know this isn’t some random abduction. I suppose I should feel scared, but I simply don’t have it in me right now to do anything but listen.

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