Page 140 of Mob Bride

He repeats himself, and I think he’s going to panic.

“Daddy, it was too much. I got lightheaded. I liked all of it, but it was just more than I could take.”

“I’m sorry,mo ghrá.”

“What does that mean?”

“My love. I should have thought about everything that’s happened over the past two days. You must be exhausted. I pushed you too hard.”

“I wanted it. I didn’t think about what happened, and how the strain might add up. I don’t regret any of this. I don’t want you to, either. I want all of it again, but maybe when I’m a little more rested.”

His expression screams reluctance. He’s doubting this dynamic. I struggle to sit up.

“Shane, I need us to be this way. You need it too. I’m not upset. I want nothing to change. Yesterday and today werenottypical days. Don’t measure our kink and how I handle it by these two days.”

He holds me like the night he carried me out of the construction site. I don’t fear falling as he moves us, so he can lean against the headboard, his legs stretched out. He grabs a pillow and tucks it under my ass, so his legs don’t feel like planks under it.

“I should have gone easier on your arse. I underestimated my strength.”

“But I know you were being careful. We’re learning each other, Daddy. Another day, and it would probably be fine. I see how guilty you feel. Just hold me. I don’t want you to look back on this part of our wedding day with the same shit memories as you will after what happened earlier today.”

His expression shutters. It’s like I just watched a mannequin replace my husband.

“Shane, what happened earlier?”

“I don’t want to tell you right now. Not on our wedding day and not when you had to safe word. But if I don’t, it’ll piss you off that I kept it from you.”

I don’t like the angle I’m trying to see him from. I shift to straddle his legs, and he moves the pillow for me to sit on. I’d rather feel his legs touching me, but my ass hurts too much. He’s being conscientious.

“It wasn’t just about the Poles who came for us. It’s who was with them.”

“Was, as in, we’re talking about something that already happened? Or was like they’re no longer alive?”

He stares at me. He won’t confess to the crime. Not because he doesn’t trust me or wants distance between us. I believe some of it comes from training. I think most of it comes from not trusting I’m really safe from law enforcement or testifying. What I don’t know, I can’t repeat.

“Who was it, Daddy?”

He’s scaring me, and he can tell. He pulls me against his chest and kisses my forehead while running his hand up and down my back. His other hand rests close enough for me to sense a hint of his touch on my ass but not actually on it to avoid hurting me.

“It was Angela,cailín. She was the one who sold you out to your bosses and to Jacek.”

“Angela? That’s—that’s not possible. How? Why? I know you wouldn’t lie to me about this, but that’s virtually impossible to believe. That’s so—that just makes her not the person I thought she was. Then again, I suppose she could say the same thing about me. I don’t necessarily have a leg to stand on for that. Why? Why would she do that to me?”

My thoughts tumble out, some incomplete and others repeat.

“Apparently her brother was involved with theCosa Nostra, and he made some bad choices about who he showed an interest in. He paid the price for that. They asked more of her family than just him for restitution. They sent her to infiltrate your investigation, and she wound up involved with Jacek.”

“Involved? You mean as in fucking involved?”

“Yes. But it seems, at least for her part, she believed there was some genuine affection with him.”

“That psychopath?”

“She loved him.”

“That says more about her than anything else.”

When he stares at me, it makes me realize he must think he’s at least a little like Jacek. It makes me a hypocrite to love himand accept the things that he does when I can look down on Angela for the things she did.

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