Page 17 of Mob Bride

“That may be true, but I can blame him for taking matters into his own hands. He waited until I was gone to do something about his mistrust.”

“I appreciate you want to come to my rescue, but you must be exhausted after your trip. You were gone for three days. I had no idea where you were. I was so worried about you.”

“Worried I wouldn’t come home to deal with Jacek?” He cocks an eyebrow.

I feign hurt and look away. Tears welling in my eyes again. This I have to force. I whisper to him, refusing to look at him when he tries to nudge my chin toward him.

“How can you say something so horrible? If that were true, after this happened, don’t you think I would have fled? Do you really think I would have come here the next morning looking for you, terrified of facing Jacek again? Think what would have happened if your men hadn’t been here, and I’d found him seated at your desk. He could have trapped me in the house, done anything to me. You wouldn’t find my body. There’d be too many pieces if he even left that much.”

“Kaja, you exaggerate.”

“That’s not exaggerating, Bartlomiej. That’s exactly what he told me. I know what kind of man he is. Why should I believe anything other than what he tells me?”

Bartlomiej stares at me and nods slowly. He knows I speak the truth. “Stay here,ksiezniczka. Rest. Text me if you need anything.”

He moves to stand up, but I squeeze his hand. “You’re leaving me already?”

He stares at me once again and shakes his head. He gets up, and I reach for him. He kisses my forehead like he did before and walks around to the other side of the bed. He kicks off his shoes and lies down next to me. Again, he’s shockingly gentle as he draws me against him.

He’s a handsome man. He’s got a good body. He knows what he’s doing with his fingers and tongue. If only he weren’t who he was. Not just my mark, but a bona fide sociopath.

That makes me think of Shane. He’s the same kind of man as Bartlomiej in far too many ways. But I didn’t recoil inside when I saw him or when he touched me. Bartlomiej’s being just as gentle as Shane was. That was completely different. I have no reason to believe that since they’re both mobsters, but it was.

Bartlomiej strokes my hair, and it tempts me to fall asleep since I’m still so tired. I’ll allow him to think I’m dozing. I feel him reach into his pocket and pull out his phone. He lets go of me, easing his arm out from under me, checking to make sure I’m still asleep.

Then I know he’s texting. I open my eyes just a slit. Not enough for him to tell I can see out from under my lashes. I’m well practiced at this since this is about as much as I could open my eyes for the past three days. I can see his phone screen. It’s a burner.

Bartlomiej

It was a success. The shipment’s coming in on Tuesday. The handover is Wednesday morning at three. I want all the men there. I don’t trust Bogdan.

I keep my breathing even while my pulse races. This is the type of information I need, but I don’t know what kind of shipment it is. That just leaves me wondering, who’s going to claim it?

Chapter Five

Shane

It’s been ten days since I found Carys on my build site. Coincidentally—unfortunately—I needed Meredith to give me six stitches in my right forearm yesterday after a not so fun altercation with Lorenzo Mancinelli. The arsehole sliced me with his knife. In all fairness, that was after I shot so close to his shoulder the bullet singed his suit coat. I missed on purpose. He got me on purpose. There wouldn’t have been a problem if he’d stayed in Queens with his wife and baby like he was supposed to instead of going to Brooklyn to collect rent money from a shop owner we’re extorting.

Enzo, a dad? Hell hath frozen over. No one even knew his wife, Michelle, was pregnant until she was like seven-and-a-half months. She works from their home a lot, and she and Enzo are the biggest homebodies in their family, which is surprising since he owns restaurants and nightclubs.

The stitches meant I had a reasonable excuse to ask Meredith about Carys. It would have been a dick move not to. I’ve still heard little from David, which is odd. He shot me a text last night. Three words: working on it.

Meredith chewed my arse because she knows I assigned a protection detail to her. They’re discreet, so we all know no one’s aware they’re there when she’s at work. But she spotted them immediately. She claimed I was overreacting, and that I was wasting money paying the men to babysit her.

I told her she wasn’t my mother, so I didn’t have to listen to her. That resulted in me getting a shot of painkiller in the arse—through my suit pants when she dropped a pack of butterfly stitches on purpose, and I bent to grab it. Hardly sterile, but she knew I’d survive. Needless to say, I remembered what my mom told me when I was twelve, and Meredith sewed me up for the first time. “Listen to her like she’s me because you don’t want me being the one coming at you with a needle and thread.”

I still didn’t call off the detail, but I admitted I set it up. I dropped it down to two men while she was at work, and two guys in separate cars at opposite ends of her street at night. I compromised and agreed to end it in two weeks if nothing happened.

Frankly, face-to-face, most syndicate men would back down if they had to stand before Meredith’s withering stare. It’s one she perfected after twenty years as a British Royal Navy surgeon—she started specializing in orthopedics after she got out. But a bullet is a bullet, as I proved to Enzo’s suit coat. Fucker owes me one for the unrepairable rip in my coat’s sleeve.

I wove in questions about Carys while we argued, pointing out her daughter would never forgive herself if something happened to Meredith because she’d shown up not knowing it was her daughter who needed help. I asked how Carys would react to her mom declining the detail. I asked if she wouldn’t expect me to do the same for Carys if she lived in the city.

When I asked about Jesse—thinking I was sly—she looked me straight in the eye before her gaze darted to the gun still holstered under my arm, then back up to my eyes. I didn’treact, but we understood each other. She’d just put a hit on her daughter’s ex-boyfriend.

I didn’t tell her what Sean and I found with the photos. They were fake pics, and Sean’s found nothing about a guy named Jesse. Meredith had little to offer on her end since she hadn’t met the last two guys Carys dated. She suspected Carys had been involved with someone in Pittsburgh, but—typically British—she doesn’t discuss her daughter’s dating life.

“David?” It’s an odd time for him to call, but at least there’s no one around to overhear us.

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