Page 49 of Mob Bride

“You really think Kaja is some kind of secret agent who’s been watching me? No. We’re having a rough spot right now, just like any couple would. I understand why she felt jealous and followed me. I’ve been pushing her too hard, and it’s coming back to bite me. I won’t be dealing with the Armenians the entire time I’m up there. I can try to make this an enjoyable trip for us.”

“Bartek, I’ve never known you to be such a fool as you are now.”

“Watch it, little brother. I may love you and you might be in the hospital, but my patience isn’t never-ending.”

“But your foolishness is.” Jacek is certainly pushing his luck, but this conversation makes my heart race. “Bartek, think about it. The lumberyard and then on the path. She was there when Shane was, too. He was already having a secret meeting with her. There has to be an explanation beyond coincidence.”

“And what do you believe that is? That she’s a spy for the O’Rourkes?”

“I don’t know. But Bartek, she’s the one who shot me.”

That revelation hangs in the air for a moment before Bartlomiej erupts.

“You lying sack of shit. How dare you accuse my girlfriend of that just because you don’t like her? Just because you think I pay too much attention to her. That is a horrible thing to say, and that’s a lie I cannot forgive you for.”

“And I would understand that, Bartek, if it was a lie, but it’s not. She shot me. She looked straight at me and put two bullets in me. I’m lucky I survived. I don’t think it was because she’s a shit shooter. I think she believed I would bleed out if she just left me there. Little did she know I’m more stubborn than that.”

His stubbornness is certainly not a surprise to me. It seems to fit with everything about him.

Bartek snaps at him. “I don’t believe you.”

“I can’t believe you’re turning a blind eye to the obvious.”

“Nothing about this is obvious, Jacek. You need to give me more proof than two coincidences.”

“Okay, so they were coincidences. Why did they happen so close together? In a matter of a couple weeks, she’s at two shootouts, and Shane is also at both.”

That hangs in the air, just like his original accusation did. But now Bartlomiej doesn’t have a sound explanation, and neither do I. It’s one thing for me to have seemed suspicious, and Jacek took things into his own hands. But now he’s shoving rather than pushing the argument that I have ulterior motives to what I’m doing.

How the fuck am I going to get out of this?

My mind races as fast as my heart as I try to conjure something I can say once I see him. I doubt Bartlomiej will let this matter rest since Jacek is a dog with a bone.

“Bartek, you need to have the bitch followed. Not just guards, but actual people staking out her place. I guarantee she’s slipping out at night, and I guarantee you Shane O’Rourke is up to his shit-stained ass in it.”

“How’s it possible they’re connected? What brought them together? You think she’s Irish, and the O’Rourkes sent a woman in to do a man’s job?”

“You know as well as I do, Bartek, that women make far greater spies than men. She’s a total honeypot. But no, she’s not Irish.”

I know I’m not. I’m Welsh. My mother and father both served in the British military before they retired and moved to the U.S. I may have been born here in the U.S., but I still consider myself as Welsh as I do American. I even spoke the language as a child.

“There’s some way her family’s connected to the O’Rourkes, and that’s how she wound up in all of this.”

That freezes me in my spot. If my heart was racing before, now it’s stopped. Jacek’s too close to the truth, and it terrifies me one of them will discover my mom’s connections to all of this. It may have started out as a coincidence I chose Shane’s construction site to hide at, but there’s no way they’ll believe that if they discover my mom’s the O’Rourkes’ private physician.

She’ll become just as big a target as I am. In fact, she’ll be target number one in order to manipulate me and the O’Rourkes. And if they can’t get anything out of her, then she’ll be our punishment. My mind continues to leapfrog from one plausible lie to another as the conversation continues.

“All right, Jacek, say you’re telling the truth. What now? How do we to deal with her?”

Jacek snorts. “Really? You have to ask? It’s obvious what we have to do.”

“No, I’m not killing her. I’m not killing my girlfriend. And even if she wasn’t my girlfriend, I’m not killing a woman.”

“You don’t have to. I’m more than happy to do the job for you since you can’t.”

The accusation Bartlomiej is too weak to get the job done is just as damning as Jacek claiming he’s a naive fool. Jacek isn’t wrong. No one but Bartlomiej’s brother—maybe his mother—would get away with such accusations.

“Bring me proof, Jacek. Indisputable, incontrovertible proof she’s what you say she is. Then we’ll go from there.”

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