Page 60 of Mob Bride

I glance at Carrie again. She’s listening attentively. I see sympathy, not fear, in her eyes.

“There are things I will do—things I’ve already done—that make me the same monster as Bartlomiej. I can’t pretend otherwise. I don’t enjoy the things that I do. I don’t get the satisfaction out of it Jacek does, but they are my responsibility to do. Sometimes I’ll lie to you. I’ll look you right in the eye and tell you something so far from the truth you won’t be able to guess what’s really going on. There are other times when I’ll lie by omission. I just won’t tell you what’s happening. I have to do this in order to protect you, my family, and the men who depend upon us. It’s not just those men who depend upon us during missions. It’s their families, too. It’s the entire community that depends on my family to provide for them.”

She rests her hand on my thigh as I speak. The weight’s reassuring. It offers me the same silent strength I hope she got from me when I put my arm around her shoulders earlier.

“I’ll disappear at times. I’ll always do my best to tell you when I’ll leave, but I don’t always know how long I’ll be away. Sometimes I’ll still be in New York, other times I could be halfway across the world. I’ll always ensure you have extra protection when I’m gone. That means a member of my family.”

I know that surprises her because her fingers flex against my leg. But she lets me continue. I think she senses I need to get all of this off my chest in one fell swoop, or I’ll clam up.

“Right now, I’ll have regular guards outside my place, but if we go anywhere, someone from my family will be with us. If you have to go anywhere without me, at least two of the guys at Dillan’s house will be with you. Family means people I share direct DNA with. Three sisters married three brothers, and among them, they had six sons. So, my brothers and Dillan, Seamus, and Cormac. If they’re not available, then it could be my dad or my uncles. No one beyond one degree of separation is good enough. I don’t trust anyone else to protect you how they can. Nobody else but them will understand what it means to me to keep you safe.”

We’re at another light. I watch her as I speak. At first, there were varying degrees of shock, fear, and dismay as I told her as much of the truth as I can. Then I saw the sympathy. Now—it feels like resignation rather than relief.

“Carrie, these are things you must accept if there’s any chance for us. I know it’s hypocritical to expect you to make these changes, while I can make none. It hypocritical I’ll expect you to tell me the truth about anything that could pose a threat to you when I’ll hide everything. But this is the way it’ll have to be. Do you think you can live with that?”

I finally invite her opinion. I’ve unleashed too much because she remains silent, and that’s more unnerving than it would be if she argued with me or even shared her thoughts. I don’t press her, and we ride in silence for the twenty minutes it takes us to cross this part of Queens. We’re almost to my place before she breaks her silence.

“What happens if you have to be gone for several days, and something goes wrong? How would I get in touch with you if I don’t know where you are?”

“It’s rare all of us are gone for several days at a time. But if that happens, I’d want you to stay with my mom and dad.”

“Stay with your parents? You’re just going to have a random woman show up at their door and dump her there?”

“Carrie, you are not some random woman. You know that. You know you mean far more to me than that. I would hope I mean more to you than just being some random guy.”

“You do, but it’s different between us than it would be with your parents. They can’t just have an unwelcome and unplanned houseguest.”

“You wouldn’t be unwelcomed or unplanned. I’d speak to them and let them know what’s going on. My dad would already be privy to whatever’s taking me away. They’d want it this way. Carrie, they’d want you to come to them, so they can keep you safe too. You saw the home Dillan lives in. Our parents and aunts and uncles live nearby. They’re either in the same neighborhood or the one next to it. Dillan’s sits on the corner that adjoins the two the Four Families have basically commandeered. They have an enormous house to accommodate plenty of guests. You wouldn’t be any sort of imposition to them. Just the opposite. I’m certain it would mean a great deal to them to know you trust them enough to stay with them when I can’t be with you.”

“Shane, I don’t know about all this. It’s a lot to take in when—just this morning—I thought I was still undercover.”

“I understand. It certainly makes for a lot of choices, and I’ll give you all the time I can to think about that,cailín. But at some point, you must decide.”

It’s definitely resignation in her tone. “I know.”

“I won’t rush you. You can stay with me for as long as you need. I have more than enough room for you to hang out and not feel like I’m crowding you.”

That makes her fall silent again. I don’t know what her wishes are as far as any type of intimate relations we could have while she’s at my place. I don’t want to assume too much.Obviously, I wouldn’t turn her down, but I also won’t push the issue.

Something else comes to mind, though, as we get closer to my place. “Carrie, how’d the bratva even come to be on your radar? You said they’re your ultimate target.”

She hesitates before she admits another secret. “We have somebody in the Cartel who told us about it. They heard from Enrique the bratva was making plans.”

I’m unsurprised it came from another syndicate and that it was misdirection, but that’s something I keep from her. She’s on a need-to-know basis, and I’m not sure yet what that includes. Until I have a better idea, it’s that hypocrisy making me keep secrets when I expect her to divulge everything.

I know the mole in the Cartel isn’t one of ours, so it makes me wonder whether it’s bratva or Mafia. My assumption would be not bratva, but with the Kutsenkos, who the fuck knows what they have going on and how they’re trying to double-cross someone else. It wouldn’t surprise me entirely if they had a mole sending information to the feds to get them to come after them in order to throw somebody else under the bus first.

We’re all that conniving. It used to be people only believed Dillan was the logistical and strategic mastermind, but it’s become obvious that while he’s the best at it, no one in the families lacks intelligence. People who see us think we’re all muscle-bound idiots or maybe trust fund babies. Most people don’t realize we’re all either Ivy League or Top Tier educated.

Most of us have some type of graduate degree, too. There’re doctors and lawyers among the families, and within the men, there are several lawyers. Seamus, Cormac, and Dillan are the ones in our family, even though Dillan doesn’t get to practice anymore. There’s not a dumb dud in the bunch.

I’m going to have to dig further to find out who’s the narc.

“Shane, what should I tell my handlers? I have to say something, but what’s that going to be?”

“That’s a good question. I don’t have an answer for that right away, but it’s going to have to be something that keeps them pointed toward Bartlomiej, while?—”

“Wait, Shane. Misha saved me. I don’t know that I can actually turn them in after all.”

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