Page 99 of Mob Bride

Shane’s gaze meets mine. “That explains how easily you kept up with me when we ran and why you went for those runs every morning.”

I shoot him a glare, warning him not to say more. The last thing I need is my parents discovering I ran those trails to keep my endurance up for situations like the lumberyard.

“Since I took French and Spanish in school, I learned Italian on my own fairly easily. With blue eyes and fair skin that tans, I can pass for northern Italian. The agency sent me undercover in Chicago.”

My mom’s incredulous. “I remember when you said you were going to Italy for a few weeks with friends about a year-and-a-half after you got the job.”

“I didn’t exactly go to Italy, the country, but Little Italy, Chicago. I was undercover for those two weeks and helped do a big bust.”

“Was that with the Grassos?”

“Yeah. How’d you—” I don’t bother finishing. I just nod instead. All the guys must have done the math and worked backwards until they realized who I meant.

“Mostly, it was one small thing after another around here. A lot of times, I wore a hat and sunglasses or a hoodie or something else to keep my appearance from being obvious. I did a major undercover job three years ago when I went to Boston.”

I sense Shane’s anger. I nearly died at the bust because a warehouse exploded. He knows about that, but he won’t say anything for my parents’ sake.

“Mom, Dad, when I told you I went to LA for some training two years ago, it was to infiltrate the Italians out there.”

I’m getting to the part of the story Shane already knows, and I sense some of his anxiousness recedes because he knows what’s coming.

“Once that sting was over, the bratva down here popped onto our radar even more than any of you guys usually do. We knew we needed somebody in with the leading family, but it was impossible. Since all the men in the Kutsenko and Andreyev family are already married and would never let their eyes wander, we realized infiltrating them directly was impossible.Trying to become friends with the wives would’ve been futile. They’re all too intelligent and wary not to figure it out.”

Shane’s steely tone is the one I heard so many times when we first got to know each other, and he objected to just about everything about me. I guess he isn’t as at ease as I thought.

“Because Bartlomiej and Jacek have been doing more deals with the bratva lately to make up for something that happened, you figured they would be an organization you could plausibly enter without too many questions and still get closer to the bratva.”

I wish my parents knew as much as Shane and his family, so I wouldn’t have to explain all my lies. Hell, I wouldn’t have lied at all.

“Yes. I took time and went to the Department of Defense’s Language Institute in Monterey and was in an immersive program there to learn Polish. That was when I told you they sent me back to the L.A. office for nearly eight months to put me on special assignment for some analysis work. After that lie, I lied and said the agency transferred me to Pittsburgh. I’ve been undercover with the Nowakowskis almost the entire time I was supposed to be there.”

I lean into Shane as I watch my parents’ expressions. He wraps his arm around my shoulders and offers me some comfort without looking possessive or overprotective. I want him to be exactly that, but I don’t want my parents to misunderstand and think he’ll keep me from them. I lean my head against his shoulder. I sense Shane looking down at me. I close my eyes for a moment before I open them filled with tears.

“I’ve lied to you both so many times because of this job, and I regret it. Not just because of what’s going on now, but also because that’s not the way you raised me. You didn’t raise me to be such an easy liar.”

Mom smiles, but there’s obvious sadness in her gaze. “Carys, we’ve kept my connections to the O’Rourkes from you your entire life. I never even hinted I knew anything about their family, let alone about the mob or being a doctor to mobsters. If I’d realized just how involved your job was with organized crime, I wouldn’t have stayed on as their physician. I endangered you and your career by allowing you to go undercover when I’m so connected to the O’Rourkes.”

“You didn’t let me go undercover. You didn’t know.”

Mom nods. “I still regret I never told you once we knew your interest in the DEA.”

I ask what I’ve wanted to know since the night I met Shane and discovered my mom’s connection to the mob. “How did you wind up as their doctor?”

She looks at Shane, and I shift my focus to see his face as he nods.

“I met the boys’ grandfather when most of them were still in middle school. Dillan and Finn had just started high school. When Liam O’Rourke collapsed outside the hospital from a gunshot wound, I was just coming in to work and recognized him from a newspaper article. I knew right away whatever got him shot wasn’t going away. Maybe whoever put the bullet in him died, but the reason for it hadn’t. I didn’t want to be the one who called the police because that’s what happens with GSWs. However, someone had to. I didn’t lie because I didn’t know enough to have anything to hide. But I made sure nobody called until after he came out of surgery.”

Gunshot wounds aren’t something most orthopedic surgeons face. I don’t know how she kept it from the police for so long since she doesn’t work in the ER, and removing a bullet isn’t a surgery she’d perform—at least, not at her regular job—since becoming a civilian. I don’t ask because I don’t think I want to know. I listen instead.

“I met Donovan, Colin, and Declan when they came to see him. They wanted to discharge him the same day. I found out from the surgeon when I went to see Liam. I advised against that course of action because he was still too unstable to move. I told him about my experiences as a doctor with the British Royal Navy and how I’d seen too many people die from a GSW even after they removed the bullet. Once he heard that, it intrigued him, and he asked more questions about my work and my experience. I knew why he was asking and what he was getting at.”

Her lips flatten before they turn down just like they did when I was a kid, and I did something she didn’t approve of.

“I had no interest in working for the O’Rourkes. However, if it got out I was the doctor who delayed calling the police over his wounds—that I’d basically shielded him—it wouldn’t be safe for me. Liam felt indebted to me for me protecting him, so he assigned me bodyguards. I got to know the guys. Eventually, it didn’t seem so bad to work for him as a private physician, so I joined the payroll.”

She offers Shane, Sean, and Cormac a fond smile that’s far warmer than earlier.

“It didn’t take long for Liam to realize I have a way with you guys that his other doctor didn’t. As you all went on more missions and the teams grew, there were more wounds to tend. I became the primary private doctor for your family. I continued my regular job but cut down on my hours. I never told you that, Carys, and we never really discussed how we paid for your college. We just told you we saved. What we never told you was we saved the money the O’Rourkes paid me. That’s how we put you through college. It’s also funding our retirement when we scale back for real.”

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