Page 12 of Mob Bride

“I got you, boss. Don’t worry. You called me because you know I know what I’m doing.”

“Keep me posted on what you find.”

I hang up and shoot him a text with Carys’s address Sean found while he worked. The lease looks all on the up and up. There’s nothing about it to make me suspicious, but I just don’t know. It makes no sense to me why this matters so much. I keep telling myself it’s because she’s Meredith’s daughter.

I know that has to be part of it, but it really has something to do with that feisty spirit I saw. The idea anything couldextinguish that—that anyone might make her a target—makes a rage boil in me I can’t explain. It just feels so wrong.

And in a world where most people would describe everything I do as wrong, that’s saying something.

I can’t do anything until David gets in touch with me, but I’m certainly not through with Carys Pritchard.

Chapter Four

Carrie

That man is fucking gorgeous as sin, but he’s fucking insufferable.

Pretty sure that’s the second time I’ve thought it in as many days. Fucking wouldn’t let it go. He’s worse than a dog with a fucking bone. Now my happy ass—well—no—not much happy about me right now. My fucking miserable ass—is on a train headed toward Pittsburgh, which is exactly what I didn’t want.

But here I am. I’d bought the ticket just in case I needed to prove to my mom I was supposedly headed home. I should have expected Shane to still be outside the door, but clearly I’m not thinking a hundred percent straight because it shocked me to find him getting out of that car and crossing the street.

It annoyed the shit out of me when he insisted on coming to the hotel with me. Nobody is supposed to know where that is. But what choice did I have? I certainly couldn’t take him to the alternative. So, I had to use the hotel. It’s a good thing I had so little to pack there because that place is no longer safe. Now I have to set something else up as my own safe house.

Finally. Three stops out of the city, I can get off and head back into New York. I doubt he’s followed me this far, but if he has, he won’t notice me. I can slip past him.

He can take his jolly little ass all the way to Pittsburgh.

Well, no.

Fuck.

If he does, that means he knows where I supposedly live. If he knows where I supposedly live, he’s going to come knocking.

Fuck my life.

Why does this have to keep getting more and more complicated?

I exhale a deep sigh as I gather my overnight bag and climb off the train. I head into the station, keeping my head on a swivel as though I’m looking for where I’m going, which I am. But more importantly, I’m watching for whomever might follow me. I don’t expect to recognize anyone, which is what makes it all the more nerve-wracking. But I’ve got a sixth sense about these things, and I’ve been trained enough to know how to spot a person assigned as your safety detail and someone assigned to track you until they can kill you.

I don’t see either type of person—not just man—person. There are plenty of women mercenaries out there. If life takes a different direction at some point, that very well might be me.

Oh, thank God.

There’s a train in an hour. That’s not so bad. I can wait it out here in the air conditioning.

Home sweet fucking home, if you can call that the case for this apartment I’m in near Greenpoint. It’s a pleasant part of Brooklyn, and my supposed boyfriend moved me in a couplemonths ago. It’s better than the small studio I had when I initially started this assignment. I hate the idea someone is paying for me and keeping a roof over my head. That it makes me a kept woman.

But then again, the apartment I have—that I supposedly live in, in Pittsburgh—as well as the safe house hotel room—are all paid by someone else. So, I guess I’m a kept woman in one way or another.

I’m in what used to be a predominantly Polish neighborhood. Gentrification’s making it a bit too hipster for my taste. The people around here know who I am, which means it was a good thing I bought that hoodie from the train station. I know I looked ridiculous wearing it in this heat, but I needed it and the sunglasses to disguise the mess I’m in. I lock the door behind me, head straight to my bedroom, and toss my overnight bag on the end of the bed.

I try not to look at the thing when I don’t have to. The bed, not the bag. I head into my bathroom and strip off all my clothes. Oh, blessed shower. I took one last night at the safe house, but I had to put the same clothes back on. Blood and dirt and everything. My mom objected, insisted we should go back to my parents’ house where I still have a few pieces of clothing. I argued I should go to my hotel where I already had clothes. She tried to tell me Shane could get something for me from one of his sisters-in-law or his mom or someone, but I categorically refused to take anything else from him.

Thank God I didn’t. Can you imagine what he would have said or at least his expression if I walked out of the house this morning in clothes he got for me? No fucking thank you. I don’t let myself look in the mirror at my bruises until I’m clean and I feel like I can look at the world with fresh eyes.

Motherfucker.

The things I do for work. I lift my arm and try not to howl from the agony. I look at the bruises all along my right ribs. Makes it hard to breathe.

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