Page 118 of Mob Bride

“You don’t look so great, Johnny.”

He forces his gaze away from Cormac to me when I speak. He comes out of his stupor as he stares at me.

“Carys, you’re so deep in the shit you’re going to come out the other side of the world.”

“Your concern warms my heart.”Jackass.

He got over his fear because now he’s being a smug asshole. Cormac clears his throat to remind Johnny the rope upon which he wobbles is fraying with each word. Cormac’s clearly not here to make friends.

“What do you want, Ramirez?”

“I came to check on Carys.”

“Liar. What do you want with my client?”

“Client? Carys, is this for real? Steve and Angela said you have an O’Rourke pretending to be your lawyer. He sounds serious.”

“Does Mr. O’Rourke look like he has a sense of humor?” Cormac looks like he eats puny federal agents for breakfast.

He crosses his arms, and his suit jacket strains across his shoulders and around his biceps. His baby face—and Seamus’s—bely how strong they are until you see moments like this when he looks like he’s about to Hulk out of his suit. Johnny sees it too. He’s sticking close to the door and doesn’t have the swagger he had when he entered.

I hear Cormac’s phone buzz. I glance toward him. I’m about to turn back to Johnny when he shows me the screen.

Dillan

It’s Shane. I’ll marry you.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Shane

This is about as good an idea as a Green Card marriage, except those can end when the person gets their Permanent Resident status. The things the feds would charge Carrie and me with have no statute of limitation, and even though it would protect us from having to testify against each other, there’re other people who’d testify. They’d see us locked up, then throw a party. But this is one of the few things I can do to help protect Carrie, so I will.

It should make her untouchable, but my family history’s proven we tend to fuck that up and ruin Christmas for the whole family. Things are getting better, though, since we’ve shown the other syndicates we’re reformed. Now that Uncle Don is gone, and that shitbag Declan didn’t get more than a blink of the eye in charge, we’ve reestablished some sense of homeostasis. Or at least created a new one that works for most of us.

It’s not the way it was back in the day when women and children were one-hundred percent off-limits, but we’re getting there. I’d say they’re ninety-six percent off-limits, which is better than the zero percent they were during Dillan’s predecessors.

If I marry Carrie and the other syndicates understand there’s no limit to what I’ll do to protect her—and that goes the same for the rest of the members of my family—then maybe there’ll be a scant number of people willing to testify against us. And those who do, know there’s a target on them. Just like those fuckers who manhandled Sean will die—just not today or tomorrow—so will anybody who dares testify against us. We’ll wait long enough for it to not be an obvious connection, and then they’ll be gone. It’ll look like natural causes. We’ve gotten very good at that.

It’s not ideal to start a marriage this way. But if I hadn’t truly believed this is where we’re heading, I never would have pursued her. I’ve known that all along, but I haven’t said it because I haven’t wanted to get my hopes up she’d feel the same way and want the same things I do. I know she suggested this out of necessity, not love. But who knows?

Maybe we’ll make it work and have a happily ever after. That or we’ll be the first couple in my family’s history to get a divorce. Not exactly the first I want to be known for. But that’s neither here nor there. We’ll make the most out of it and do what we can. That’s why I agreed to this.

I’m waiting for Dillan to get back. Then they should release me. I’ve got a new set of fingerprints on file. Not that it’s changed since I was fifteen. That was the last time I got booked for anything. It’s not like some movie where I’ve scraped off my fingerprints to leave nothing there, or somehow implanted a new set to confuse them. It’s just good ole me. What you see is what you get, at least with my fingerprints.

“Okay. Paperwork’s taken care of.”

“Am I released on my own recognizance? Do they expect me to hand over my passport?” I ask this in all seriousness, since it’s a good likelihood that’s the temporary outcome until an arraignment or a trial.

“No, they have no real probable cause, so I forced their hand. They have to cut you loose.”

“I can live with that. Where’s Carrie now?”

I sent my reply to her proposal, then Dillan took his phone when he stepped out. I don’t know what may have happened while he was dealing with my paperwork. No one’s said anything about her actually going to Central Booking.

“I texted Cormac.”

“Do you know what they’ve been asking her?”

---