Page 39 of Mob Bride

We head up to the bedroom, and I turn my back to him when we get in bed. He sighs, but just spoons me. I let myself doze, but I watch more minutes tick away on the clock than not. I never sleep deeply here. I didn’t trust Jacek not to kill me in my sleep. If he survives, I don’t trust him not to kill me while I’m awake. I fucked up letting him live.

Chapter Nine

Shane

She’s got a whole fuck ton of things to explain to me. Even more than before. It’s almost midnight, and she’s still at Bartlomiej’s house. I saw her go this morning. She was there for hours, then she went for a walk with four guards. I watched a car slow down, and the woman in it spoke to Carrie. I snapped a photo of the car’s plates and sent them to Finn.

Sure, we have access to the same database as law enforcement, but we have access to an entirely different one. We got a guy—fuck, that makes me sound like a Guido—who keeps tabs on stolen and fake plates we use, and we come across. He tracks who they belong to and on what vehicle we found them. It definitely wasn’t a POV—personally operated vehicle. It was definitely a government car.

It made me wonder if the woman was her new handler. I camped outside the house Carrie went to and spent four hours at. My heat seeking binoculars told me there were two women and a man inside. Carrie, the woman from the car, and a second handler is my guess. It was nice and dark with a tree with plenty of thick foliage, so I attached a camera that points at the safehouse’s driveway and garage. The average person looking up at the tree won’t spot it. It’s the camouflaged kind hunters use, but extra small. I’ll keep an eye on who comes and goes. In any situation other than this, I’d be labeled a fucking stalker.

I am a fucking stalker.

But I’m not doing it with ill-intent toward Carrie. Maybe Bartlomiej. Definitely Jacek—if the fucker isn’t dead. Last I heard, he’s in the ICU in a coma. It couldn’t happen to a more deserving piece of shite. I’m doing it for Carrie and Meredith’s safety, my family’s safety, and my apparent infatuation bordering on obsession.

I glance at my watch again. It’s twelve-thirty, and I’m exhausted. I’d rather be home, sleeping in my bed. But I’m watching Bartlomiej’s house instead. I recognized the sports car and SUV that arrived around eleven. The Armenians—Andranik—have something going on with the Poles. Drugs? Guns? Those are the two most likely. Whichever it was, now I know for certain who Bartlomiej planned to sell the bratva shipment to.

And now I know why Bogdan and Niko shot up the lumberyard. If they’d wanted Bartlomiej or Jacek dead, neither one would have left in anything but a body bag. It was a warning. Apparently, one Bartlomiej won’t heed.

There was a light on in the living room, but I couldn’t see any others while Andranik was there. The main bedroom light went on about three hours ago, but it turned off within fifteen minutes. Maybe there’re lights on in another bedroom at the back of the house, but I doubt it.

It means Carrie is not only spending the night, but she’s spending the night in bed with Bartlomiej. This is going above and beyond the call of duty. Agencies and police departments don’t expect undercover cops and agents to sleep with their marks. It might get intimate to keep up the story or to avoid harm, but having sex with a suspect isn’t the norm.

This means she’s pretending to be his girlfriend. That sparks anger in me I don’t recognize. Anger I don’t want to analyze. I wonder if she knows about the three sidepieces Bartlomiej has.

Actually, he’s only been to strip clubs in the last five or six months for meetings. Usually, he sneaks into the back at the ones he owns to fuck one of the three women he rotates through. He knows better than to fuck any of the dancers at any club the Four Families own, especially not bratva ones. The Kutsenkos and Andreyevs will castrate, then murder any man trying to turn their establishments into whorehouses. The rest of us rough the guys up, toss them out, and ban them from coming back.

Maybe he really is that into her. He hasn’t been hanging out at his regular haunts. Is she into him? Is it some kind of Stockholm Syndrome? Is she just pretending she doesn’t care for him when she’s with me?

That stirs an inexplicable rage inside me, and it only continues to grow the more I think about it. It’s really none of my business, and I should back off. I don’t want to contemplate why I’m so angry she’s spending the night with him. It’s not merely every minute she spends with him, the greater the danger she’s in.

It’s more personal than that. It’s more intimate than that.

The night passes slower than molasses in January, and the morning isn’t much better. She’s in there until nearly one o’clock when she finally goes back to her apartment. Then I’m staking out that area, too. She’s down to only two guards. I guess Bartlomiej feels more confident than he did yesterday. Or she’s convinced him to back off.

Whatever the reason, I watch her eventually slip out again close to eleven p.m. when she heads over to that house she was at last night. She drives this time, and I wonder what she did to get past the guard I’m sure waits outside her door and the one I see at her building’s front door.

The road she takes is narrow and winding. She’s not headed where I expected. This takes her toward her parents’ house. I’m not sure if that’s where she intends to go. I follow her three car lengths behind until I see it’s another meeting spot. It’s the same woman I saw in the car yesterday. I park and walk closer. Fortunately, there are plenty of trees for me to hide among. I’m light-footed as I approach, making sure I don’t inadvertently snap any branches. I can hear them speaking before I find a tree with a thick trunk to hide behind.

“I can try to find out. Nothing’s new except Bartlomiej has another meeting with Andranik in a couple days. I overheard that as I was walking past his office this morning. I don’t think he realized I’d come downstairs.”

“How do things stand between you?”

That’s exactly the question I want answered, so I’m glad this woman asked.

“We had some rough spots while we were talking the other day, but it seems to be back on course. I gave enough pushback as though I’m scared to be with him for it to be plausible. He seems to believe I’m conflicted about our relationship, and I’m not sure what I want.”

“How close did he think you were to breaking up?”

This woman is a mind reader, a fount of knowledge and wisdom about which questions to ask.

“I think he believes we were pretty damn close because when I said I didn’t want to be treated like a prisoner last night and I wanted to go home, I convinced him I only need two guards instead of four.”

“What’s the plan going forward for this week? Anything other than his meeting with Andranik?”

“Not that I know of yet, but he said he wants me to travel with him. He said we’d go on a trip in a couple days, so it makes me wonder where this meeting will be.”

That makes my stomach twist as I think about her leaving town with him and not having the protection of her fellow agents to back her up. There’s no way in hell that’s happening.

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