Page 68 of Shielded Secrets

Immediately, a pit of dread hallowed me from the inside out. My pulse sped up, and I resisted the growing hints of a headache that I’d been ignoring all day. Stress wasn’t kind to me lately, despite the comfort, care, and relaxation that I got from being with such an attentive lover and partner.

Something is definitely wrong.

He must have sensed me looking at him, because he got up and approached me. With swift strides, he crossed the room and faced me. “Kelly?”

“Oh, God. What is it now?”

My mind went to O’Malley. Whenever I feared the worst, I was taken back to the utter dread and horror I felt that one crucial night of my life. That cop represented the worst of me, the darkest moment of my life, and whenever I felt so confined and trapped by panic like I did now, it was a repeat of the nauseating sensation I experienced then.

“We’ve gotten word that there are officers at your old apartment. They’ve been looking for you,” Rurik said, taking my hand and holding it, “but now they are actively trying to arrest you.”

“Arrest her?” Eva blurted. “For what?”

“They want to question you about the night Marcus James was killed,” Lev said. “Because you were an employee who was there before he was killed there.”

“My God.” I rolled my eyes, reverting to that sassy, sarcastic expression as a defensive mechanism. “I wasn’t there. Lots of other people had been at the office that day and evening too!”

“We know,” Rurik said.

“I never even met Marcus James!” I exclaimed.

He nodded, not arguing with me. “We’ve been aware of their interest in you of late,” he said calmly. “And after I killed Jerome Parson, I was under the assumption that no one else would be bothering you.”

“What about Eric Benson?” Oleg said, coming up to join us. He’d been seated in a chair near the fireplace, but as always, listening in. I swore that nothing ever got past the Boss.

I frowned at him. “What about him? I’d never met him before, except when Jerome tried to kidnap me.”

“But he was open to Jerome’s idea of getting you to rat out our secrets and plans. To use you as a mole.”

“Which I never would have done, Oleg,” I reminded him.

“Yes. I know.” He nodded once. “Perhaps he’s reconsidering, though, and is using any means possible to get you to come to him. If he has you brought in, then he could have access to you.”

I shook my head.

“Unless there is something else that would make the cops interested in talking to you,” Rurik said. “Something else that hasn’t come to light yet.”

I gulped, swallowing hard because my mouth had gotten so dry. Staring into his eyes, I tried not to freak out that he was catching on, that he was sharp enough to realize I wasn’t being completely honest.

“I can sympathize and understand why you were so nervous before, Kelly. You were being followed, you were alone by choice and without family. And you were tired, overworked, and unhappy. All those things would make anyone nervous about joining a Mafia organization.”

Still, I stared at him and said not a single word.

“And asking you to be part of my family, to willingly leave a so-called normal civilian life to be in my organization, is a big adjustment to make.”

I nodded, clinging to the familiar grip of his hand engulfing mine.

“But I’ve been curious why you still seemed so guarded, almost skittish at times.” He stepped closer, brushing my hair back out of my face until he held me, stroking his thumb over my cheek. “I’ve tried to understand what you meant when you’d say you weren’t worthy or deserving of anything good.”

He was hitting so hard, so close to where my heart ached with my past. A single tear leaked from my eye, and I damned the burn of more to come.

“Kelly, what haven’t you told me?” he asked gently.

I sniffled, hanging my head. “You won’t love me.”

He sighed, wrapping me into a tight hug. Being in his arms was my safe haven, but right now, with him voicing how he’d had suspicions of me all along, I couldn’t convince myself that I should be in his arms at all.

“That’s not true. What did I tell you after our wedding? I willalwayslove you.”

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