Page 49 of Twisted Vows

I pull my phone out of my pocket. As the top of the hour rolls over, my wife picks up the phone and speaks. She didn’t dial out, which means she answered a call. A soft smile ghosts across her lips before she checks her surroundings again and ducks her head so the counter hides her face.

I grit my teeth as jealousy and suspicion roar through me. She’s never smiled at me like that, but I yearn to own all her happy moments.

The phone calls lasts for only a few minutes, but each passing second increases my doubt and fury.

A boy—much younger than Tristan—pulls away from his mother and darts after a cat as the tabby disappears into the alley behind me. I snuff my cigarette on the brick building and catch the boy as he runs past me.

His mother, less than four steps behind him, yells his name and skids to a stop. After apologizing a million times, the womanthanks me and props the angry little boy on her hip before stomping away. Her loud admonishments earn her glares from other pedestrians, but she continues to correct her son as though they don’t exist.

The way she pays them no mind reminds me of Mia.

I can picture Mia doing the same thing this woman did.

Yearning floods my soul. Ever since I denounced my family and came to New York City, the dangers surrounding me made getting close to a woman too risky, but now with Mia Rivera relying on my protection, I can’t help but want things I shouldn’t. She’d look damn appealing pregnant. Her hips are already to die for, but with her belly rounder and her hips wider from my baby growing in her womb, she’d have me walking around with a hard-on all day, every day.

When the man smoking next to me makes a lewd comment about the mother admonishing her son, I send him a warning glance before starting down the sidewalk.

Unable to leave the area even though I should go check out Narciso’s hideout, I slip into the next store and browse the shelves for a while, keeping the emergency room in view as much as possible without garnishing attention. After buying a pack of gum, I continue my surveillance of my woman on the streets until the sun goes down. With fewer people wandering around, I slip into the shadows and force my feet away from the hospital, only for a sense of dread to sprout in my chest.

With my senses on high alert, I cross the road and turn back toward the emergency department. The hairs on my nape stand on end.

I glimpse Narciso’s familiar profile in the crowd, but he pushes between two people and I lose sight of him. Even though he’s in street clothes, I’d recognize him anywhere.

He came back to hurt my woman. I thought he’d stay holed up in his hideout for a few more days, but his injuries must not have been as severe as I’d hoped.

I stalk forward and find Narciso as he crosses to the far side of the road. He gives a furtive glance behind him, recognition in his eyes, but not toward me.

I follow his gaze and curse under my breath as ice infects my veins.

A man I thought I’d never see again lurks in the alley near the side entrance of the emergency room. He doesn’t hide his appearance, which leads me to believe he doesn’t expect anyone to know who he is.

For a moment, I wonder how he found me, but then I realize his eyes never leave Mia as she rushes out to meet the ambulance.

Destin, my brother’s third best soldier, tosses his lighter in the air and catches it as though considering smoking a cigarette despite being illegally close to the emergency room entrance.

Mia’s voice rings clear despite the noise of the city as the patient goes into cardiac arrest. She jumps on top of the stretcher and begins chest compressions on a man easily three times her size.

I peel my attention away from her and try to make sense of Destin’s fixation. Understanding clicks into place as Narciso glares at Destin over the top of the cab he hailed before dropping inside.

Either Narciso himself or the mastermind behind his attacks led my brother’s man here. Narciso didn’t realize he had a tail before it was too late, and now that he’s shown interest in a nurse working at a small, twenty-four-hour emergency room, Destin believes Mia has information she shouldn’t.

I need to find out how and why Narciso is involved with my brother, and I need to find out now. Tonight. Before Destin can make a bigger mess.

I cross the road and slip deeper into the shadows, trying to read Destin’s next move. When he saunters over to the smoking area I visited earlier and continues checking the hospital doors, fury pulses through every cell in my body.

He plans to hurt my wife.

Mia clocks out almost twenty minutes early, but she stays behind the counter chatting with her coworker as she waits for my text. Even though I know her obedience stems from necessity—the last time she walked home alone in the dark, I kidnapped her, and now she knows someone crueler than me is lurking somewhere—delight arrows down my spine.

Destin sinks into the shadows and trails behind a group of drunkards, but his attention never wavers from Mia. I send her instructions via text, and after reading them, she says goodbye to the nurse behind the counter and swings her bag over her shoulder.

She steps through the double glass doors and turns in the direction I told her to, even though it heads away from her apartment. The tension in her shoulders as she hurries down the street triples my fury, but I vow he won’t lay a single finger on her. Turning off my humanity, I sink into my ruthless killer persona and track Destin through the streets.

After a detour around the block, he positions himself at the mouth of the alley before Mia passes by, unaware of my presence behind him. I wait. His body tenses in anticipation. The toe of Mia’s new shoe lands on the pavement at the corner of the building. He leans forward.

I lunge the distance between us and lock his throat in the crook of my arm. Trapped in my chokehold, the idiot barely reacts before I restrict the blood to his head and knock him out.I shove him to the ground, enjoying the cracking of his head against the concrete, and cram a piece of garbage too big for him to swallow into his mouth before pulling a rope from my pocket and tying it around his face. I add a plastic shopping bag over the top of his head, leaving a tiny hole near his nose, and secure more rope over the top. Despite my instinctual urge to check on Mia first, I cuff his ankles together, pull his arms behind his back, and loop his wrist cuffs around his ankle chain, effectively hog-tying him.

I rise from the darkness and stalk to my woman. Too smart to stand under the streetlamp, she hovers in the shadows on the other side of the mouth of the alley. The hard glint in her eyes as she glances behind me shows me she’s in fighting form despite the long grueling hours at work, but I’ve waited too long to taste her, so I weave my hand into her hair, pull her to me, and steal a kiss. Despite her initial resistance, she responds as I devour her mouth, stroking her tongue over mine and nipping me. I drop my forehead to hers and tighten my grip on her hip.

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