Page 86 of Stolen Mafia Vows
For not asking Terry’s permission to marry his daughter.
For not insisting that she go back and check on Sienna.
For hiding the truth about Ruairi and my father’s trip to New York.
For not stopping her from walking away. She was right in front of me, and I let her go because I believed that was what she wanted. When deep down, I know that she feels the same way about me as I feel about her.
I hug the punchbag, my eyes scrunched tightly shut, my heart thudding against it, a reminder that I deserve to have my anger directed at myself. Once Emily is safely back where she belongs, with me, I’ll prove to her that I’m worthy of her love, and I’ll never let her go again.
I grab a towel and wrap it around my neck, wiping my face dry. Then I take a bottle of water from the refrigerator and stand outside the back of the safehouse overlooking the compact garden, concealed from the rest of the world by tall trees and a razor-wire topped wall.
This war might be fake, a distraction for Emily’s captors, but the real battle is yet to begin. Terry’s forgiveness will be more difficult to earn. But I’ll do whatever it takes.
Then, if Emily decides that she wants to open her animal sanctuary in Nepal, or India, or Greenland, I’ll renounce this way of life in a heartbeat. Kyle and Caleb must be braver than I am. I can’t bear the thought of bringing my children into a world where we speak with bullets, and the threat of abduction is around every blind corner.
I want my children to run down to the beach with the wind snatching their hair. I want them to ride horses, climb trees, and have picnics, dribbling strawberry juice down their chins and licking chocolate from their fingers. Idon’twantthem to grow up knowing that they can’t go anywhere without a bodyguard. Or being told that if they felt like they were being stalked, they probably were.
Back inside, I open my tablet to an incoming Facetime call.
“Uncle Donal?
My uncle’s craggy face appears on the screen. The creases across his forehead are paler than the rest of his weather-exposed face, but his eyes are still clear blue. The gold filling in his front tooth is, as always, the first thing that catches my eye. When I was younger, I couldn’t see the resemblance between Uncle Donal and his sister, my mom, but now the hole in my chest opens wide whenever I see him.
“Emily is alive.”
My heart lurches sickeningly against my rib cage. “You’ve seen her?”
“Aye. Liam hacked into the CCTV footage surrounding the bratva fortress.”
Liam’s face appears beside my uncle’s. “You asked, I delivered.”
Darker than his pa, Liam inherited his mom’s Hispanic genes, unruly black hair, dark flashing eyes, and a charm that women seem to find irresistible. He is also a genius when it comes to computers. I’ve got a lot of time for Liam.
He taps on the keyboard, and footage of Emily pops up in one corner of the screen. She is wearing an oversized white T-shirt, her tanned legs exposed, and sitting on a sun lounger on the decking surrounding a pool. She might be on vacation, were it not for the tension in her body language as her eyes dart around the pool area.
I drag my eyes away from her and check out the building in the background. A white-walled, two-story mansion, with a red roof and floor-to-ceiling windows. A home as well as a fortress.
While I’m watching Emily, a man steps out of the house, naked from the waist up. He must speak to Emily as he passes by the sun lounger, because she shields her eyes with the flat of her hand when she peers at him. My stomach gripes. What the fuck…
“Ilya Kuzmin.” I roll the name around my tongue, memorizing it, saving it for the moment when I come face to face with him.
Emily doesn’t remove her T-shirt and follow him into the pool. Our entire strategy might’ve been blown to pieces if she had. But when I return my attention to her, I notice what appears to be a bandage around her right leg.
“She’s been injured.”
“I ran back through the footage,” Liam says. “She tried to escape. Note the lack of security? The entire area is patrolled by dogs; Emily was lucky to escape with a mauled foot.”
That explains why she appears, on the surface anyway, to be enjoying some downtime. Emily is Terry Keegan’s daughter; she must’ve learned enough from him to scope the place out, find the chinks in her abductor’s armor, figure out their routine, their weaknesses, their cracks.
“Is everything in place?”
“Aye.” Uncle Donal takes over. “We’ve been getting a rep for ourselves in the Rinse and the Titan. Hitting the Wraith would be too obvious, and we don’t want to make it too easyfor our bratva pals.” He’s enjoying this way more than any regular person would.
“What have you found?”
This is Liam’s domain. “It’s a tight ship. The cops turn a blind eye to the money laundering which suggests that the commissioner is in their pocket. They’ve increased security around the casinos in anticipation of war, and Caleb Murray has been keeping a low profile. All as planned.”
“Have you found a way in?”
