Page 90 of Pursued

The phone rang. I tensed, but it was only my mother.

“Mom? What’s up?” I put her on speakerphone and sat on the edge of the desk.

“Not much,” Mom replied. “Just that my oldest son was nearly staked last night andhe hasn’t even called me.”

I snatched up the phone and turned off the speaker. “Where’d you hear that?”

“Wrong answer,” was the grim reply.

I sighed. “I didn’t want to upset you, all right? You have enough to worry about right now.”

I heard her teeth snap together. “Still the wrong answer.”

“I’m sorry, okay? It was Andre Redbone. But I survived, and he’s no longer a problem. I sent him to his final death myself.”

“Andre?” She sucked in a breath. “That low-down, dirtyfils-putain.He’s been to our house, drunk my wine. Told me how much he admired my damn flowers. He even promised your father to support you if it comes to a challenge.”

With each sentence, her voice got louder until I had to hold the phone away from my ear.

“He lied,” I said flatly when she finally paused for breath. “Anyway, during the attack, I found out he’d kidnapped Mila’s brother.”

“So that’s why she came back.”

“Yeah.” I brought her up to date on everything that had happened since last night, up to and including the rescue of Joey Vittore. “The pricks locked Joey in a dark cell for a week,” I finished. “Kept him drugged up, too, so he wouldn’t give them any trouble. A twenty-one-year-old kid.”

“That poor boy. He’s all right? And Mila, too?”

“They’re fine, just shook up. Redbone didn’t physically hurt Mila, but he fucked with her mind pretty bad.” I rose to my feet, paced across my office. “I’m not going to let her go, Mom. I…can’t.”

“You really do love her.”

I closed my eyes. “Yeah.” My voice hardened. “She told me what you did, that you invited her to the house and tried to scare her off.”

“Is that what she said?”

“No,” I admitted. “She thought you were genuinely concerned, that you just wanted her to know what life with me would be like. But you had no right to do that. No right at all.”

“She had a right to know, Gabriel. Your father had to fight his own people for years because they thought I made him weak, and then he had to break heads all over again to get them to accept you and your brothers as his heirs.”

My fingers clenched on the phone. I drew a slow inhale through my teeth. “D’you know the hell you put me through these past three years?”

Her voice softened. “I’m sorry about that. I know you missed her. But if she was that easy to scare off, maybe you’re better off without her.”

“It wasn’t only that. Father sicced Tomas on her. Told her that if she didn’t leave, her family would be next. And they didn’t stop there.” My tone was bitter. “She’s had Syndicate enforcers after her ever since she left. I’m pretty sure he didn’t want to kill her—just keep her scared and on the run.”

Because if Karoly Kral had actually wanted Mila dead, she would be.

Mom’s swallow was audible. “I didn’t know.”

“Yeah,” I said grimly. “It’s one thing to chase her away. But they hounded her, told her that if she came back to Maryland, they’d target her family next. She was afraid even to contact her parents, and she lived in fucking roach-infested apartments because she couldn’t keep a job long enough to make any money.”

“Oh, cher.”

“In fact, Father contacted me earlier. Told me to give Mila the boot, or else.”

“And I suppose you told him to go to Hades.”

“You bet I did.”

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