Page 126 of Demanding Mob Boss

"Hello, Cian. What can I do for you?"

"Connor is coming over tonight."

"He is. His ma is making him all his favorites. She about ate the head off me when she found out he'd been shot. She wants him staying here, but he says no."

Why the Irish-ismate the head offis more disturbing than the American equivalent ofbit my head off, I don't know. Especially as I'm disturbed by so little. Maybe it's the added implication of cannibalism?

Doesn't matter.

I have more important things to consider right now than my uncle's Irish slang.

"There's a reason for that," I tell my uncle. "You'll learn it tonight. I want you and Aunt Lila to understand that I'm okay with what he's going to tell you. I expect you to be too."

"You talking to me as my nephew, or the mob boss?" Jimmy asks cautiously.

"Both." I'll be disappointed if any member of my family has an issue with my cousin being gay.

As the boss, that disappointment will manifest more definitively.

"I don't know what this is about, but I love my son. There isn't anything he could tell me that would change that."

My uncle claims he doesn't know what Connor is going to say, and he's half right, but I think the gay part? Jimmy suspects that.

My da raised me to a be a loyal but brutal mobster. Jimmy trained Connor to be a good man. They're closer than me and my da ever were. If da were still alive, he'd probably try to spirit Anna away like he did Helen.

I'm glad he's not here so I don't have to acknowledge what I would do to my father in that situation. But there's no question whether I would accept it like I did before. I would not.

Anna is the sun and Helen was a dimly lit star. Both make me feel something, but with Anna it's not just something, it's everything.

Chapter 40

CIAN

The next couple of weeks are uneventful. We finish the interrogations of the gang members and Ronan lets Carmen finish off her cousin and husband.

He seems to think it will give her closure. I'm not sure anything will get rid of that haunted look in her eyes. Her entire family deemed her expendable and betrayed her.

Through Brogan Shaughnessy, I'm contacted by a Cosa Nostra don in New York. Severu De Luca. He wants to destroy the Gutierrez Cartel for some shit they pulled in his city.

"Are we going to work with them?" Lachlan asks me after my video meeting with De Luca.

Anna is sitting at her desk with her noise cancelling headphones in, but I'm on to her tricks. She's probably listening in. I don't care as long as no one else realizes she does it.

That would put her at risk, and I won't allow that.

She's so pretty in her pink top and skirt. She doesn't wear dresses unless they're designed with easy access to her tits. She knows sometimes the only thing that calms me down is touching her beautiful body.

When she lets me, it always does something to her, sending her to that place she calls hersafe headspace. It's safe as long as I can hold her afterward, which I never forget to take into account.

We bought her a bunch of new clothes, crop tops that give me easy access, but opaque enough she can go without a bra and no one gets to see the outline of her gorgeous areolas. Nothing can hide the way her tits sway, or when her nipples get hard though.

Not unless she wears some kind of jacket or sweater and I don't want that. So, I deal. I'm doing pretty good too, only considering gouging other men's eyes out about a dozen times a day.

Everything is made of soft, natural fibers. Denim that has been washed and worn so many times it holds no stiffness anymore. Which means buying some things second hand. Whatever makes her happy, is good with me.

"Uh, boss…" Lachlan brings my attention back to our discussion.

The little smirk on Anna's face tells me she knows my attention wandered and she guesses why. She is listening.

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