Page 4 of Demanding Mob Boss

I haven't spoken to the woman, but I've observed every interaction since I arrived. She looks at me now with surprise and gratitude. I do not know why. I am only speaking the truth. I have no influence on who will get hired. I am simply answering a question.

Mr. Doyle looks at the woman and asks, "Do you want the job?"

"Yes, very much."

He looks back over his shoulder again and says, "Tell Uncle Jimmy to get her on-boarded and the other one out of my building."

His focus turns to me, and it is absolute. Like there is no one else in the room. I wish I could do that. Only, when I'm looking at him, I can. It's odd.

"Anna, you come with me." He shifts his gaze to someone else and I miss the intensity, the ability to block out the rest of the room that locking our eyes gave me.

"Shea, go up to Uncle Jimmy's office. If you want to work for the company this badly, he'll find you something to do."

"I don't want afoundjob," says a woman who looks a little younger than my twenty years. "I want to get a job and live my own life."

Mr. Doyle moves out of the doorway. Toward me. My heart does this funny skip thing in my chest.

He says, "Lachlan."

The other man steps around Mr. Doyle and into the room. He is a couple of inches shorter than his boss, though he is also over six feet tall. His hair is brown though, not nearly as pretty as the reddish gold of Mr. Doyle's and the woman he called Shea. Are they related?

Mr. Farrar goes straight to Shea and takes her by the arm. "Come on, Trouble. Jimmy is expecting you and you need to call your mammy to let her know you aren't dead in a ditch."

"As if, with all you goons looking over my shoulder." She stands, yanks her arm from Mr. Farrar's hold and flounces out of the room. Smirking, he follows her.

Mr. Doyle puts his hand out to me. "Come."

Usually, I avoid touching other people, but I place my hand in his without hesitating. Weird. His big fingers curl around mine, warm and safe.

This man, who can bring stillness, makes me feel safe. And he's going to be my boss. I have a job! Ini is going to be so happy.

With Mr. Doyle as my boss, this job might even last longer than the others.

CIAN

"What the hell is going on?" Lachlan takes a drink of his whiskey, his eyes on me and not the raised dais with three of our best dancers on the poles.

"We're checking on the clubs like we do every week." The Doyle clan owns three clubs in Chicago. Two are strip clubs and one is a nightclub.

Just like the construction business, clubs, because they do a lot of cash business, are a great way to launder money. This one is my favorite. There is always a dancer or staff member eager to suck off the boss. They think it will earn them special privileges. It won't.

But I'm not interested in getting my rocks off tonight and I'm paying no more attention to the dancers than Lachlan is.

"We weren’t at HR this morning to hire an assistant for Connor." Lachlan frowns at me, like he expects me to say something.

But he already knows why we were there. To track down my errant sister. I’m not sure how to handle Shea. She's unpredictable and emotional. Both things I am not. I'm not known for my tolerance in dealing with those traits either. Even in my family. But because Shea is my youngest sister, I try with her. Tolerance doesn't make it any easier to understand her.

"Why the hell was Shea applying for that job?" I ask Lachlan.

He's a stone-cold killer, just like me, but he has a wider range of emotions.

"She said she wanted to take the summer to explore her options before starting at DePaul in the fall. Maybe getting a job is part of that."

"She can't work in reception. It's not safe." We have too many enemies for her to be that exposed.

"You heard her as well as I did." Lachlan's gaze wanders to the dancers. He sees something he likes and watches in silence for several seconds before turning to me, his gaze intent. "She wants to forge her own path."

"She can forge it working for Uncle Jimmy."

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