Page 4 of The Mobster's Mate

Traffic had thinned out considerably by the time they pulled up to the warehouse, and he easily spotted Dominic’s tall frame next to Ginger’s curvy one right by the entrance. It looked like they were arguing, and that set his nerves on edge a lot more than Darius’s renewed growls. Like most mated pairs, the two were disgustingly well matched and rarely disagreed.

He watched, transfixed, as Ginger threw her hands about wildly and Dom flinched out of the way.

They were most definitely having a disagreement now, the rest of the group huddled off to the side to avoid becoming collateral damage.

“What the hell?” Quinten grabbed the handle of his door, prepared to find out what was going on, but Darius’s firm grip on his arm stopped him. Rolling his eyes, he let go and waited for the wolf to hop out on his own side and come around the back of the SUV to open the door for him.

Quinten was pretty sure it wasn’t really a safety thing—he was almost positive Darius just liked how important it made Quinten look to always have someone open a door for him.

Quinten thought it made him look like an asshole, but since he didn’t give a shit what anyone else thought and had agreed on waiting for Darius before exiting vehicles or buildings back when he’d caved on the sigils at his office, he made himself sit there and wait until it was opened from the outside.

As soon as he stepped out, he gave his suit jacket a few tugs and then strode forward, eyes narrowed on the arguing couple. The instincts that had made him a shit ton of money—and kept him alive all these years—were flashing a giant warning that something was very, very wrong. There was magic in the air.

And a lot of it.

“If you’d just let me get a little closer, I could—”

“No,” Dominic snarled at his mate and wife, and Quinten nearly stopped in shock at the tone.

He was not surprised at all when Ginger drew herself up to her full five foot five and stuck a finger in her mate’s face. “Don’t you snarl at me! I’m only trying to point out—”

“He’s feral!” Dominic sucked in a breath at his outburst, obviously trying to calm himself down. “Sweetheart, if you’d gotten any closer, he’d have taken your face clean off.”

Before she could argue again, Dominic nodded at him over her shoulder, and Ginger whipped around, relief clear on her face when she spotted Quinten. “Thank god, a voice of reason.”

“Can’t say I’ve ever been called that.” He stopped a few feet away, Darius just behind him on his right, and tucked his hands in his pants’ pockets. “Now, someone tell me why I’m here.”

“Someone left you a message,” Dominic said, subtly trying to slip his hand into his mate’s and frowning at the back of her head when she swatted him away.

Quinten looked down at his Italian leather loafers and sighed. “How bloody?”

“Not that kind,” Ginger said, a hint of amusement in her voice. She held up a folded piece of paper. “This was stuck to the door with magic.”

Quinten took the offered sheet and opened it. “Been a minute since someone passed me a note.”

He heard someone snort but didn’t take his focus off the words scrawled messily across the plain white paper.

Amato—

I found something of yours. You should be more careful with your things. Tsk, tsk.

I hope you’re not a fan of long goodbyes.

Tiho Draža

“Who the fuck is Tiho Draža?” Quinten snapped and held up the paper. It sounded Serbian, but he knew all the players in the area. He had an agreement with the Borko crime family; he let them use the port to bring in their drugs and fake cash at a fraction of his normal fee, and they didn’t try to move in on his territory and kept any others from doing it too. The patriarch—Miloš, who’d been a crusty old bastard since the day Quinten met him—had died under less than natural circumstances. Vlatko, his son and heir apparent to the family business, was hinting at Quinten’s involvement but was smarter than to actually flat out accuse him.

But some guy named Tiho?

He was either new to the Borko family or not important enough for Quinten to remember. Either way, he couldn’t imagine why the fucker was about to ruin his day.

“And what the hell does this mean?” he added, giving the paper a quick shake.

“No idea who that is,” Ginger said over her shoulder, leading the way to the warehouse’s door. “But I can show you the ‘thing’ it’s referring to.”

He could hear the disgust in her voice and started to get a bad feeling as he followed her into the dimly lit space. There were mountainous stacks of boxes on pallets, each one wrapped tight in plastic to keep secure and organized. A pallet truck was parked right next to the entrance, and the small office was at the far end, but the place was empty at that time in the evening, everyone having left for the day.

As they neared the back corner, a low sound that seemed to be part hiss and part growl began to grow louder, and the weight in Quinten’s stomach got heavier.

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