Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 55748 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 279(@200wpm)___ 223(@250wpm)___ 186(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55748 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 279(@200wpm)___ 223(@250wpm)___ 186(@300wpm)
“The mob?” he growls. “What are you talking about?”
I shake my head. “Killian, maybe you should stop coming by here.”
“What?”
“You want to help, but you can’t. You’re just going to get yourself involved in my mess. In my mom’s mess. I’m sorry.”
I pull away from him, walking behind the counter and into the kitchen, wrapping my arms around me just like that poor woman upstairs, struggling not to cry.
Fate loves playing games with me and Killian. First, it throws us together after so many years. Then, when he’s finally ready to acknowledge the building heat—even if he says we can’t do anything about it—it comes at a time when events have turned my world upside down. Go to hell, fate.
Six
KILLIAN
Istand in the bakery, frozen, as I replay what she just said to me.
The mob.
I didn’t imagine that. That’s what she said. Those two vicious words showing my worlds have somehow collided without me having any clue about it. The fear on her flawless face makes me sick. The rage surging through me, already so vicious after finding the bloody ring, gets even worse.
The mob…
“Hey—”
Before the guy behind the counter can stop me, I walk into the backroom and close the door behind me. Lucy turns, her eyes red, her arms wrapped across her middle. She looks so devastatingly beautiful with the emotion bursting out of her.
“It’s okay, Toby,” she murmurs when the door opens behind me.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” The door closes.
“You need to explain,” I tell her. “What happened with the mob? Are they shaking you down?”
Her gaze flits to the ceiling again. Cold instinct grips me, the same iron certainty that took hold of me during my brief stint in Family life. Those instincts never leave a man.
“Are they here now?” I say in disbelief.
“Please,” she whispers. “You can’t help—”
“I can. I will.”
“Lower your voice,” she says urgently.
I walk across the kitchen and take her hands again. “Then explain,” I demand.
“Fine, fine,” she snaps. “Fine. But you’ll regret it. My mom made a deal with a man called Shane. Apparently, he works for some mob, but I don’t even know which, or if he really does, or anything, except that he comes by once a week and demands a portion of the earnings. He threatens me. He has a gun.”
My head swims. My hands clench into fists so tight they hurt. The mob—which must mean us—is shaking down Lucy?
“This was bad enough, and I was trying to figure out how to get the heck out of the deal, but last night, it got worse.”
“Tell me.”
She looks at me in shock. Maybe it’s my tone. Perhaps it’s my expression. The fierceness in me. I’m letting out the ‘kill’ in Killian. The Family man is coming out I can’t help it. The demon I never wanted her to see… it’s tearing my mask to shreds.
“Shane woke me at three in the morning. He had a woman with him. She didn’t—doesn’t—look like she wants to be here. She looks terrified, and it appears he is holding her captive. He’s up there now with her. He said that if I do anything, he’s going to hurt me, hurt her, even implied he’s going to hurt Clover.”
I grind my teeth, trying to think of a reasonable method to handle this.
“I told you,” she says. “You can’t do anything. I know what you’re going to say. Call the cops. But he’s told me in the past he has connections to the cops.”
“I would not tell you to call the cops,” I say, barely keeping it together. It’s like there’s a volcano inside of me, frothing, lava surging to the surface as my old self, as the kill in Killian, tries to emerge.
She throws her hands up. “That’s because you know there’s nothing you can do,” she snaps. “There’s nothing anybody can do. He’s got a gun; he’s from that world… Don’t worry, Killian. I won’t be offended if you leave and pretend this never happened. I know this isn’t what you were expecting. It’s probably the last thing you want to deal with.”
“I want to help you,” I tell her, my head pulsing, rage coursing through me. “Describe Shane to me.”
“What good will that do?” she says, exacerbated.
I want to hold her, whisper that everything’s going to be okay. But I’m afraid that if I wrap my arms around her, I’ll squeeze too tight, my urge to protect her too strong. Nobody may make her feel like this. Nobody has the right to threaten her. Ever. Not my lucky charm.
“Just do it,” I say.
She swallows nervously, then says, “He’s got a tattoo of a clover on his neck.”
I laugh savagely, no humor in it, just pure anger. So, this is what fate has decided to throw at me. First, a reunion with a woman I haven’t seen since she was a lost, scared little kid. Now this… the mob life crashing into this pocket of perfection without me even needing to pull any triggers.