Page 10 of Malicious Marriage (Mafia Lords of Sin #9)

CLOVER

D ean’s sudden absence makes the house feel eerily empty. How can a man I’ve just met have such a presence that I’m immediately missing him with the urge to text him resting heavily in my fingers?

There’s something wrong with me.

“Is he really gone?” Bobby’s head pokes through the kitchen door.

“Mmhmm.”

“Everything okay? He was out of here like a rocket.”

“Something about his baby. He didn’t exactly explain, and I didn’t want to hold him up by asking.”

“Fair.” Bobby walks in and begins helping me clear up the glasses. “Look at you.”

I pause, one hand hovering over the tap. “What about me?”

“You’re flushed and your eyes are all sparkly. Oh, my God, you like him, don’t you?”

“Shut up, no I don’t!” Bobby’s accusation makes my ears burn, so I focus on filling the sink with water and bubbles.

“You totally do. Well, I didn’t count on your falling for the mark.”

“I’m not falling for the mark!”

“You’re protesting too much. That’s a sign of a guilty conscience. You’re crushing on an older guy, look at you!”

“Stop!” Flicking soap suds at him, I fail at denying it properly with the smile creeping over my face. “He’s nice and I’m just being friendly.”

“Mmhmm.” Bubby hums with such a knowing, accusatory tone and my chest squeezes slightly. “Well, I’m not going to tell you he’s too old for you, girl, because these days? If you want maturity, you have to go older. Besides, there’s no rule to say you can’t have fun with this.”

“I don’t want to hurt him.” My words soften while washing the glasses. “I know why we picked him, and I know Hailey is the most important thing and that hasn’t changed. But he seems like a decent person and I don’t want to hurt him.”

“What if hurting him helps you find Hailey?” Bobby asks as he leans on the counter next to me. “If you’re having doubts about that, then we need to come up with another plan.”

“There is no other plan,” I remind him, letting my hands rest in the warm water. “That’s how we got here in the first place.”

“So?” Bobby’s tone is gentle, like he’s trying to encourage me but with no direction in mind. “You can like him, and you can care for him. No one said you had to be a robot about this, but if it comes down to it and you have to hurt him in some way to help Hailey, can you do it?”

My sister’s face flashes up in my mind as I take the offered tea towel and slowly dry my hands. Her face melts into Dean’s handsome, weathered face with his silvery beard and sparkling eyes. There’s no real choice here. I just have to make sure I can deal with the guilt that comes after.

“Yes,” I say firmly. “I can. Because in the end, none of this is even worth it if we can’t find her.”

“So we’re still full steam ahead?”

I nod quickly. “A hundred percent.”

“Understood. But remember.” He clasps my shoulder and smiles. “There’s nothing to say you can’t have fun while you’re at it. He’s an attractive man and you, Clover, are one needy little bitch.”

“Hey!” Balling up the towel, I throw it right in his face. “Rude.”

“But true.”

So true.

“Wait, how did you get your hair wet, by the way?” He glances at the top of my head. “When I dropped you off at the back gate, you were dry and then I opened the door and you were drenched.”

My cheeks warm as I smirk. “Garden hose.”

“Fucking hell.” Bobby laughs. “At least he bought it.”

“Right? Although that’s two unexpected visits. We need to do something about that.”

We clean up the kitchen and decide to set up a small base within the manor.

My uncle isn’t home until the end of the month so, barring any disasters, living here is doable.

Especially if Dean wants to drop by for another surprise visit.

After cleaning the kitchen, we spend the rest of the night doing up two of the bedrooms for us to sleep in.

Bobby orders some decent food for the fridge so we don’t have to keep doing quick shops on the way here, and then we retire to bed.

It’s weird sleeping here again. It’s been years since I felt comfort within these walls and the last time I slept here was the night after my father died.

Within a week, he was dead and Hailey was gone while my uncle lorded over the place like he was some kind of king.

Thoughts of Hailey led me to bring out my phone and dive once more into social media in search of her.

Fully expecting nothing, a new notification on Hailey’s Instagram catches my attention.

With my heart in my throat, I click on it, fully hoping that it’s from Hailey herself with a post telling everyone where she is.

A stretch, but given how long she’s been missing, I’ll take anything at this point.

There’s no new post but there is a new message from an old high school friend eager to reconnect. My heart sinks as I type out the reply I’ve given to several friends over the years when they come asking about Hailey. She’s missing, and she’s been missing for four years.

Where I expect the usual flurry of sympathy and offers for any help if needed, Clara replies with something unexpected.

‘ Four years? But I swear she called me a couple of months ago! ’

Meeting with a stranger at four in the morning isn’t my smartest decision, but since Clara only messaged Hailey because she was out drinking and randomly thought of her, it’s my only chance to talk to her.

She claims to be flying back to L.A in the morning and I can’t afford to follow her, so racing across the city to the Renegade Nightclub is all I can do.

Inside, surrounded by thumping music, sweaty dancers, and the overwhelming scents of alcohol and too much perfume, it takes me ten minutes to find Clara at a table surrounded by her friends.

“Clara?” I yell over the music. “Clara Campbell?”

Clara’s head whips around and her dark-lined eyes land on me, then narrow as she tries to work out who I am. “Who’s askin’?”

“It’s me, Clover? Hailey’s sister. You—” I pull out my phone and wiggle it. “We were texting? You said you heard from her?”

“Oh, Hailey!” Clara throws her hands up in the air and stands, but her hips knock into one of the glasses her friend is holding and they all erupt into laughter as the drink spills. “Amy, no! Your dress!”

“My dress!” Amy whines. “What the fuck, Clara? Your huge ass is ruining everything!”

“I’m sorry.” Clara cackles. “Let me get you another one!” Wobbling on six-inch heels, she weaves past her friend and stumbles into me, then continues on toward the bar, so I follow.

“Clara, I’m sorry, but I really need to talk to you about Hailey.”

“Oh, Hailey! I wish she was here. I haven’t seen her in so long!” Clara slumps against the bar and slams one hand down to get the bartender’s attention. “Are you here to drink?”

“No, no I’m…” Frustration builds quickly, amped by the thundering music and Clara’s clear drunk disinterest. “Clara, please!” Grabbing her arm, I force her around to look at me. Her eyes widen and for a moment I think she’s going to yell at me or worse. Instead, she pats my hand and sighs.

“What’s wrong, chick?”

“ Hailey . My sister. You said in your message that you spoke to her?”

“ Oh …” Her lips press together and she brushes some sweaty strands of hair out of her face. “Mmhmm, I did. I did. She called me a few months ago, actually.”

My heart seizes in my chest “What? When? Why? How did she sound?” My grip tightens on Clara’s arm until she wrenches her arm away.

“What the fuck, crazy much? Jesus. I don’t know. She just called me.”

“What did you talk about?”

“Uhm…” Her mouth twists to the side. “I think… Oh! I remember. She wanted the name of a professor we shared in college. She’d forgotten his name.”

That… makes no sense. “What do you mean she wanted his name?”

“Exactly that! She called and she asked me for his name. Mr. Prize it was, and I remember because his name was always pronounced like Price but he spelt it with a Z. Weird, right?”

“I…” I can’t wrap my head around what I’m hearing. My sister, my missing sister, called Clara to ask for the name of a professor. “Was that it?”

Several filled glasses are placed on the bar, and Clara scoops them up and then stumbles into me. “Hmm? Oh, yep. That was it!”

“Well, do you have her number?”

“Aren’t you her sister?”

“Didn’t you hear me when I said she was missing?”

“Oh, right!” Clara laughs. “The number’s disconnected. Why do you think I messaged her Instagram? I tried to call her back on that number, but all I got was the boring robot voice telling me it wasn’t connected anymore. Pretty shitty, right? She’s supposed to be my friend!”

That’s the last bit of information I can squeeze out of Clara. She becomes too focused on her drinks and her friends. Hailey is instantly forgotten.

But I have a lead.

A very terrible, almost useless lead. Why Hailey would suddenly call an old school friend and ask for a professor’s name is beyond me, but if it really was her, then she’s alive.

Four years I’ve been desperate for any sign that she was still with me, that I wasn’t just chasing a ghost.

And now I have it.

Outside, the air is cold compared to the sweltering heat inside the club.

Texting Bobby with an apology for rushing out, I ask him to come and pick me up.

After several furious texts about why I went anywhere without him, he agrees to pick me up around the corner and makes me swear not to move from that spot.

That’s fine.

I need to find out everything I can about this professor and work out what his connection to Hailey is. He no longer teaches at the college she went to. In fact, he no longer lives in the state. He moved to Colorado a couple of years ago where he married and…

Shit .

Scrolling further down the list, I spot an article with a large headline declaring a community was shaken to the core after the deaths of Adam Prize, his wife, and their two children in a house fire.

Fuck .

He’s dead?

Is that a clue or just a terrible way to end my search?

“Fuck,” I mutter out loud.

“Problem?” A voice from my left makes me jump right out of my skin and I stumble backward as a hand belonging to the voice shoots out and grasps my wrist. “Careful, Clover. Don’t want anything to happen to you now, do we?”

I squint up and my heart begins to race. “Ryan? What… what are you doing here?”

My ex-boyfriend Ryan steps up to me, forcing me backward until my back collides with the wall of the bus shelter. “I’m out for a walk, what about you?”

My heart races faster and faster. Ryan and I initially split on somewhat amicable terms after I found him in bed with some girl he picked up at a club.

His only defense was that he wanted to know what it was like to fuck a skinny girl with tits as big as mine.

For months he told me he never had a problem with my size and then in one night, he basically destroyed every drop of confidence I’d gained from him.

Our breakup should have been explosive, but not long after our split, my life fell apart, and Ryan just happened to be a loan shark.

The loan shark who’s been funding my life ever since my uncle cut me off and who promised me I wouldn’t be under any pressure to pay him back since I’d been so good in bed. I was desperate, so I agreed.

The past six months of constant harassment and threats show how fake that was.

“I’ve gone round your place and you weren’t there,” Ryan says, his hand still firmly around my forearm. “What happened, you get kicked out?”

“No,” I say as I grow breathless from how frantic my heart is racing. “I’m staying with a friend.”

“You?” Ryan scoffs and his eyes narrow. “You don’t have any friends. I was your only friend, Clover.”

“Not true.”

“Yes true!” His head snaps forward and he brings his face so close to mine that I recoil on reflex and hit my head against the bus shelter.

“And look how you treated me. I seem to remember an agreement between us, Clover. I lent you money and you were going to pay me back. It’s kind of how my entire job works. ”

“I am paying you back,” I gasp, shrinking away from him. “It’s just… slower than I’d like. And you told me it was okay because?—”

“Because what, you have a sweet pussy? It’s been too long since I had a taste of Clover, but if you want to reduce some of the interest, then I’d be happy to let you take my dick for another ride.”

He leers at me, his eyes flashing in the glare of the shelter lights.

How did I ever find him attractive? There was a time when he was the most important person in my life, but looking back, I think I was just happy someone was showing me attention.

As a bigger girl, being chosen for a change was nice.

So often, I’d tell myself it didn’t matter as my high school friends got dates to prom and went off to get married.

I’d tell myself that I’d find someone who liked me for me and not the size of my waist. But I never did.

Until Ryan.

What a mistake that was.

“Come on, what do you say?” He leans closer and slides his other hand around my waist.

My hand reacts with a mind of its own, and the sharp crack of my palm striking his cheek echoes in the night air.

We both freeze and my heart stalls in my chest.

What the fuck have I done ?

Ryan’s grip turns to iron and his hand moves from my forearm to my upper arm where his nails cut painfully into the soft flesh there. “Are you fucking insane? I offer you a way out of your insane debt and this is how you treat me?”

He slaps me so hard my ears ring and tears spring into my eyes, but as I lift my head, he slaps me again. The third slap is so hard that my earring pierces into the flesh behind my ear and pain sears through my head.

“I’m sorry!” I gasp as tears escape down my cheeks, and I try to defend myself but his next open-palmed slap sends me to my knees with my arm still twisted awkwardly up into his grip.

“I was going to cover for you. A little bit of that foul slit between your legs and I would have called off my boss, but you know what? He’s right.

You’re a fucking liability, Clover. You owe us too much now and I know your fucking uncle isn’t going to help you pay a dime.

So unless you want to end up in the gutter, the next time I find you, I expect you to have the full amount with interest! ”

“Where am I supposed to get that kind of money?” I gasp, staring up at him through my tears while my cheek throbs in time to my racing heart. “I owe you tens of thousands!”

“Exactly. When I lent shit to you, you told me it would just be a few months. Now it’s been years, so listen closely, Clover. I want my money, understand? Or next time, I’ll take what you owe in flesh!”