Page 38 of Malicious Marriage (Mafia Lords of Sin #9)

DEAN

T he flight back to the States is quiet.

After our rushed discussion in the hospital waiting room, Clover withdrew into herself.

Her last comment was something about her sister’s lack of care or affection, but concern for Bobby overwrote most of that for the rest of our stay until we were seated on the plane.

I want to comfort her. My anger and frustration haven’t faded, but I still care about her. I want to know the whole truth and it feels like she’s only given me a handful of it. I hate feeling in the dark.

So, I remain in my seat and wrestle with the storm of emotions in my chest, deciding it’s better not to act until I’m certain my anger won’t rise up at the wrong moment.

Instead, I focus on what Duke told me about Malcom.

The Byrnes being deeply connected to the Kuznetsovs is something I missed entirely, but given how small the Byrnes are as a family, it never would have crossed my mind that they could be tangled with one of the biggest Russian families.

But now it makes sense. Having a smaller family do your dirty work is probably the safest way to handle things.

Is what Duke said about the fire true? Is it possible that his fire and my fire are the same disaster?

The implications are overwhelming and I spend the rest of the flight fighting not to call Don and fill him in immediately.

This kind of conversation can’t be carried out over the phone.

Neither of us eats or sleeps for the duration of the flight, so exhaustion clings to us like a blanket when the jet lands and Bobby is swiftly transferred to a waiting ambulance in the middle of the tarmac.

“Dean.” Clover briefly taps my forearm, drawing my attention to her as a warm July wind tugs at our clothes. “Can we talk? Properly?”

I want to. God, do I want to. But looking at her pains me more than I can say and I don’t want our conversation to be smothered by my own currently raw feelings.

“I need time.”

“Please,” she says softly, and her large eyes shine under the moonlight. “I want to explain.”

“And I want to hear it,” I say as calmly as I can manage. “Just not right now. I can’t… I need some time. I’m sorry.”

Pain flashes over Clover’s face as she chews on her lower lip, then she nods just once. “Okay.”

“Go with Bobby.” I jerk my head toward the ambulance. “Care for him first.”

She doesn’t say another word, but I remain on the tarmac and watch her climb into the ambulance. I remain there even as it drives away and don’t move until the flashing blue lights are completely out of sight.

“So,” Jack sighs as he comes to stand next to me. “Where to, Boss?”

“Don?” He’s not in his office or the library. I hurry through the manor and search the bar and the gym, finally finding Don out on the patio nursing a cold drink under the stars. “Don!”

“Dean!” He spins to face me and a wide smile breaks out across his face. “What the fuck, I thought you weren’t back for another day or so.”

“I had to come back early. Listen, I need everything you can get me on Malcom Byrne.”

Don’s brow knits together. “Clover’s uncle? You mean more on what we already have?”

“Yes. I need more than his finances and business history. I need a fucking dirty deep dive into that man’s past. I need to know everything.”

Don’s relaxed demeanor vanishes in seconds. “Tell me what happened.”

“We found Clover’s sister. Hailey. She wasn’t taken and she wasn’t lost. She ran away with a Russian man called Kuznetsov. He goes by Duke now.”

“Kuznetsov?” Don repeats slowly.

“Exactly. And while we were bonding, he told me an interesting story about a fire. One that the Kuznetsovs were involved in covering up for Malcom Byrne.”

“What the fuck?”

“Exactly!” I throw my hands up, relieved that Don has the same reaction I had. I was beginning to go crazy with all of this stored up inside me.

“You think there’s truth to it?” Don is about to set his drink down when he offers it to me instead.

“Duke has no reason to lie. He barely knew of my connection to the Kuznetsovs until we were talking about Malcom.” I drain his glass in three gulps, drinking quickly while the ice cubes numb my upper lip. “So I want everything we can dig up on Malcom.”

“Do you think Clover was a plant?” Don’s eyes dart back and forth as the gears turn. “Was she planted here to keep some sort of eye on you?”

“Honestly? I have no fucking clue. She’s been lying to me, though, about a lot of stuff, and I don’t know how to unpack even half of it.

But that fire?” I’ve thought about it every day since it happened while wearing the scars on my skin.

“I’m getting the truth even if I have to beat it out of that fucker myself. ”

“I’ll get on it,” Don says firmly. “What do you want to do about Clo?—”

“So sorry to interrupt.” Jack appears on the patio and winces. “But you’ve got a visitor.”

“If it’s Clover then tell her?—”

“Worse,” Jack cuts in. “It’s Trisha.”

My heart drops. What the fuck does she want?

Excusing myself from Don, I follow Jack through the house while trying to wrestle down the surging rush of anxiety.

I’ve never considered myself an anxious person but it hits me now like a bulldozer.

My palms sweat, my heart races, and there’s an antsy restlessness in my limbs that I can’t shake even as I walk.

Trisha being here is nothing but a pain and I need to tell the gate guards not to let her through.

In the lounge, Trisha stands with her back to me, staring out the window. She’s dressed in a simple blouse and pencil skirt with a sheer shawl wrapped around her shoulders.

“The hell are you doing here?”

“Is that any way to greet the mother of your child?” She turns to face me.

“Fuck right off.” I’m instantly over whatever she might have come here to say but as I turn to leave, she hurries toward me.

“Wait, Dean. I’m sorry. I just… that’s not why I’m here.”

My hand lingers on the door handle, but I don’t leave. “Then why are you here?”

“I care about you, Dean. You know that, right?”

I can’t even keep a straight face as our eyes meet. “I don’t know what’s more pathetic, the fact that you think that means anything to me or the fact that you yourself might actually believe what you do is caring .”

Her eyes narrow briefly. “When you see what I have to show you, you’ll understand.” Trisha rummages in her skirt pocket and pulls out a small folded piece of paper and hands it to me. “Call that number.”

One brow rises. “No.”

“Dean, call it.”

“ Trisha , no.”

“It’s the number of a loan shark.”

“Do I look like I need to borrow money?”

“You’re impossible,” she mutters. “Look. When Conor was in a little bit of debt, I put him in contact with that loan shark because he was reliable when I was younger and my father was withholding my allowance.”

“Good for you.”

“ Listen to me . Conor went back to him recently because he still has it in his head that if he has enough money then maybe we can be together, but while he was there, he found something. Did you know your precious little wife was so deep in debt they were considering carving out her kidneys?”

“What?” That catches my interest.

Trisha’s eyes light up. “Mmhmm. It turns out your precious little bride isn’t the Byrne heiress everyone thinks she was.

She was cut out of her own family like a cancerous sore about four years ago and she’d been scraping by on loans from that loan shark ever since.

The only reason they let her borrow so much and for so long was because she used to date one of the workers.

Poor fucker’s dead now, though, some medical complication.

” She dabs briefly at the corner of her mouth.

“Anyway, my point is, she lied to you, my dear. That Clover isn’t the rich bitch everyone thinks.

She’s a penniless cunt so deep in debt that the only way to pay it off was with flesh.

Until she got a sudden injection of funds from your bank account.

Which not only means she lied to and tricked you, but she also stole from you! ”

Trisha looks like the cat that got the cream, with a proud, arrogant gleam in her eye. And she is right, but not about what she thinks.

Her proof that Clover was tricking me and lying to me brings me an unexpected revelation about Clover’s motivations. If she was disowned by her family then she definitely isn’t a plant working for Malcom. Which means when we met, she was penniless and she lied about more than just her sister.

I crumble the paper in my hand and turn away from Trisha. “The doorman will see you out.”

“What?” Her shriek is painful to my ears. “You’re not going to say anything? Not a thank you, nothing?”

“Get out, Trisha. I never want to see you again.”

“I’m trying to help you.”

“No,” I say as I open the door. “You’re trying to help yourself. Go home to your baby, Trisha. Focus on being a good mother instead of this poisonous fucking snake. Goodbye.”

As I leave, she tries to rush after me but she’s quickly intercepted by a couple of my guards, and I walk until I can no longer hear her indignant, furious yells.

“Shit.” Jack grimaces as he meets me at the end of the hallway. “She’s still got some lungs on her.”

“Mmhmm.”

“Anything useful?”

I nod, then shake my head. “I need to speak to Clover. Can you put a tail on her? I don’t want to interrupt her time with Bobby. That’s got to be hard on her.”

“Sure thing.”

“Good. Let me know when she’s home.”

“Absolutely.”

I walk away from Jack and head toward the bar, aching for a drink. As soon as she’s free, I’m going to make Clover tell me everything.

No more lies.