Page 47 of Married into the Mob

“I hope he’s innocent.” In that dreary registry office at City Hall, he’d been the one person who’d tried to help me aside from Hunter. I didn’t like the idea of “making him talk,” that brought up images of torture devices from the Middle Ages.

Hunter said he’d phone his former contact at City Hall, asking for Stefan’s address. “The guy will answer my calls, even in the middle of the night.”

That was the cocky, self-assured Hunter who clicked his fingers and people came running.

“I’ll promise him a supply of the finest whiskey.”

Life went smoothly when you offered bribes, though the flip side was a possible bullet to the head.

“No need!” I pulled the card out of the shirt I’d been wearing in the panic room. “Stefan gave me his card.”

“Hmmm.”

“Oh, you’re thinking he did that on purpose, wanting us to find him and then—” I left the sentence dangling.

“Possible. But unless Flint gives us a lead on Draven, I don’t have anything else.”

“What if we asked my uncle?” It was a last resort because what could he tell us? He met Draven in some seedy gambling den?

“No, he won’t have anything useful.” He went on to say his brothers would have tracked him to wherever he met Uncle Stan.

I lay racking my brains about how my mild-mannered uncle had gotten mixed up with a guy like Draven, and my head hurt.

“What’s that noise? It was a sort of grinding, and it grated on my already frazzled nerves. I sat up, but it had stopped.

“You heard that? Sorry. It’s me grinding my teeth.”

He was worried and stressed, and me being a burden was part of that.

I turned over, urging sleep to claim me, but my head was buzzing. “We’ll need another car.”

“Excuse me?”

I rambled on about Draven and his crew having the car’s make, model, and license plate. We’d need to get hold of another vehicle.

“You’re right.” A sharp slap tore through the air, and I shot up in bed. “What was that?”

“Sorry, it was me slapping my thigh because I didn’t think of that.”

I grinned. I was making a contribution. “Please, no more smacking.”

“I’ll make a note of that.” There was a smile in his voice.

Unless… unless he was smacking me. I gasped and slapped a hand over my mouth.

“Now who’s smacking?”

“Sorry.” I sank lower in the bed, my cheeks burning. Hunter was lying on the floor, naked under the quilt. If he wasn’t in the room, I’d jerk off and picture his dick in my ass.

I wouldn’t sleep with Hunter, but the frisson of danger that sizzled around him was like the mafia version of a halo. Oh yeah, that was hot.

To get a naked Hunter out of my head, I fathomed how I could be okay with getting rid of Draven. He deserved a trial and other people weighing the evidence, not me and Hunter taking the law into our own hands.

But Hunter told me that was shifter law. Trying to kill a rival’s mate was against the rules, and if Draven was still part of a pack, the Alpha would pass judgment and kill the guy himself.

It didn’t sit easy with me but neither did me getting killed, and it wasn’t only me this affected; my aunt and uncle were involved too.

“Sleep, Odell. I’ll wake you at dawn.”