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Rome

Eighteen Years Ago

If horror could numb you, then that was what I was experiencing. As if the pain went beyond something the physical body understood.

Glancing down, I realized Mindy still had my cock in her mouth, but I felt nothing. Seeing her down there disgusted me. With her hair in my fist, I pulled her off me, and I shoved her away, then went to jerk my jeans up. Every breath I took was excruciating.

Salem’s eyes, her face…

“FUCK!” I roared as the scene replayed in my head.

“What did I do?” Mindy, the secretary at the shop, asked, scrambling backward, her bare tits on display.

What had I done? That was the motherfucking question.

I heard the gravel under the wheels as a car spun out, and I broke into a sprint. She was upset and driving. If something happened to her because of this, I’d…I’d…I wouldn’t be able to live through that. I wasn’t sure I was going to live through this.

I heard Mindy call my name as I ran toward the front of the shop. By the time I made it to the parking lot, there were no cars, except for Mindy’s black Nissan.

“Goddammit!” I shouted, shoving my hands into my hair as my eyes burned almost as brutally as my chest.

I couldn’t breathe. I was shaking. Everywhere. I pulled at my hair, staring at nothing and only seeing Salem’s anguished expression on her beautiful face. My actions had done that. I’d put that look there. I’d hurt her.

But wasn’t that what I had wanted to do? Make her leave me because I couldn’t leave her? Ending things with Salem would be like taking a blade to my chest and carving out my heart.

The idea of it had caused me to fucking drink at work. All day.

Until Brick left and Mindy started throwing herself at me more than she had already done.

When she followed me out back, where I was taking out the trash, I decided to close my eyes and pretend it was Salem, knowing when I was sober, the guilt would gnaw at me so much that maybe I could send her away. Maybe this would be what I needed to force my hand.

Never had I meant for Salem to see it.

Jesus Christ, what had I done?

“Rome! What’s wrong?” Mindy cried out behind me.

Her footsteps sounded as if she was running too. I didn’t notice her.

I released my hair, and my hands fell to my side.

Since my mom had been lowered into that grave, I’d only felt anything when I was with Salem. Except my mom’s words had ruined even that for me. I didn’t hold Salem the way I wanted to. I did everything I could to keep from touching her. I knew if I let myself cling to the only joy that I felt in this life by being with her, kissing her, burying myself in her that I’d never let her go.

She’d been unsure and worried, and I couldn’t look at her because all I wanted to do was grab her and reassure her that she was the only thing in this life that mattered to me. What she’d just witnessed was something I’d never wanted her to see. That wasn’t the way I wanted to lose her. I’d been trying to make her want a life without me. Not cause her pain. I was the only one who was supposed to be hurt by this.

Mom had been right. Salem was going to give it all up for me. She’d even mentioned that she might stay longer instead of going back to school. If I allowed it, she’d stay with me, and I’d cling to her—I wouldn’t be able not to. And in the end, she’d hate me for it when she looked back ten years from now and saw that she’d lost her dream because of me. I’d fucking hate me too.

I already hated myself. I’d never forgive myself for this.

A hand touched my arm, and I jerked away from it as if it were acid. Snapping my head around, I glared down at Mindy. It wasn’t her fault, but so much hate and agony were crashing around inside me that I needed somewhere to unleash it.

“What is wrong with you?” she asked incredulously.

Everything. Everything was wrong.

“Salem saw us.” My voice sounded hoarse.

She scrunched her nose. “Is that your girlfriend’s name? The one who comes by here sometimes?”

I shook my head. “She’s not my girlfriend.” I said the words that had always been too weak for what Salem was. It went way beyond girlfriend.

“Then what is she? Because she acts like it.”

I struggled to pull in oxygen before I replied, “My home. She’s my home.”

Present Day

The lights were on in Pepper’s bar when I followed Liam inside, but it still looked dark after I’d been in the bright sun. I squinted while my eyes adjusted. When I could finally see clearly, I saw a tall blonde woman, wearing a pair of bright blue-rimmed glasses, standing near the taped outline of where Hatter’s dead body had been. She was looking at the two of us as we made our way toward her.

“He wasn’t that big of a man, was he?” she mused, then turned her gaze to the outline on the floor. “But then Ezra isn’t a big guy either.”

I didn’t know who the fuck Ezra was or why Marlana Newbury was comparing him to one of the Landiagos. Liam had said we were meeting with someone who had some intel on Salem’s husband and who could clear up some things for us. He hadn’t given me any more than that. I guess he didn’t realize I’d met Marlana when she’d been with Salem once before.

“Ms. Newbury,” Liam said. “I’m Liam Walsh. We spoke on the phone.”

The woman smirked. “I know who you are and that Rome—aka Tex—Bower is the man behind you, scowling at me. Is it the glasses? Not everyone likes the bright color.”

Liam glanced back at me with an amused gleam in his eye. “Tex, this is Marlana Newbury. The DEA agent who was working undercover at the art gallery with Salem.”

“I know who she is. We’ve met. Before I knew she was undercover,” I told him.

How had Liam gotten her to meet us to tell us anything? She was fucking DEA. She didn’t have to tell us shit. But she could clear Salem’s name…or she could tell us something that would have me taking Salem and running.

“She is absolutely nothing like I expected her to be either. It was a relief. Rarely do I like the people I have to work with when undercover. I think I’ll make myself a dirty martini.” The woman then walked over toward the bar. “I’d offer to make you one, but I have issues serving a man. How is Salem doing? Since Tex is here, I am assuming things have changed with the two of you.”

She jumped from one topic to the next so quickly that it was hard to keep up.

“They have,” I replied. “She’s handling things okay, given the circumstances.”

The woman took a bottle of Tito’s from the shelf. “She is tough, but she doesn’t seem to think she is. That was an oddity I couldn’t figure out. That, and she’s completely oblivious to the attention she gets from men. As if she doesn’t even notice them.” She turned back around with the bottle and a glass. “Except you. She noticed you.”

I didn’t respond.

The woman had done her research on Salem. She’d probably known every detail of her life before Salem even came in for the interview at the art gallery. Our past would have come up in her research. My mom had been Salem’s legal guardian from the age of fifteen through eighteen. That had to have been in the records.

When I said nothing, Liam cleared his throat and made his way over to the bar. “Yeah, seems Tex and Salem have a history. One that happened before her marriage.”

Marlana let out a short laugh. “That’s one way of putting it,” she replied while continuing to mix her cocktail. “But her past with Tex wasn’t of any concern to us, although your interactions that I was lucky enough to witness were a nice break from the reality of my job. It was like watching a live-action TV drama. If only Rí had stuck around on earth long enough to see the moment the two of you reconnected,” she said, pouring the contents of the shaker into a glass.

“I don’t like bloodshed, but I won’t lie—I’d love to see the Mafia of the South and the Irish drug cartel face off. It would be one hell of a show. How is it? Being connected with them? I mean, Blaise Hughes and the family , I believe they call it. Must be a power rush. Heck, we can’t even touch them. The last lead we had that led us to Garrett Hughes’s door was shut down within twenty-four hours.” She sighed. “It was a good one too. But when the administrator calls and tells you to kill the lead and erase all evidence because the president ordered it, you don’t really have a choice.”

Garrett Hughes had contacts that went all the way to the president of the United States? Fucking hell. I had known they had power, but Jesus. I hadn’t known it was that kind of pull. I’d always wondered how Garrett and now Blaise his son who had taken over, pulled off the shit they did and never dealt with blowback.

Wait…she’d said the Irish drug cartel. Liam had said that Blaise didn’t think the DEA knew about them. That the CIA were the ones who had that information.

I turned to look at Liam and saw he was frowning. He’d caught that too.

“Stop with the scary biker-scowl thing,” Marlana said with a wave of her hand. “What? Did you think we weren’t aware that Eamon Murphy was smuggling cocaine and hash from Morocco into Ireland?” She lifted her eyebrows slightly. “We might have nothing on his family in the US yet, but we are aware of all the ports and suppliers. Until we can link them directly to a source here in the states the CIA can deal with them. Not our problem.

“Can we circle back to the fact that your son-in-law’s father is a pain in my ass? I had spent countless hours on that lead, only to have it shut down the second it came close to the Hughes name. I hoped with Blaise in charge, it would be easier to crack, but alas, Daddy Hughes trained up his son well.”

“I believe that has more to do with one of the members of the family in Mississippi than it does with Blaise Hughes,” Liam replied.

I glanced over at him. What did he know about the family’s inner workings? Sure, his daughter was married to the boss, but she wouldn’t share shit like that with him. Would she? Or maybe Blaise did. Liam had never once mentioned knowing anything about their ring of power and how far it reached.

“Ah, yes,” Marlana said, then took a drink from her glass before setting it on the bar. “The lovely, charming Opal Carver. Smart, lethal, and beautiful. I like her, but she’s bested me more than once. Sending her to DC so she could maneuver herself all the way into the White House, brilliant.”

Liam smirked. “I’ve never met her personally, but her older brother isn’t someone you want to cross.”

Marlana let out a sour chuckle. “Ransom. God, don’t get me started on that one. Sneaky son of a bitch hides all kinds of shit behind that distillery they own.” She rolled her eyes and took another drink.

“Anyway, back on topic. You had Hughes contact me to meet with you about questions you have regarding Salem. I’m here. What is it you want to know?”

Liam pulled out a stool, then sat down and rested his elbows on the bar. “Let’s start with how she ended up in Miami and at that particular art gallery with you.”

Marlana took another drink and looked from Liam to me over the rim of her glass. I didn’t feel relaxed enough to sit down, even when Liam nodded to the stool beside him. If Marlana was standing, then so was I.

Once she set the glass back down, she pointed at herself. “That was all me. I saw a distraction for Kendrix and a way for me to check out Eamon Murphy’s widow. See what she knew. How connected she was. Kill two birds with one stone,” she informed us and beamed a smile at me as if I was going to praise her. “I see you don’t understand the detailed footwork it took to pull that off. Clearly not impressed.”

“You put Salem in harm’s way,” I replied in a clipped tone, annoyed by her acting as if this were all one big play she had written.

“She was put in your path again,” she pointed out with exasperation, then looked back at Liam. “You see, I had a plant working at the same gallery as her in Boston to simply keep an eye on things after Rí’s death to see how involved his wife was in the goings-on of his business, and I was informed she was looking into moving. Had talked about resigning her current position and looking elsewhere. So, I had them mention this job opening to her and talk about how they’d love to live in Miami, et cetera. She took the bait rather easily.”

“And ended up with guns pointed at her,” I snarled, thinking about Hatter having his arms around her and Lick shooting the bastard that close to Salem’s head.

“They weren’t pointed at her. They were pointed at Kendrix. From what I hear, Ezra wanted her very much alive. He didn’t want to shoot her.”

“Who the fuck is Ezra?” I demanded this time.

“He goes by Lord, but I refuse to call him that. Vain bastard,” she said, picking up her glass and drinking down the rest.

I didn’t need the reminder of the fucker who wanted Salem.

“So, you’re the reason Salem came to Miami. You don’t think she came because of the port here and that the Murphys wanted her here for that reason. To work within that family?” Liam asked her.

She scrunched her nose. “Not anymore. I did question how easy it was to get her here. But I can honestly say I think she knows nothing. As in she has no clue that Eamon Murphy and his family are the Irish cartel. If she knows”—Marlana shrugged—“then she fooled me, and I am rarely ever fooled.”

The relief that came with her words coursed through me, and the tension in my shoulders eased.

“But you’ve been fooled before,” Liam pushed.

I wanted him to shut the fuck up. To let this go.

She nodded. “Once that I can recall. That damn Timothy Sellers. We were six. He convinced me that chocolate milk came from brown cows. But it was an elaborate setup, where he even went as far as to have chocolate milk in a pastry bag with a rubber band around the bottom to keep it from leaking. He tied the thing onto the side of the cow. Don’t ask me how he pulled that off because I have no idea. Anyway, when he went to milk the cow, I wasn’t getting down there and watching. Those bastards are huge. I stood back. But he went down and milked it—or rather milked the pastry bag—and came back with a bucket of chocolate milk. He even drank it and then had me try it. When I told my teacher this fact the next week and the entire class burst into laughter, well, let’s just say, I was never that gullible again. I needed proof. Facts. I had to see it with my own eyes,” she finished, pointing at her eyes with two fingers.

I didn’t really have a response to that babbling story. This woman was fucking quirky as hell. The fact that she was a DEA agent was shocking. How did she stay focused enough to do anything? Her inability to stay on topic seemed like it would be a negative in that department.

“How do you think a woman can be married to a man that many years and not know something like that?” Liam asked, not being sidetracked.

She leveled him with her stare. “He adored her. From all my sources, it was well known that Eamon Murphy worshipped the ground his wife walked on. He must have known she’d never be okay with his drug cartel life. Therefore, he hid that from her.”

He adored her . Those three words had me on edge once again. I should be glad she’d been loved and taken care of. But he wasn’t me. He had done what I hadn’t.

“I see,” Liam said. “You don’t have any proof that she didn’t know. You just believe that’s the case because of your interaction with her then.”

Marlana’s mouth tugged at the corners as a smug gleam lit her eye. “I’m not stupid, Mr. Walsh. I may be DEA, but I don’t want to piss off Hughes by lying to him. He asked if I had proof, and I said I did.” She lifted a shoulder, looking somewhat regretful. “Salem considered me a friend, yet I lied to her from day one. I’m doing this for her too.”

Then she took out her iPhone and placed it on the bar in front of us. I glanced down at it as she pressed play. A man’s voice began to play loudly in the empty bar.

“That’s not something I’m willing to do, Brady.”

“It’s fucking time she knew, Eamon. You’ve been married for fourteen goddamn years. It’s our life, and as long as you keep this from her, you can’t do your job. Not fully, and I’m tired of having to step in to handle something when it’s your responsibility,” another man said angrily.

“Until you love a woman enough to take a bullet for her, then don’t tell me what you think I should do. If Salem knew this, knew about us…I’d lose her. And I can’t lose her.” His last words came out in a harsh, gravelly rasp.

There was a heavy sigh on the line. I wasn’t sure which man it was.

“She loves you, Eamon. When are you going to trust that?”

He was silent for a moment. “Not enough. Not the way I do her.”

“You don’t think her not knowing is putting her in danger?”

“I’d never allow anything to touch her,” Eamon said with a growl. “I protect her.”

“This can’t go on forever. At some point, she’ll find out. Something will slip. Or happen. You think you’ll lose her if you tell her, but if she finds out that she’s been lied to, then she will walk out the fucking door.”

Silence.

I thought it was over, and the relief, mixed with possessiveness, churned inside me at listening to another man talk about Salem as if she were his to protect. Love. And she had been. But it didn’t make hearing it any easier.

“I won’t let her. If that day comes, I’ll find a way to keep her,” he finally said, sounding weary.

I’d assume living a lie was exhausting. That was essentially what he’d done.

“This is my favorite part,” Marlana said.

I shifted my eyes from the window I’d been staring at to her. She was looking at me with a smirk.

“What about the other man? The one you said she still calls out to in her sleep.”

I stilled, my eyes snapped to the phone, and my throat thickened.

“I shouldn’t have told you that. I’d had too much to drink,” Eamon replied in a thick Irish accent.

“But you said—”

“I know what I fucking said. And unless I am dead in a grave, he will never have her. He broke her, and I put her back together.”

“What if she still loves him?”

A pause…

“He doesn’t love her. Not enough. Not like I do.”

Silence.

Marlana tapped her screen, then sighed.

“I love a good drama,” she said happily, then swung her gaze from me to Liam. “That was recorded one month before Eamon went to the doctor for the symptoms that eventually killed him. It came from a CIA agent who had placed trackers in several of Eamon’s things, including his phone. Unfortunately for us, it was Eamon who had the trackers, and after his death, his brother found one, then did a clean sweep of getting them out of his house and destroyed his phone. Since then, he’s gotten a device that detects all trackers so that he can check everyone he speaks to about anything he doesn’t want the CIA hearing.”

Liam nodded, but I didn’t move. I was doing good to breathe.

Eamon Murphy’s last words replayed in my head. I hated a dead man. Loathed him. He had known nothing about me or how I felt for Salem. I’d loved her enough to let her go. He’d not loved her like that. It was his love that had been lacking. Not mine.

“I’m assuming Blaise has already heard this,” he said.

“Of course. It was sent to him immediately. I requested that I get to play it for Tex in person. Blaise agreed and thanked me for my help,” she chirped. “It was worth the trip back down here.”

I glared at her, realizing the quirky woman who came across as flighty was actually calculating. I’d not seen that in her until now. She wanted to punish me and was enjoying it. For the first time, as she looked back at me with a knowing gleam of satisfaction in her eye, I saw the DEA agent.

“To add more drama, the brother isn’t even supposed to exist. Until the CIA started getting recordings of Eamon Murphy’s phone calls to him, there was no record of a Brady Murphy or any sibling at all. No one knows what he looks like,” she said then wiggled her eyebrows up and done before turning serious. “What I am about to share with you is classified information. I could possibly be fired for this, but I do things rather regularly that I could possibly get fired for. So far, going with my gut has always paid off,” Marlana said, looking back at Liam.

He said nothing while he sat, waiting for her to continue. If this wasn’t about Salem, I didn’t give a shit, but it seemed I was going to have to stay and listen.

“We went through Salem’s apartment,” she began, and my attention was instantly snapped back to what she was saying. “When I say we, I mean me and one other. I didn’t want her things completely ransacked—and we’ve been known to do that when searching for something. So, I took the job and made sure to sweep the place but leave it as if we were never there.”

“Was that necessary?” I bit out angrily. “You have that recording.”

Marlana cut her eyes at me. “Yes, it was necessary. Just because she didn’t know who Eamon was doesn’t mean there wasn’t something there that could help us nail the Murphy family. A lead to the brother who is a damn ghost. Impossible to find. Anyway”—she shifted her feet and crossed her arms over her chest—“there was a tracker in every sole of her shoes, inside the lining of all her purses and all her coats. My first assumption was that it was Eamon who had done that. He’d want to know where she was at all times. That family has enemies, and since she was clueless about his drug trafficking, he couldn’t exactly send a bodyguard with her everywhere she went. I’m assuming he had someone trailing her though, and she wasn’t aware of it.

“My partner was checking the regular hiding places where things were often stashed when he came across a surveillance camera in the smoke detector in the living room. We found one in every room. I don’t believe she has a stalker issue here. My guess is that the Murphy family had them put there to either make sure she was safe or because she knows something that she doesn’t realize is important information.” Marlana glanced down at her fingernails, as if inspecting her manicure.

My pulse had become a thumping in my temples. Someone had been watching her. How long had she lived on the edge of fucking danger? Fear crawled up my spine as I thought about the things that could have happened to her.

“I’m assuming she wore shoes and brought a purse with her to your compound place. If so, then the Murphys- or the only one who really matters now, Brady Murphy—know where she is at this very moment. The longer she doesn’t return to her apartment, the more likely you will have the Irish drug lord showing up to rescue his former sister-in-law.”

I could feel the tension coming from Liam without glancing at him. He moved then, and I turned my head to see him jerking his phone out of his pocket, a grim expression on his face. When he pressed the contact on his phone, I knew he was calling Micah without needing to see it.

“Where are you?” he asked gruffly. “Listen carefully. Do exactly as I say. Go get the shoes, purse, clothing, anything that came with Salem and bring them to me at the bar. There are trackers in her shit, Micah.

“The damn Irish mob,” he muttered.

“No, bring it all here. I’m calling Blaise to let him know and see if Levi can deactivate the damn things or if we need to just toss them in the fucking ocean,” he said, then ended the call.

His eyes swung to me. If he was about to tell me that she had to leave the compound, I was going with her. He needed to be prepared for that.

“She needs to go,” he said, which I’d already expected.

I opened my mouth to tell him she wouldn’t be leaving alone, but Marlana spoke first.

“Wrong. Her leaving isn’t going to change the fact that they have your location. In fact, if they show up to get her and she’s gone, it’s possible they’ll start killing until someone tells them where she is. She needs to stay put. They’ve not come for her yet. Wait it out.”

Liam was scowling at her as if this were her fault. “And what? Just sit around like fucking ducks? I don’t want the Irish showing up at our gate.”

“It’s too late for that,” she replied with a shrug. “Besides, you have the Southern Mafia at your disposal. Use them.”