Page 24 of The Mafia Assassin's Redemption-

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harry

My heart’sracing and leaping, spiking my blood pressure.

I should be scared.

More scared than I am right now.

Someone tried to shoot me.

And that man, Quinn…

Instead of wanting to see him carved into tiny pieces, when he tackled me, when his body pressed into mine, I wasn’t thinking of pain and blood and death and revenge.

I was thinking something else. Something very different.

Fuck, I don’t even want to acknowledge what I was thinking.

Becausehow?

I swallow hard as a couple parts to let me pass through. I sidestep others but stay close to them as I hurry down streets. As if these strangers can offer me any protection against him. Quinn is deadly, something I’d already known. But now I’ve seen his calm, killer demeanor up close and personal. Just like the dead guy in the park.

Torin. Quinn. I don’t care which name is real. He’s still themonster who killed my parents, who would have killed me if I hadn’t shot him and run years ago.

But the thought still lingers, even after all this time.

Why didn’t he kill me back then?

Guns for hire don’t need reasons, just paychecks for jobs done. And that job was so long ago it’d be a closed case.

This is a new one.

Marrying me.

Does he want me to suffer for the rest of my life? To inflict a more creative form of torture so that I would wish for death every day? I mean, what the hell is the angle there?

“Like hell will I let that happen,” I mutter, clenching my hands in my coat pockets after pulling it back on.

Maybe it’s not a new plan. Maybe it’s an elaborate way to finish the job.

The moment I think it, I can see just how outrageous that thought is.

It’s not like I’m a goddess or a bombshell. Men barely give me a second glance.

All my life I’ve tried to be as invisible as possible, and I’m no beauty, not like my mom was. But that’s okay. Quiet, mousy, and plain are exactly what I needed to survive him. They’re what I need to help the women trapped by the mafia and underworld crime.

He can’t be interested in me. Probably not even interested in killing me anymore.

So why…?

Then a lightbulb goes off in my brain.

It has to be for money or power. It always is for these mafia thugs.

But really, I don’t give a damn about his agenda. And I don’t want to know. I should go to the church, wait until service is done, and ask Father Luigi if he’ll help me disappear.

A deep sigh expels from my lips. I know I can’t. Just like I can’t ask anyone in the network to help. To do that would be to put them in the line of fire.