Page 21 of The Mafia Assassin’s Redemption (Mafia Obsession #2)

FIFTEEN

torin

I don’t touch her beyond what’s required strategically during dinner. This is a show. And I think we pull it off, but I take her home as soon as we can escape.

Not to fuck her. But the show’s over, and I’m not into it anymore.

Or maybe I am.

Maybe I’m too into it. Into her.

She’s a natural sub. Of course I’m into her. But her fucking face when I told her I graded her performance…

Shit. Harry already hates me. Why the hell am I making it worse? I’ve spent the last twelve years protecting her, and now I’m taunting her.

It’s because I don’t want her to get attached. She’s mine, yes. For now. Until this is over. Then I’ll let her go. And if I have to kill every fucker who tries to touch her after the fact, so be it. Why should she be happy if I’m miserable?

I rub a hand over my face. I’m a little drunk. My thoughts get out of control when drunk. Soon I’ll be crashing back into the guilt I wear around my neck like a noose. The guilt of how I fucked up her life, and that I still am, even while I’m doing my best to save her.

Yeah, I’m no hero.

Heroism sounds way too complicated.

Harry stares out the window as we drive through the streets. I told our driver Max, one of our trained men, to take the quieter streets and drive around before we head home. I sigh, noticing that Harry’s seat belt is unclipped. As we take faster and harder turns, I reach over to snap it in place.

“Why?” she asks.

“I think we’re being followed.”

I turn and look out the tinted back window. The car behind us has no front plate. “Take the next right,” I say to Max.

“Torin?”

I put a hand on her leg. “Harry,” I say in a low voice, “get down.”

She opens her mouth to protest, but the fear in her eyes flares bright when I pull my gun. I’d tucked it away before we left. There was no way I was going anywhere tonight unarmed, not with Harry at my side. She crouches down as the driver swerves.

“Stop when I say stop. Hard.”

“Yes—”

The world explodes into fire and bullets and broken glass. The other car zooms past. Bullets crack, shattering windows, pounding metal.

“Stop,” I yell.

Thank fuck he does and he’s still alive.

I fling open my door as the others get out of the car up ahead.

One’s reloading like an eejit . Right there in the open.

I’m taking him first. I fire, squeezing off chest and head shots.

I swing my gun around to the next victim, picking them off with swift, cold anger.

Suddenly, I’m back in Ireland, outside the farm.

I’m in the streets, shooting the fucker who raped a girl.

I’m doing it for Harry. For her mom. For the dead.

Because I fucking can. I snap another magazine in place, stalk up to the car, and shoot them all once more for good measure.

Then I pat them down for any identification.

No one has any, and I don’t recognize their faces. Well, the faces that are still intact.

Fuck.

Back at the car, I check Max over. There’s blood on his sleeve but the bullet only grazed his arm. “Get back to the brownstone, I’ll tell Callahan what happened.”

I text my brother, then switch off my phone because I need to think.

Harry’s huddled against the seat, shards of glass glittering on the leather around her. I undo her seat belt and pull her out of the car.

“Go,” I tell Max.

“Sir—”

“Now.” They know the car. I can’t risk staying in it with Harry for a second more.

Max puts the car in drive and zooms away from the curb.

I sling my jacket over Harry’s shivering body and walk with her.

The cops will be here soon. I break into a car on the next block and hot-wire it while she watches, open-mouthed.

The car’s old and the driver helpfully left some mail in the car.

I’ll make sure she gets repaid with a new car.

But for now, I’m taking Harry somewhere that isn’t the West Village because I need to get off the grid and figure out what the hell to do.

She sits in the seat, her breaths tiny rasps. She squeezes her bag in her hands, her hair mussed, the pins falling out of it. Fury licks an angry path in me when I see her look so small and broken.

Someone tried to kill Salvatore. It was dirty and wild, an act designed to bring utter chaos to our world. Maybe it was a hit, maybe it wasn’t, but it was a fucking mess and I really want to know who the fuck was responsible. Shite like that doesn’t go unnoticed. Or unpunished.

Have I pissed someone else off? Or was this shoot-up intended for Harry? Shit, maybe Salvatore’s actually smart enough to pull off a bluff like that, come out and tell me he was attacked and then take Harry out like we’re all targets.

It doesn’t make sense. I turn onto the West Side Highway and head toward Battery Park.

“Was that for me?” Harry asks. “Because I didn’t kill Bernardo. That was?—”

“Me. I’m aware. I don’t know what that was, but we’re not going home.”

“Are you going to hand me over to someone?” Her voice is high and wobbly with apprehension.

I slant her a look. “Where the fuck did that come from? Why in the living hell would I go through a blood wedding to just hand you over to someone? And who the fuck would that someone even be?”

“Whoever got you to kill my parents.”

I grip the wheel tight and grit my teeth before letting out a sharp sigh.

“You think I killed them? That I was the one who put the bullet in your father after—” I stop myself from saying torturing him.

Maybe she didn’t see that part, or maybe she blocked it all out.

I don’t need to dredge up those horrors for her.

“Harry, I was there to save you all and I didn’t. I fucking failed you and your parents.”

“No,” she says, a stubborn edge to her voice. “You killed them.”

My shoulders slump forward. I’m not going to change her mind, even if it’s with the truth. She’s built up this hatred of me. Maybe it’s easier for her to hang on to it. Maybe she doesn’t know what she’ll feel if it turns out I’m not the monster haunting her dreams.

Suddenly I’m fucking tired. And technically, she’s right. I may not have fired the bullets, but I didn’t do my job, which is what got them killed. “Think what you want.”

One good thing has come out of this whole shit show. I’m now stone-cold sober.

“Why can’t I see my uncle?”

“I’m here to keep you safe, Harry.”

“Great job,” she mutters.

“Safe until I snap and kill you myself,” I bite out. “But until then, I don’t want you to get hurt. There are only so many times I can go on a killing spree before I really get pissed.”

She flinches. “He’s my uncle, he’s not going to hurt me.”

Curious, I ask, “Do you know that for sure?”

“Yes.”

It makes sense, but I don’t trust outside my family.

From what Anthony told me, they weren’t ever close. He didn’t want to be part of the mafia world, probably because investing was more lucrative. But then Harry came to him in her late teens. And he didn’t turn her away. Was it out of family loyalty or something else?

“Did you know he handles money for certain mafia families?” I ask. “Some of them are fucking nasty. One of them is a member of the Ricci clan.”

“He’s a merchant banker, so?—”

“What Anthony does is illegal and he launders big money in ways that makes them even more illegal. He’s hip deep in in the shit he claims he never wanted to get involved in.”

Funny, I thought I’d experience some satisfaction about dropping this bomb, but when I see her face fall out of the corner of my eye, all I feel is deflated and in need of a scrub down.

“I didn’t know that,” Harry murmurs. “But it’s not my business, and it has nothing to do with me.”

“It’s everything to do with you. He claims?—”

“Wait, you confronted him?” Outrage raises her voice.

“He claims that his criminal clients don’t ask questions if they’re making money.

So that, at least, helps keep you safe. And he also swears the world thinks you’re his illegitimate kid,” I say, pulling up to the curb near the pier.

“He said that seemed to be the easiest explanation. He also says he doesn’t know why your parents tried to get out of the mafia’s world, but…

” I stop, a sigh expelling from my lips.

“So, you don’t trust him.”

I get out of the car without answering. My eyes dart up and down the desolate street.

I don’t see any threats, so I slide my gun into the waistband of my pants.

We made it here without being followed and I seriously doubt anyone’s waiting down here on the off chance I’ll visit my boat Mildred . If they even know about her.

I head to her side of the car and open the door. She takes my outreached hand and lets me help her out. I lean in and grab a piece of mail, then pocket it.

She gasps. “You can’t steal mail.”

“I can.”

“You also can’t stop me from?—”

“Seeing your uncle? Yeah, actually, I can.” He sounds like he’s telling the truth, but if he’s wrong, or worse, lying… My chest tightens. “You keep away from him. Clear?”

She nods but her gaze skitters, and I don’t believe her.

I guide her along the path to the water, her heels clacking on the boardwalk. Mildred ’s moored at the end, and the gangplank is remote controlled. But before I do anything else, I switch off the alarm. Whoever tries to get on without disabling it will get a shock to their system. Literally .

Not that anyone would. The disbelief on Harry’s face pretty much matches everyone else who sees Mildred . As we walk onboard, she touches the side, her fingers grazing the artful rust I spent so much time applying. A surge of satisfaction rises in my chest.

“Whose ship is this?”