Page 24 of The Mafia Assassin’s Redemption (Mafia Obsession #2)

SEVENTEEN

torin

Harry’s sleeping, and I can’t be in the bed with her for a second more. If I stay, I’ll only commit more crimes against her because while we’re together, it’s hard to remember just how innocent and corruptible she is.

She likes it. Every last bit of my twisted games.

She reacts with the heart of a deviant, a soul of a tamed brat.

They never stay tamed for long, though. But I’m not being fair because she was shoved into this situation, and if I stay in that fucking bed, I’ll hold her close in my arms and never let her go.

Thank fuck I don’t have a heart.

I shower, change into jeans and a black sweater, then leave some clothes for her.

Sometimes when it’s too much at home, I come here to work… on renovations for Mildred and matters for my family.

I don’t know that much about construction and restoration, which is why the ship got fitted and fixed by professionals. But I am working on a room, staining the wood, studying how to take her out of her mooring.

Early morning light filters through the porthole.

One day I plan to take this ship out on the water. Would Harry like?—?

Shit, she’s invading my thoughts often. Too often.

Every time I close my eyes, that perfect ass is there, pink once more from the spanking I gave her while finger fucking her to another orgasm a few hours ago.

I don’t do this type of thing. Don’t lose myself in someone in this kind of way.

Messy, blurred edges, and me left with feelings and emotions I don’t know how to process.

I grab the computer to do a little work when my phone lights up.

I see you booked a car in an hour.

Callahan.

I shoot off a response.

Figure I need to be home after everything that happened last night. Been looking for info.

Because while Mildred is good for a one-night escape, the brownstone is the best place for Harry.

You come up with anything?

I stare at Cal’s message, gritting my teeth as I stab the keyboard on my phone.

No idea who decided to try and gun down the car.

Salvatore ?

I think about it, something that keeps rolling around my mind.

Do you think he’s smart?

Cal responds immediately.

Fuck no. He’s a bully, but he’s not going to break the blood marriage contract.

I type again.

And last night he complained someone tried to take him out.

I can almost see my brother shrug.

It’s part of our world. What enemies have you made, Tor? Upset anyone lately?

My lips quirk upward.

Just Harry.

Anyone else wouldn’t be breathing. And as that comes to me, I’m aware that since she came back into my life, I’ve let the old Torin out, the one who’ll kill in the blink of an eye.

The assassin with a cause.

But I’ll fucking protect her, do my duty, pay those dues.

You think she was behind it?

It’s just a text, but even so I can pick up the disbelieving vibe.

She’s not my fan, but it’s not her. She was in the fucking car.

Besides, she’s so torn and confused by me and what she wants and desires, I don’t think, for all her talk, she’s plotting my death.

Yet.

Any other Torin enemies?

I’m a ghost. Always was.

Mafia families have enemies who want to overthrow us and steal our power and influence.

Like an octopus, our arms stretch deep into many areas.

We protect people, we help, we kill, we enforce.

Our empire works because we don’t encroach.

We make deals and arrangements. And for most, if we choose to make a deal, it’s a win-win situation.

This is how it worked on the streets in Ireland running a small operation, and this is how it works running one in Manhattan worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

That’s not saying there aren’t death threats and attempts made on us, but those things are a lot of trouble, require a lot of planning, and come with danger most don’t want to tangle with because of the Murphy wrath they’d incur.

Of course, there’s one thing I don’t want to face.

Whoever the fuck wanted her family dead still wants them all wiped off the face of the planet, and I believe that someone somehow knows she’s alive.

I’ve spent years taking out those who’ve sniffed around, looking for her. Squashing any threats, even those which had nothing to do with the Raos.

Fuck. It could be anyone. We need to find out.

I type back to Callahan.

Yeah. We will find the fuck out.

In the living room back home, Dec shows off the harness he’s put on poor Clawzilla. He tugs a little, trying to get the cat to move. But he’s not having any of it and has nosed his way under one of Arnold’s front paws. It looks like our dog’s hugging and protecting the cat.

“…don’t you think, Tor?” Seamus asks me as he looks at the new gun in his hand.

I frown and close the door to the study, effectively shutting out the sight of the others. Callahan’s study is opposite the big open-plan living room, and he’s fielding a call in the corner about a shipment of drugs we’re holding until we get our protection payment.

I pick up the gun and turn it over in my hands. I take out the magazine and try out the trigger, lining it up through the window.

Ordinarily I’d want to test it, to see the way it pulls and how good it is, precision wise.

“Where’d you get it from?” I hand it back.

He casts a look at Cal. “Dec knows a guy. I’m not too sure. I like what I like, but maybe some of our customers?—”

“No,” I say. “It’s military grade, new, and unless I know where the fuck his guy got it from, I wouldn’t be seen with it.”

“Military?” Callahan growls out the word, tossing down his phone. “Fuck that shite . We only mess with that from reliable sources.” He lights a cigarette, storms to the closed door to rip Declan a new one, and Seamus stops him.

Cal gives him a dangerous look. “Let go?— ”

“Your wife’s out there, and so is the skittish church mouse.” Seamus shrugs.

“She’s not a fucking mouse.” I ignore Seamus’s smirk. “And she’s not skittish, either.” And while we’re at it, I’m with Callahan on the weapon source.

The gun, the damn rifle in my safe, they don’t speak well of our idiot baby bro.

“And,” Cal says, “my wife, not yours, Seamus.”

“Ah well, forgive me for trying to keep this family out of trouble,” Seamus says overdramatically. “It’s not all bombs and party limos, you know.”

“Look,” I say, going to the liquor cabinet and pouring some Redbreast into a glass. “This is my problem. I’ll handle it.”

“Yours?” Seamus frowns. “Did you go and tell him to barter for fancy guns, Tor?”

I rub my eyes.

“No, you git.” Callahan takes a drag of his cigarette. “He’s worried about his bride.”

“Not like that,” I snap. “We need to work out who’d be stupid and short-sighted enough to take us on.”

“Take us on? That’s a shite idea made for a moron.” Seamus spins the unloaded gun on a bare spot on his messy desk. “Who’d do that?”

“We don’t know.” Cal blows out smoke rings. “Someone wanting some of our turf or maybe someone who’s after Hazel.”

“Doesn’t the blood wedding mean she’s now one of us completely?” Seamus says, shaking his head. “I’ll ramp up the feelers I have out in bars and the streets. What about the Russians?”

“What about them?” Callahan asks. “That issue was put to rest when we took out Paddy.”

“There are other families. I’ll look into possible bratva links.” My favorite sex club is discreet, not a haven for bratva, mafia, or the criminal underbelly. But there are some Russians and Poles who have their own fetishes.

Run into them on business or in the street, and it would be like meeting a stranger. But in the club… a conversation about a show, a girl, a new toy or whip has happened, and though I keep to myself on the whole, the kink world is small.

I could go one night.

My blood starts to throb.

Take Harry, visit my favorite sex shop…

I push my mind somewhere else fast. “We’ll all look into angles, see if the dead have been identified?—”

“It might be hard,” Seamus says. “Someone got rid of the bodies, rolled them up and took them, according to a witness.”

Unease spreads into my chest. “Like they didn’t care.”

“Like they were taking their fallen comrades.” Seamus spins the gun again.

I’ve seen that. Crews with causes. But there aren’t any to be had here. In New York, the only cause is money and power. Of course, that’s if they’re from here…

“We won’t know until we know. But I think we all go and find out what we can. I’ll talk to our allies and those who fall under our watch.” Callahan sighs. “I’ll take Dec with me.”

Later that night, I sit back in the small private room at a bar deep in Hell’s Kitchen, near Eleventh Avenue. There is still an enclave of car places and warehouses in the area where all kinds of illegal shit goes down.

The bar is in a pocket of no man’s land, where criminals and the unsavory come to drink. Deals are spun in here between all walks of life. Maybe we can get a lead if we watch closely enough.

“You wanna maybe tell me why someone in downtown Brooklyn fingered you as being paid to shoot at Salvatore Ricci?” Seamus says, walking over to the table. He twirls the pool cue in the air before swinging hard and then lightly tapping the shaking man on the back of the knees.

On the ground at my feet is his drinking partner.

“We just take jobs, and I didn’t—” The man stops whining as the name sinks in, his eyes widening.

Seamus hits him across the throat, making him stagger back, clutching it. He slams right into the wall and lands dangerously close to the dartboard. Strangely, he doesn’t grab the darts as I would.

He’s an amateur, and Seamus is taking full advantage of that fact.

It’s why I don’t step in even as my fingers itch to. He can handle it himself. This is shite we were born doing.

Seamus seemingly leaves the man, lines up, and shoots. “Ah, so you thought you’d take the other job and have a go at the Murphy clan, then?”

“What?” The man takes half a step forward, eyes wild, almost bugging with fear.

“Not you, personally, but your dead friends.” Seamus straightens and rests the cue tip on the sticky sawdust-covered floor. “Or the ones you farmed it out to?”

I don’t think these guys were friends with the ones I gunned down, just schmucks paid to do a job.

“Have you ever thought the Ricci family might be out to get the Murphys?” The man rushes out the words. “We do jobs for money, no questions asked. But we didn’t?—”

“Maybe they’re all incompetent, Seamus,” I say, kicking the man on the ground in the head as he stupidly tries to rise. “Because it seems incompetent, not looking into the Ricci and Murphy situation.”

“I’d call it stupidity, Torin,” Seamus says, circling the guy still standing. Barely. “There’s a blood wedding contract, meaning everyone in the Murphy family, including our latest member, won’t ever be touched by the Riccis. And the Riccis won’t be touched by the Murphys.”

“In case you need a lesson,” I interject, “in how blood weddings work.”

“I want to know who paid them,” Seamus says with a grin to me. He hits the guy in the lower back with the cue. “Who paid you?”

The guy screams in agony, his back buckling. “We didn’t?—”

“Next time,” Seamus adds, “I might hit you hard. Now tell me who paid you.”

“Some kid from Greenpoint in Brooklyn.” The guy swings his gaze from me to Seamus and back again. He pulls something out of his pocket and slaps it on the pool table. “We were told to call this number. No name, nothing. Just a voicemail. We weren’t killing no one.”

A Polish kid who wanted money. He probably got the job from someone else, and they got it from the source. Whoever that might be.

The trick’s old and also familiar. Shit like that doesn’t always make tracks invisible, but it muddies things plenty.

Christ. We’re no closer to an answer than we were before. This might be something new, someone deciding to try to start something between us and the Ricci family for their own gains, a leftover from that original hit and a coincidental attack on Salvatore.

Or maybe it’s someone out to get Harry…

I glance down. My friend on the floor’s managed to pull out his gun. I step on his hand. “I wouldn’t.”

And then I look at the gun.

Fuck me.

I kick him over onto his back and grab the gun as I lower myself, kneeling on his chest, right above his throat for maximum discomfort and ease of death should I choose to go in that direction.

The gun’s military grade. Cutting edge, a sister to the one back at home.

“Where did you get this from?”

“Why? You can have it, it’s yours if you wa?—”

I kick him. “Where?”

He says something, but I don’t catch it.

I need to lean close to hear him. “Pawn shop… East Harlem.”

“Address?”

He rattles it off.

“Seamus?” I stand and pocket the card with the number on it. “I think we should go.”

It takes us about forty minutes to get to our destination. Seamus slants me a look as we get out of the car, eyeing the graffiti over the store that reads Beloved Used Goods. There’s paper on the windows, and across the street, two punks watch us with a little too much interest for my liking.

We were them once, though harder, probably meaner. But while they’re clearly armed, I don’t think they’re here for us, and leaving our driver means the car’s occupied.

I get it. We’re new, so we’re of interest. I walk with Seamus, leading him around the block, toward an alley between an apartment building and the store. There’s a back area for the dumpsters.

“Look at that,” I say when we stop in front of the store’s back door.

Deep inside, I can’t help feeling like I’m missing something.

My guilt, the old fiend that won’t ever leave, flares. If I’d have saved Harry’s entire family and done my job, killed the fucking mercenaries I had to leave behind, maybe…

I don’t know.

“Broken lock. Forced by the looks. You think Dec came here to get guns?” Seamus asks.

“He’s a lazy little bastard, but…” Nah, he’d see the place as shady.

The door opens, and with a stilted breath, we both creep inside.

Something’s wrong. I feel it in my bones. And I don’t like it at all.

The air’s permeated by a familiar sickly-sweet scent.

“You smell that, Torin?” Seamus says, using his phone’s flashlight to scout the place as we move from the back to the front. “This feels like a trap.”

I swing my light around and the plastic-wrapped bricks of cocaine on the dust-free glass counter get my attention, but that’s not what I’m looking for.

Outside, sirens start to get louder, and I round a corner as everything goes cold.

A dead man’s sitting up in a chair, a bullet hole through his skull.

“Jesus Christ.” Seamus stops next to me. “Who the fuck is that?”