Page 3 of The Mafia Assassin’s Redemption (Mafia Obsession #2)

THREE

torin

“Where the fuck are you going?”

My youngest brother, Declan walks over to me, Clawzilla, our black cat, perched on his shoulder. I remember when he was just a hissing scrap of fur. Now he’s big and his body is defying gravity right now because he’s bigger than Dec’s shoulder.

I wouldn’t cross Clawzilla, but he likes naps more than maimings.

“Out.” Because I can’t tell him the truth about where I’m headed.

Arnold, our German shepherd, trots up. He’s a big, gorgeous dog now, his intelligent eyes looking up at me. He makes a small, questioning whine.

“Dude, it’s late.”

“Yeah, well, I’m a big boy who’s not afraid of the dark, Dec. Go bother Lucie.”

He rolls his eyes at the mention of our sister-in-law. “I’m pretty fucking sure she’s doing the nasty with Cal.” He shudders and pets Clawzilla’s paw. “Don’t worry, guys, I won’t let you see such horrors. ”

Dec rubs the top of Arnold’s head and deposits the cat on the dog’s back. This time, Arnold’s whine is louder and Clawzilla gives a hiss of annoyance.

Our operations have been running smoothly and our power base growing. Seamus is out collecting payments and probably up to no good with some hot girl.

Dec and the animals follow me from the shared floor to the front door, where I grab my long coat and pull it on. I don’t wear it much. Even after all this time, more than a decade that’s passed, it reminds me too much of Shiv and the little girl whose family I failed to save.

The little girl who’s all grown up and causing her own quiet brand of trouble in New York City.

“This is the second night you’ve gone out this week. Last time was three days ago. Three!”

For fuck’s sake. “I bought a boat a while ago. You’re welcome to come help me do some work on it.”

There’s no boat, but I’m running out of excuses.

“At this hour? No, thanks. I’d rather play Call of Duty .”

I roll my eyes at Declan. “You’re allergic to hard work.”

He grabs Arnold’s leash. “Take Arnold. He needs a walk.”

Which means Declan couldn’t be bothered to do it earlier. Clawzilla jumps down and finds a nice space in the middle of the floor to bathe himself. I grab Arnold’s lead and clip it on.

I need air. I need to clear my head.

Three days ago, I stood in the alley near the church Harry works out of. It took me a while to track her operation since all the moving parts have firewalls and no apparent connection. But I figured it out in the end.

The little girl I saved from the fire, the one I watched over from afar, and the one I arranged for the Holy Mary School for Orphans in Dublin to take under their care in exchange for both protection and regular payouts, has more than grown up.

I had connections and she needed a place to live and thrive.

And now she plays the part of Little Miss Pious perfectly.

Fuck, maybe she is, but she’s my secret. Cal doesn’t know about her, and even Mam, who tracked down her uncle for me, doesn’t know I’ve kept tabs on her all this time.

I’ve taken out every threat to her. Crushed every person who wanted her family eliminated for whatever reason, probably power and money, until no danger remained.

For three years I’ve just kept track of her whereabouts, and since we moved to New York, I personally check up on her.

And Harry’s kept out of trouble. Until now.

The Ricco family. I looked into them. They’re sadistic and she just helped Lara disappear, Salvatore Ricco’s favorite punching bag and shared family sex toy.

She had that altercation with Bernardo three days ago, and today all hell’s broken loose. Details are on the chats I’ve hacked. The money that’s been moved tells me they’re going to rip things apart to find Lara.

I hope to fuck the underground movement she’s involved in is good enough to keep her safe. If not… I’m doing something I haven’t done in years.

I’m carrying my gun.

I would take it on all missions, but these days I’m the brains that allow us to stay one step ahead of our enemies, so there really isn’t a need for me to be carrying.

I’m not saying I’m smarter than my brothers, but I am a computer geek, and since hanging up my hitman hat, I threw myself deeper into it all. Now I know the route the cops might take, how long they’ll take to arrive, how to hack surveillance cameras, bank accounts. Dig up dirt on threats.

It’s Sunday, so evening mass is still in session. I pull my baseball cap from my pocket and put it on, tugging the bill down low. Arnold takes off at a good pace.

He wants to run. I can feel it in the jerk of the lead, the way he checks back with me to see if he can.

“Next time, I promise you a trip to Central Park and we can run the paths.”

He barks and I speed up as we head to the West Village, giving him a little freedom. I cut strategic paths along the streets, watching for certain cars and noting the people who seem to sit and do nothing in them.

Harry—Clarita Harriet Federici, aka Hazel White—is an enigma.

She’s mousy in her demeanor, wears conservative clothes and a cross that sits on a delicate chain. Her hair is always clipped back, dark blond now.

I remember the bright-blond pigtails that the skinny little kid had.

She’s not skinny anymore.

She’s grown curves she hides under her big, baggy clothes. And I’d probably be nauseated by how good she is—volunteering, giving over swathes of her life to the poor and homeless, the battered and needy—if I didn’t think there was a lot more to her than she lets on.

Still…

Harry isn’t my type.

I like women to be submissive in the right ways, women who will do what I want, when I want, and where I want. I don’t hurt anyone, unless you count myself, but then again, I get them to do that.

Sex with Shiv was exhilarating, rough, wild, and with more than a touch of exhibition and edging. It opened something in me that’s grown over the years. My kink. Dom with a twist.

No two kinks are the same and no one judges. I keep it to the clubs, mostly. There?—

I halt my thoughts. I stand across from the church as the doors open and the parishioners spill out, the fat priest shaking hands and chatting with them as they leave. I look around.

People pass by but no one’s watching.

Then I see him. The ugly dude from three nights ago. He’s leaning against a black car just down the street from the church. He opens the door to the car and gets into the back seat. But the car doesn’t leave.

My stomach clenches and Arnold goes still. “Yeah, that’s a bad guy there, Arnold.”

When everyone’s gone, the church doors close and the priest heads back inside.

We slip farther into the darkened alley next to a nearby apartment building, the church still in view.

I tie Arnold to a drainpipe, out of the way and behind a dumpster. “No matter what, Arnold, be silent, okay, boy?”

He just looks at me but I think he understands.

If there’s trouble, I want him safe. An old familiar feeling’s coming over me, the surge of adrenaline I’d get before a kill.

For ten minutes I stand still, blending with the shadows, gun in my hand, eyes on the car and the church.

When Harry comes running down the stairs, her blond hair flying behind her, my heart flips and I picture the kid with frightened silver eyes. She crosses to my side of the road, no longer the kid, now a survivor, one I intend to protect no matter what.

It’s the least I can do to make up for everything she lost.

Bernardo gets out of the black car and crosses the street, too .

She walks past me, hesitating a split second like she knows I’m there, but she doesn’t look. I’m just a shadow.

And then the fucker runs at her. He grabs her and slams her into the brick wall. Right next to me.

She lands hard, a hiss of breath slipping from her lips.

“Get the fuck away from me,” she growls, whipping around and raising her fists to Bernardo.

He pulls a gun but I’m faster. I shoot him three times, chest, head, chest, an old signature move.

She screams and I come out of the darkness to slam a hand over her mouth.

“Shh. Run.”

With that, I turn, untie Arnold, and quickly walk around the corner.

I really hope to God she runs.

My brothers are sitting in the study when I get home.

“I cut my evening short for this, Tor. Should’ve fucking seen her tits, they were out to—” He drops his hands from an improbable distance from his body, as Lucie, Callahan’s wife, comes into the room.

“If her tits were that large, Seamus, she’d fall over. Gravity, you know?” She kisses my oldest brother, then with her arm around Cal’s neck, she asks, “Who died?”

“A nasty fucker,” Callahan says. “We got a call.”

“And all our phones are on fire,” Dec says.

I unclip Arnold who runs up to Lucie, jumping up on her. She abandons my brother for the dog. “Should I stay?”

“No,” Cal says, “but you do you.”

“I’ll order dinner,” she says. “Come on, Arnold. Let’s go bug Clawzilla.”

My blood pounds, and my stomach lurches. It’s not the opposite of an adrenaline comedown. It’s worse. It’s foreboding.

Shit. I know I took a chance making that hit, but the gun had a silencer and no one was around to see it happen. Besides, between the shadows and the dark, it would be impossible to tell who actually pulled the trigger.

Arnold and I left the back way. And then we went on a long walk down along the paths on the West Side Highway.

It’s been eleven years since my last hit, but instinct is like muscle memory.

I shot the asshole fast and clean and didn’t touch him.

Besides, I can hack into any database that would store evidence with my computer setup. I look at Cal. “Who was the call from?”

“Anthony Bianco. A nobody, at least on paper,” he says, disgusted. “Mam knew his sister. And they were small-time mafia before the sister got married and took all the contacts with her.”

I nod, a shiver prickling my skin.

Anthony is Harry’s uncle.

“His niece is in trouble,” Cal continues.

It takes everything I am not to leap to my feet, grab my gun, and add to my new kill list. “And?”

“It seems the girl’s been blamed for the hit on Bernardo Ricco.”

“A last-minute, quick-as-lightning hit?” I shake my head and ignore the questions on Cal’s face.

“Seems there’s been one on him a while, but she’s being fingered. The Riccos are old school, and they play by the old-school rules. They’ll announce the culprit and put out their own retaliatory hit.”

I keep my voice even. “The girl?— ”

“The girl publicly argued with him, and now Bernardo’s very much dead. Shot, execution-style.”

I get exactly what he’s not saying. They decide to put a hit on this girl, thinking there won’t be any repercussions. And that gives the Ricco mafia the perfect scapegoat. “Did anyone see her shoot him?”

Callahan’s eyes narrow a little and I hold his gaze, afraid that if I look away, he’ll get even more suspicious than he already is.

“No. If she had, Torin, she’d already be dead.

You know that. She was found shaking, after running from the scene, hunkered down with the priest at the church she works at.

” Cal pauses. “It’s a mafia-known church, so the priest has no reason to lie, but the consensus of Bernardo’s family is that the girl hired someone. ”

I frown. “Sounds like conjecture. They don’t have proof.”

“They don’t need it,” Cal says.

Fuck. “This sounds like an easy scapegoat kill.”

“Of course it is,” Seamus says. “Christ, Tor, I thought you were smarter than that. Jesus, I always knew computers killed brain cells.”

“At least I have plenty to kill, Seamus.” I take a breath.

“Well, what are we supposed to do?” Dec asks.

I clench my fingers into tight fists. “Is her uncle worried? Does she need protection?”

What am I saying? Of course she needs protection.

I can be outside her apartment in minutes. I can get her the fuck out of town, get her a new name, identity, I can save her like I’ve been doing. And then once she’s safe, I can let go. I can finally move forward.

And those silver eyes won’t haunt my dreams anymore.

“The uncle’s concerned, and Mam told him to call us to see if we know anything.” Cal looks me right in the eye. “After all, the girl’s family was murdered on the night Siobhan died.”

I open my mouth, but he shakes his head once.

“So, not to sound stupid here—” Seamus swings a thumb in Declan’s direction. “But what are we supposed to do?”

I’d like to know that, too. We know thugs, modern mafia, but… old school? Not so much. I’ve seen The Godfather. We’re not set up like that.

“If Mam wants us to step in and help, we will.” Cal sighs and stands up. “We have business by mutual affiliations with the Ricco family. Nothing much, but we’re a clean slate to each other. They respect that.”

“That’s all fucking sunshine and roses,” I say, “but what if they try and kill her?”

“They won’t until they decide on a course of action. They know it’s a hit, and I believe they know the real culprit, or at least suspect them, but we all know sometimes things are complicated. A girl with no ties is an easy mark. I figure it’ll be a hit, and they’ll announce it soon.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck . Another mistake. Another mess I’ve created. The breath sticks in my lungs. I’ll wipe out all the Ricco family. Simple. But I try to control the fever boiling my blood, the anger that tightens my chest. “There must be something…”

Cal nods. “There’s a loophole. A blood marriage.”

I narrow my eyes. “What the fuck is a blood marriage?”

“Old-school ritual in mafia-owned Catholic churches.” He wipes a hand over his face. “I’ve been looking into it. If she enters into a blood marriage, no one can touch her without touching us. She’s her husband’s property and the family’s. They won’t mess with us or our allies.”

“You can’t hold them to that. People aren’t noble,” I say.

Cal shrugs. “The old-school Italians love their honor codes, and a blood wedding is sacred. She’d be property until the marriage ends.

And from what I’ve heard from various contacts, I don’t think Salvatore Ricco liked his brother very much.

They’d share women, but it was just to keep Bernardo happy.

He sounds like he was a real prick and a lot of people wanted him dead. ”

I’m still wrapping my head around the solution. “Explain the blood marriage again.”

“It’s old, rare, but still used. The marriage happens when a slate needs to be cleaned or someone wants to make a real offer of loyalty.

The girl’s given as absolute property. And it doesn’t obey actual laws, just mafia law held sacred by the church.

It’s even consummated in the Blood Room in the church. ”

My heart flips.

I’m beginning to like this. If I have Harry, I can keep her safe. I can atone. She can lead her life and me mine.

Cal starts to look to Seamus, but I step up.

“I’ll do it,” I say. “I’ll marry her.”