Page 24 of The Mafia Enforcer's Temptation

“Your sister ain’t right,” he says, “fightin’ men.” But there’s a tinge of humor in his voice. Then it fades and his brown eyes lock on me. “I think I need to kill him, Ava. You know who he is, right?”

“He’s a Murphy.” I cross my arms.

“The Murphys aren’t a nothing family,” he says. “We don’t deal with them because we don’t have places in their territorial lines. We always stayed cool with the Volkovs. We worked someof the smuggling routes. But there are lines you don’t cross, not with your family, not with his, you get me?”

Onyx isn’t just saying this to make bullshit conversation, he knows I know the deal. He’s warning me, telling me that by clubbing the wrong person, I’ve dragged him and his whole motorcycle club into a potential war.

But the Murphy family isn’t big. They have more holdings overseas, according to rumors I’ve heard.

Sure, they absorbed the de Rosa family, but they haven’t done anything with it. No muscle flexes. Because muscle flexes are felt throughout the crime world.

Maybe they play on the down-low, double-cross, deal in girls. All that bad shit. Paddy hinted at that.

And Paddy also told me they’re nothing but low-life pieces of shit. I don’t need to have liked Paddy much to believe that.

Seamus Murphy killed my cousin.

That’s enough.

More than enough.

“We should kill him. Leave him here and hope like fuck the rest of the Murphys don’t know where he is,” Onyx says.

I look at Claudetta, who just sighs and shakes her head. She agreed to take the information I was supposed to get from Ruslan, who I think is pushing up daisies in that park, along with Olaf, and then use her skills and contacts to see just how far they got in finding this cousin.

Think, think, think. Everything’s a maybe, a hope, a whisper. I don’t have any real facts, which is what I was hoping Ruslan could bring for Claudetta and Onyx. His network is very good at strong-arming doors and people.

My uncle’s been dead a week.

The longer it takes for me to claim my place, the further it gets from me.

“You okay?” she asks me.

I smile. “I’ve had better days.”

Claudetta’s a friend, I guess, if someone like me can have a friend. I like her and her sister, and I really like Onyx. He’s simple, I know what he wants.

I shift my attention to him. “The Murphys are still outsiders.”

“They’re Irish mafia,” he says. “He’sIrish mafia, and the Irish are everywhere. The Murphys are respected. People do fear this family, Ava.”

I narrow my eyes. It’s the closest I’ve heard him talk of being scared. He’ll never admit it, but I think he’s one of those people. The Devil’s don’t have business with the Murphys, so he won’t provoke them because he fears them, and… I think he’d like to work with them because there’s a note in his voice that sounds like respect to me.

But he must not know the rest of the things they do back in Ireland, and probably here as well. The things Paddy told me about. I didn’t think they were much, but now he’s making me think I was wrong.

“They have a lot of clout?” I ask.

He pushes a hand through his hair as Claudetta edges around us to look out the door. “Whatever you decide to do, hurry up. I’m hungry.”

She wants to get out of here. She knows I don’t have anything. I’d have handed it over if I did.

“People fall over themselves to make alliances with them, but they’re picky,” Onyx says. “They’re savvy and the people they know in Europe and the UK have both the Russians and the Italians talking. They have power beneath the surface. They don’t flaunt it; they don’t have to.” His lips pull tight. “We kill him.”

“And then what? Have his family come after me?” I ask. “Take out Romanov?”

They wouldn’t. Couldn’t.

Onyx shrugs and peers at the guy. “Let ’em take out all the Romanovs.”