Bought Mafia Bride by Mae Doyle
Dane
Natalia was almost asleep before I even got her to the bedroom. Her mouth parted slightly as I put her on the bed, carefully pulling the dress from her and stripping it off like wrapping paper on the best gift. When I finished, it lay on the floor in a crumpled pile, but I couldn’t take my eyes from the woman in front of me.
She didn’t have on a bra, and her white lace underwear looked so sweet and innocent that I only allowed myself to trail my finger along the top of the elastic. Her skin was so warm under my touch that I pulled back and flipped a few blankets up over her to make sure that she stayed that warm while she sleeps.
Now I’m back in the living room, pacing in front of my windows, waiting on reinforcements to arrive. Lorenzo had texted that they had information and were on their way, and when they buzz for me to let them in I throw the door open and wait for them to make their way up on the elevator.
“What do you have?” I demand as soon as the doors slide open. Lorenzo glances once at Johnny and the two of them push past me into my condo before Lorenzo turns to speak to me.
I shut the front door and press my finger up against the keypad to make sure that nobody else is going to be able to get in. “You two have something,” I say. “I need to know who the fuck thought it was a good idea to order a hit on me in the middle of the day while I was trying on the fucking tux for my wedding.”
I’m pissed, but not only because someone tried to kill me. That same person put Natalia in danger, and even though she doesn’t want to admit that she belongs to me, she does. That means that I’m going to do anything necessary to keep her safe, even if that means killing everyone around us.
“It has to be related to our wonderful major,” Lorenzo says. He waits for me to respond, and when I don’t, he jerks his head in the direction of the kitchen. “Whiskey.”
Rolling my eyes, I lead the way and pour us each a drink. We settle on barstools at the counter and I wait for them to speak. I hate not having all of the information. It’s not something that I’m used to, but there wasn’t any way that I was going to leave Natalia on her own and do the legwork myself.
No, she needed someone to take care of her. Now that I have her here, I’m confident that she’s going to be okay. I’ll keep her safe. I’ll kill anyone who even thinks about hurting her.
“It’s too much of a coincidence to ignore that we paid Steve a visit and then suddenly someone tries to kill me.” My whiskey feels good on my tongue and I take another sip before continuing. “But did you two manage to dig up any proof of that or were you just out there holding each other’s dicks?”
“Feeling a little left out that nobody has touched your dick in a while?” Johnny raises his eyebrow at me with a grin.
“Cut your hair, cousin, you look like a fucking muppet,” I shoot back. He runs his hand through his hair and glares at me.
“Listen,” Lorenzo says, stopping the two of us before we can really get into it. “I know that tensions are all a little high right now, but it wasn’t anyone in here who tried to kill you, Dane. We don’t have proof yet, but I put some guys on it to try to find out if the mayor had anything to do with it.”
“If he did, he’ll keep his nose clean,” I say, putting my glass down on the counter with a thud. “You two know as well as I do that there’s no way he’ll leave any kind of trail that will let people tie him to something like this. A botched hit? That’s the only thing worse than a successful one.”
“True, but he is tied to his drug addict piece of shit brother, and that’s how we know he’s complicit with moving drugs into town.” Lorenzo pours us each more whiskey as he speaks. “He didn’t do a good enough job covering his tracks with that.”
My brother is right. “But I’d wager that that’s why he went ahead and hired himself a lawyer. Timothy Helms is a slimy piece of shit, we can all agree on that, but he’s good at what he does.”
“He does manage to keep a surprising percentage of his clientele out of jail.” Johnny has his phone out and is looking at something on the screen. “Looks like he’s won a slew of awards in the past few years for all of the pro bono work he’s done, as well. He’s a regular town hero, if you ask some of the people who live here.”
“He’s an asswipe and now he has the power of a very important client, which I’m sure will only serve to make him feel a bit more untouchable. I know that he has dirt in his past. There’s a skeleton in his closet somewhere and we need to figure out what it is. Once we find it then we’ll be able to link this shooting to whatever asshole he’s protecting.” I know I’m right. I honestly feel it in my bones.
“And you think it’s the mayor?” Johnny glances up at me for just a moment before looking back down at his phone while he waits on a response.
“I’d bet good money that the mayor is involved in all of this. We just need to figure out how we can tie the two of them together. Get on it, Johnny.”
“Yep.” Johnny stands up and puts his phone in his pocket.
“And get a fucking haircut. My brother’s right, you look ridiculous.” Lorenzo jerks his head at the door leading back into the living room. “Let us know as soon as you find something out.”
Using my phone, I let Johnny out and then lock the front door again before looking at my brother. He has a slight frown on his face, his brow furrowed, and is staring at me like he’s not sure of what to think.
“What?” I hate it when he does this. He’s older by just one year and always likes to act like that makes him superior in some way. “Spit it out.”
“Where’s the girl? Did she get hit?”
That wasn’t what I was expecting from him and I shake my head. “She’s in bed sleeping it off. I don’t think anyone could have survived that without going into shock, and she’s struggling a little bit, so I put her to bed, but other than that, she’s fine. Didn’t get hurt.”
“Good.” He exhales and stares at me. “What are you going to do with her?”
I scoff because it’s obvious to me what I need to do with her. “There’s no fucking way that I’m letting her out of my sight, I can tell you that. She belongs to me and I’m going to keep her here until the wedding to ensure that she’s safe. Just because we don’t think that she was the primary target doesn’t mean that they won’t zero in on her in the future and I can’t let that happen.”
He nods. “Good. Do you need extra protection here?”
I have to think about that for a moment. When I bought the place I had it renovated so that I could make sure that I’d always be safe in it. Not only did that mean buying up the top two floors and making them into one unit, but I also installed a security door that has steel bars running through it to keep it tightly closed when I set the security to high.
I have the best view of the town, but all of the windows are thicker than normal and designed to prevent any breaking. Nobody could get into my condo from outside. Just as importantly, perhaps, nobody is going to be able to get out. I have no doubt in my mind that I’ll be able to keep Natalia here without her escaping.
But does she need personal security? I’ll be able to keep an eye on her all the time thanks to the cameras I have installed throughout the house. “Security at the bottom of the building is a good idea,” I finally say. “Nobody will be able to get into my condo, but I don’t want anyone else living here to be in danger.”
Lorenzo already has his phone out and starts tapping out a message. “Consider it done. You let me know what else you need.”
“I need to get out there and kill whoever shot at me,” I say. “Don’t leave me out of it when the time comes.”
This makes him glance up at me. Even though we’re a year apart, we look more like twins than anything. “Believe me,” he says, with a smirk, “you get to pull the trigger if you want. You think that I’m going to take that away from you? Hell, you’d probably come after me next if I tried that shit.”
I lean my elbow on the counter and do my best to relax. Things have a habit of working out for our family, even if they are a little difficult to get through at first. I’m going to keep Natalia safe and have her for my own. The assholes who tried to kill me are living on borrowed time and we’ll make sure that nobody else gets the stupid idea that they would attack us, too.
“Okay,” I finally say, with a nod. “You let me know what you find out. I have my future bride to check in on.” Just thinking about Natalia asleep in the other room makes me hard. I want to know what she looks like asleep, if her mouth falls open slightly while she snoozes, if she’s kicked off the blankets I used to cover her up.
I bought her to be my wife a long time ago but I never thought that I’d end up wanting her as badly as I do now. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I’d feel this pull to go to her.
