Seized Mafia Bride by Mae Doyle
Lorenzo
My phone buzzes as I’m eating my food and I flip it over, not surprised to see that Dane is calling. Taking a sip of beer to wash everything down, I pick up. “What can I do for you?”
Dane sighs, which is never a good sign. “Taylor Hunt is on the move. Looks like he was in Mia’s apartment and is taking it on as his personal crusade to figure out where the hell she is.”
“She’s here and safe,” I tell him, picturing her in the tub. My sweet little Mia may not like what I’ve done to her, but I’m not going to have to worry about anyone hurting her when she’s tied up like that. “There’s no way that Taylor would ever be able to figure that out. He’s too fucking stupid.”
“He’s not stupid,” Dane corrects, “but he is focused as hell. They’re doing massive renovations at the building he just bought. Huge trucks are coming and going with all kinds of supplies and there’s a giant construction crew there right now working on it. We need to take him down now.”
“Trevor is on it,” I tell him. “He’s digging up all the dirt on Taylor that he can find, looking for connections with different organizations, and making sure that we’re going to have what we need to stop him when the time is right.”
“That’s good, but it’s not enough. You know as well as I do that someone like Taylor is going to be thinking three steps ahead. We can both hate the guy, but he’s smarter than he lets on.
My brother’s right and I know it. Groaning, I drain my beer then stand up, leaving everything on the table to deal with later. I had thought for a while about hiring someone to come in and clean for me, but that’s not something I can do now with Mia in the house.
“Alright, I’m coming,” I tell him, grabbing my keys and slipping my gun back into its holster. Thank fuck I wasn’t wearing it earlier or I’m sure that Mia would have tried to grab it.
Not that she would have been able to, but I can see her making a fool of herself trying to get it to escape. She’s hardheaded, that’s for sure, and I have to break her of that.
“Good. We’re meeting at Full Brew Coffee. Henry Lewis, the owner, knows that we’re on our way and he’s shut it down for us, so we’re not going to have to worry about being interrupted.”
My brother’s indulgence amuses me. We could just as easily get coffee at one of our houses, but he loves going to Full Brew Coffee and having the entire place to ourselves. With as much money as we pay Henry for pleasure of being able to do just that, at least we now that nobody is going to bother us.
I pull up to the coffee shop and stretch before joining Dane and Johnny inside. As I sit down at the table, my phone buzzes.
“Looks like Trevor has immaculate timing,” I say, tapping on the screen to open his email. It’s packed with all of the information that he could find on Taylor Hunt, and I open the first pdf, putting my phone aside to load while I take a sip of my coffee.
“Thank fuck for that since I hate researching people like that.” Johnny motions Henry over and asks for a cinnamon roll. When the man has scurried off behind the counter to put together the order, he turns to me. “So, how is Mia. You two riding off into the sunset yet?”
“Fuck you.” Just the thought of her tied up in the tub, waiting on me to get back, her body completely exposed to me, is enough to make me hard. “She’ll come around.”
“They always do.” Dane glances at my phone. “Tell me that Trevor has good news for us.”
Scanning the pdf, I keep my mouth shut until I’ve read the entire thing and have a better understanding of what the hell’s been going on, and what we just got ourselves into.
“Looks like Taylor Hunt made some rich friends when he left town all those years ago. Not only did he manage to leave here and not himself killed, which would have been fucking amazing, but he teamed up with someone named Damon Travini. You two ever heard of him?”
Glancing up, I wait until my brother and my cousin both shake their heads. Henry brings over the cinnamon roll and refills our coffees before giving us a little bow.
“I’ll be in the back so you three aren’t bothered,” he says. “Call for me if you need me.” With that, he turns and disappears.
“Damon Travini is head of the Lost Girls Project,” I say, tapping the screen. “Sounds legit, right? Like someone you might trust to help you find missing girls. Unfortunately, he does the opposite and is more focused on running a shell of a company that finds only a few missing girls each year. They’re the ones whose parents can pay the most to get them back, of course.”
“And the ones whose parents can’t pay?” Dane asks the question even though I’m sure that he already knows the answer.
“He farms them out all over the country to men like Taylor. Men who are more than willing to take on the majority of the risk and run the actual building where these girls are bought, sold, shipped, and used.” My stomach turns at the thought, but I’m confident that we can take this asshole down.
“And nobody has ever tried to stop them before?” Johnny’s perplexed. “You can’t be serious about that. Surely people are noticing their girls missing and the fact that only the ones with the richest parents make their way back home.”
“You’d think, but according to Trevor, looks like Damon has friends in high places, so he’s basically untouchable. We’re talking a multi-billion-dollar company, powerful clients, and enough political force to sway elections in your direction rich.”
“We just got rid of our scumbag mayor,” Dane points out. “And we hand-picked who we wanted to take over for him. What do you say about that?”
“I say that they’re probably in danger. We need to get them some security and figure out how the hell we’re going to stop this guy. Taylor Hunt is an evil bastard, but he’s not the brains behind the operation. If we want to bring this thing to its knees then we need to focus more on Damon.”
I know that it sounds hopeless. I know that taking down a huge organization like that is going to be hard as hell, but I also know that we don’t have much of a choice, not if we want to keep this ugly business out of our town. They’re already moving in, so we’re a bit behind the game, but we can stop it.
I have no doubt.
“Alright.” Johnny pops the last bite of his cinnamon roll in his mouth and washes it down with coffee. “I’ll get a protection detail on the new mayor. The last thing I want to do is clue them in to what’s happening, so let’s keep that shit quiet.”
I nod. “Good. You do that and Dane and I will dig into Damon. If he’s as big time as he seems to be then we shouldn’t need Trevor to find the dirt for us, we should be able to dig it up ourselves.” Dane nods at me and I continue. “Why don’t the three of us all find out what we can, you get the detail on the mayor,” I say, pointing at Johnny, and then we’ll meet back up tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow?” Dane raises an eyebrow as he looks at me and I know that he’s wondering why I’m not chomping at the bit to get on this right now. “Why wait?”
“Your wife misses you,” I tell him, “and I need to make sure that my tracks are covered with Mia. The last thing that I need is someone showing up at the house looking for her.” Planting my hands on the table, I stand up, then scoot out from the booth. “Get on it, you two. We’ll get this shit handled, but let’s make sure that anyone who dies isn’t on our team.”
That said, I leave the coffee shop, my mind going a mile a minute. What concerns me the most is making sure that Mia is safe. She’s everything to me and I have to keep her protected, no matter how hard that may seem.
If Damon helps Taylor look for her then they’ll do their best to find any scrap of evidence leading them to my house. I have to make sure that I covered my tracks.
