Saved Mafia Bride by Mae Doyle

Gavin

“You’re good to go, Danes,” I say, my eyes locked on Peter. He looks unconcerned even though there are three guns pointing right at him and I immediately hate him.

“Do I get extra this month?” Danes asks.

“Fucking go!” Sean’s voice is so loud and booming that Danes actually jumps before running to his car. We wait until he’s in it and has driven away before Sean flicks his gun at Peter, then motions towards the trail head. “You like to hike, Peter? There’s a really pretty view of a waterfall just a short walk in.”

“I’m not really dressed for it,” Peter says, sounding a hell of a lot more calm than I would have imagined he’d be. “But then again, neither are you gentlemen, so why don’t you tell me what’s going on here?”

“I’ll search him,” I say, handing my gun to Freddy. After a quick pat down, I slip Peter’s phone into my pocket and empty his gun, putting the bullets in my other pocket before taking my gun back from my brother. “We just wanted to talk to you a bit about your relationship with Nick, but standing by the road with our guns out is sure to scare some people. Let’s walk.”

This time, Peter doesn’t argue. The four of us make our way across the parking lot, but it isn’t until we’re fifty yards into the woods and a bit off the main trail that we stop to talk.

“Nick Prince,” I say, stepping in front of Peter. “Tell us everything about him and why he’s so deadset on getting Audrey back.” It feels weird to call Clara by her old name, but the surprise that I know what I’m talking about registers on Peter’s face and makes it worth it.

“I work for Nick,” he says slowly like he’s being very careful in choosing his words. “I have for years, just little jobs here and there when he needs things taken care of.” It’s obvious that he doesn’t want to talk, and that he’s smarter than I thought.

To our benefit, though three guns pointed right at you will make you a lot more willing to speak than you might imagine. Even though it’s obvious that Peter doesn’t want to tell the three of us a damn thing, there’s no way that he’s willing to risk being shot because he won’t open up.

“And Audrey?” Sean sounds almost bored and I can see it on his face. Freddy and I live for this shit, and while Sean loves blowing stuff up, interrogating someone like this is not his favorite thing. “Tell us what Nick wants with her.”

“To marry her, of course.” Peter does his best to sound serious, but I hear something in his tone and I step forward, using my gun to lift his chin so that he has to look at me.

“To marry her,” I repeat. “And then what?”

He swallows, his eyes darting around me like he thinks that he’s going to find someone in the woods who will help him. We’re the only ones here, though, and I’m not at all interested in letting this asshole walk away from our little conversation.

“Then he wants to kill her,” he admits finally, “but that’s not my fault. You three can’t get mad at me for something that he wants to do, especially when I don’t have anything to do with it! I can’t help the fact that he’s pissed that she fucked him over. He has a huge life insurance policy on her and wants to cash in.”

“Are you fucking serious?” I’m about to lose my cool with this asshole and I press my gun into his temple hard enough to make him wince. “Why even bother marrying her then? What’s the fucking point if he’s just going to turn around and kill her?”

I know that I’m being too loud and that I should probably shut the fuck up, but I can’t help it. I’m pissed at this asshole, pissed at Nick, and pissed at Clara’s father. No wonder running is the only thing that she knows how to do—it’s the only thing that has protected her from all of the bastards in her life.

“He wants to fuck her!” Peter must know that he’s going to die here, because the words start spilling out of him like he can’t hold them back any longer. “He wants to be the first person to fuck her and make her cum, then he’s going to kill her.”

I swear, the edges of my vision turn red. I know that I should think calmly, should take a step back from this asshole and let one of my brothers handle talking to him, but I can’t do that right now, not with what he just said.

Someone is speaking to me and I feel a hand on my shoulder, but I shake it off. The woods close in on me until it’s just Peter that I see and I already know just how this is going to end.

He knows, too.

“Do it, you prick,” he tells me, leaning forward a little bit so that he’s closer to me. “Do it if you want to, Nick isn’t ever going to stop. You might think that you can protect her, but you can’t. He’ll come for her and then he’ll fuck her so hard that she bleeds. I hope that he makes you watch as she bleeds out from her cunt. She’ll deserve it.”

I don’t even realize that I’m pulling the trigger until he drops to the ground in front of me, his head snapping to the side, his eyes still wide like he’s going to keep talking to me. Anger washes over me and I take a deep breath, trying to force the mental image of what he was describing out of my head.

“Gavin,” Sean says, grabbing my shoulder. “Gavin, look at me! You gotta breathe, man. Breathe through this. You’re okay.” He’s squeezing my shoulder hard even as I see Freddy kneel down next to the body. There’s no way that he’s alive and going to walk away from this one, but we always have to check.

“He had to die,” I say, to my brother, who nods. “There wasn’t any way that I could let him live.”

“No, you did the right thing.” Sean puts his gun back in his holster and I do the same, even though the movement feels strange. “He had to go.”

“I called in a cleanup crew,” Freddy says, and I turn to look at him. His face is tight and he looks worried, but I know that I probably have the same expression on my face. “They’ll be here and we need to be gone. Come on.”

The three of us file silently out of the woods, pausing for a moment before entering the parking lot. Nobody is here and I walk to my car, my ears still ringing with the shot.

He had to go, and I had to be the one to put him down like the dog that he was, but I still should have tried to get more information out of him. He had more information about Nick Prince, I’m sure of it, but in that moment, hearing him talk about hurting Clara, I couldn’t let him breathe for one more second.

“Hey, you did the right thing,” Sean tells me. “We’ll get the information that we need.”

I nod, but before I can say anything, my phone rings.

Lorenzo.

Looks like we might get the information we need sooner than we thought.

“Talk to me,” I say, picking up the phone and turning away from Sean and Freddy. I know that we all need to leave but I don’t want to get in the car and drive off, not when my brothers will want to know exactly what’s going on. No, it’s best if we wait and talk this out then we can all split up and go our separate ways.

“Nick Prince is on the move. Sounds like Peter passed him information that you had the girl, so he left suddenly left town this morning. I have no idea how many men he has with him, but you need to be prepared.”

“Fuck.”

“That’s why we’re coming,” he continues. I hear the sound of an engine turning over and gratitude washes over me when I realize that he’s getting in the car to come help. “I have Johnny and Dane with me. The three of us are on our way, but Nick has a head start, so you need to be aware of that.”

“No idea how far ahead of you he is?”

“No. Our scouts let us down a little bit in that regard, but no worries, we’ll handle everything with them. Hopefully we won’t ever have a problem like this again, but if we do, we’ll be better prepared. Do you have her somewhere safe?”

I think about the guesthouse, how you can’t get in or out without one of the three of us letting you in, and I nod. “Yeah, she’s safe.”

“Good. Get there with her. Don’t let her out of your sight and don’t let anyone come near her. I don’t fucking know how many men Nick has working for him, but he’s pissed that she’s finally surfaced and then she slipped right out from between his fingers.”

“Let me know when you guys get in town. I’ll have Freddy and Sean make sure that we have the firepower we need to handle this and come up with a plan on where we can meet him to take him out.”

“We’ll be in touch. Don’t trust anyone right now, Gavin, I have no idea what Nick is capable of, but I do know that he’s coming for Clara and isn’t going to stop unless he gets her or we put him down like a dog.”

A chill runs up the back of my neck and I relay the message to Freddy and Sean. Sean scrubs his hand over his face.

“I’ll get Sara out of town. I don’t like to do it, but it’s probably best that she’s not hanging around here when all of the shit is going to hit the fan. As soon as she’s gone I can come to the guesthouse and start planning with you two.”

Freddy nods. “I’m on guns and ammo. You guys know that this is my favorite part.” He grins at the two of us and cracks his knuckles. “Now, though, we better get moving. You go check on Clara and we’ll both be there as soon as we can, okay?”

I’m angry as I drive back to the guesthouse, but I’m not worried. Together, the three of us can handle just about anything that comes our way. With the hell of the Accardi men I’m sure that we can take care of anything terrible. It doesn’t matter how confident Nick Prince is, he’s not going to walk away from this alive.