Saved Mafia Bride by Mae Doyle
Gavin
The next day passes mostly in silence. I’m on the phone a lot with my brothers and with the Accardi men but Clara is doing everything that she possibly can to keep to herself. It’s obvious that she doesn’t want to talk to me and that she’s terrified. When I enter a room she either curls up into a small ball so that it looks like she’s not even there, or will actually get up and leave the room.
It’s enough to drive me nuts, but I can’t worry about how she’s acting right now. There will be time later for me to straighten her out and make sure that she gets the attitude adjustment that she needs, but right now I’m more worried about Nick Prince.
He went underground, which was not something that we were expecting. All that tells me is that he’s getting his shit in order and rallying the troops, which means that he’ll come back full force when he’s finally ready.
“Do we have any information on where he is?” I ask Freddy. He and Sean are sitting at the dining table with me. I can see Clara over Sean’s shoulder. She’s curled up on the sofa reading a book and doing her best to look like she’s not paying attention to the three of us.
“The Accardis are rooting him out, that’s why they’re not here,” Freddy tells me. “When I talked to Lorenzo, he said that they think he’s staying downtown in a hotel. Dane was going to go there and try to drive him out while Lorenzo and Johnny searched the local bars and clubs.”
“From what Lorenzo said, it sounds like Nick thinks that she’s hidden in plain sight. In a hotel, in the back of a club, something. He has no idea that we have her here at the guesthouse.” Sean grins like it was his idea to hide her here in the first place.
I nod. “That’s good, but I don’t want to just sit around and wait for them to come to us. The last thing we want is for this place to get destroyed in the battle, so we need to draw them out. Meet them somewhere.”
We’re all silent for a moment and then Clara turns, looping her arm over the back of the sofa so that she can look at me. “I can be bait,” she tells me, but I’m already shaking my head before she finishes her thought. “What? Why are you so against that? You can’t think that I really like sitting here just waiting for the shit to rain down on my head, do you? I want out, and if that means going big or going home, then I’m willing to do it!”
“Not a chance,” I tell her, holding up my hand to cut off any arguments from my brothers. “We’re just scratching the surface of how dangerous this bastard is. As long as you’re safe here, you’re staying here. And that’s all there is to it.”
She folds her arms across her chest and stands up, walking over to the table like I invited her. This is going to be interesting, and even though I’m a little irritated with her for getting in my space and acting like she’s going to have a better idea than the three of us, I like this side of her.
Clara needs to be strong to survive being in my world. The fact that she’s acting stronger now than she ever has before pleases me, even though there’s no way in hell that I’m going to tell her that. It’ll only encourage her.
“You need me.” Her eyes are locked on mine.
“I do,” I agree, “which is why you’re not getting involved.”
She sucks in a breath and glances at Sean and Freddy like they’re going to help her. Smart men, they keep their gazes locked on me instead of glancing at her. “What if I told you that I thought I knew how to drive him out?”
“I’d wonder why the hell you didn’t come to me with that information earlier,” I tell her, “but I’d be interested. Let it all out, Clara. We want to hear exactly how you think we should bring this asshole down.”
She has to hear the bit of sarcasm in my voice but it doesn’t seem to faze her. If anything, it makes her feel more confident, which is obvious by the way she draws herself up a few more inches. “Okay. Nick Prince has an ego as big as his fortune, right? He thinks that he can solve any problem he might have either by fucking it or throwing money at it.”
“Go on.” I’m interested in hearing what she has to say, but more interested in bending her over the table right now. She’s so fucking hot when she gets fired up about something and right now her eyes are wide and she’s waving her hands in the air to make a point.
“I was thinking that you announce a contest,” she says, and I can’t help the chuckle that escapes my lips. “I’m serious.” She glares at me. “He wants to be the best at everything, and if you set something up where he has to try to win by finding me or getting me to fall for him, or something then you might be able to drive him out.”
“You do see the glaring issue with that, right?” I ask her, reaching out and taking her hand in mine. Her skin is incredibly soft and I run my thumb across her knuckles while I wait for her to respond. She gives her head a tiny little shake and I squeeze her hand. “The issue is that then he’ll know that I have you,” I tell her. “Right now, that’s only a rumor that he’s going off of. If we set up some kind of a bet or something then he’s going to know for sure that you’re here, you’re in this guesthouse, and that all he has to do is blow it all up to take you. That’s why we have to be quiet about it.”
She shakes her head and tries to pull her hand from mine, but I’m not letting her go. Instead, I get up and walk over to her, pulling her close to me so that I can hold her. “I love that you want to help so badly,” I tell her, doing my best to make her see that she means the world to me. “But I can’t risk you. You don’t get it yet, but you will. I’ll do anything to keep you safe.”
“He won’t stop,” she murmurs, turning in to me and putting her free hand on my chest. “You get that, right? The only way that he’ll stop is if he gets me or one of you puts him in the ground.”
“Oh, I get that alright,” I say, kissing her forehead. “But as much as he wants to take you and hurt you, I want to save you. That’s the thing that you need to get through your head. It doesn’t matter what he thinks he can do to you or to me, I’m here for you and nothing will stop me.”
She’s silent and I’m pretty sure that I’ve won the argument, at least for a little while. Clara is strong-willed, though, and I’m sure that this is not the last time we’ll have this discussion.
Which is why we have to find him and stop him now.
“Good news,” Sean says, waving his phone at me so that I’ll look at him. “Or, news, anyway. I don’t really know how good it is. This is Johnny. Looks like Nick is on the move.”
“Good.” I step to the side to look at the phone while still holding on to Clara. She sags against me like she just ran a marathon and is too exhausted to stand on her own two feet. “Where is he going?”
“Well,” Sean says, tapping his phone when it beeps again. “Okay, so that good news has changed a little bit. He’s still on the move, and he only has a few guys with him, but that’s not the problem. He’s on his way here. Johnny said that they’re all behind him. They think that they can run him off the road.”
“No,” I say, tightening my grip on Clara. “No, let them come here. The best thing for us to do is stop them permanently. Running them off the road is too public, too risky. If they get here then we can really put an end to this bullshit.”
“What about me?” Clara tilts her head up to look into my face. Her eyes are wide and I can practically smell the fear radiating off of her. “What do I do?”
“You stay in the house,” I say, kissing her hard. She resists for a moment and then kisses me back, her tongue dancing against mine before I pull away. “You keep your sweet little ass right here and wait for me to come back for you. I will, okay? You have to trust me.”
“We need to prepare,” Freddy’s on his feet, his mouth a firm line. “Get your ass in gear, Gavin. The guns are all here but they won’t do us any damn good if we’re sitting ducks in the house when those bastards arrive.”
“They’re close,” Sean announces, slipping his phone into his pocket. “Looks like they’ll probably be here in just a few minutes.”
I turn back to Clara, my heart slamming in my chest. “This is all for you,” I tell her, grabbing her chin and making her look up at me. “Don’t do something stupid, okay? Stay down, stay hidden. Nobody can get in the house unless one of us lets them in and there isn’t any chance in hell that we’d do that.”
She bites her lower lip and nods, exhaling hard like she’s been preparing herself for this for years. One more kiss, my fingers tangled in her hair, and then I spin away from her to load up with my brothers.
