by Lane Hart
Still, for whatever reason, I can’t stop myself from seeking Maylin out again.
The bouncer at the front of the club recognizes me from the other night and lets me in without a word. Then, I’m strolling through the dark room with upbeat rock music blasting through the speakers, trying to figure out which naked woman wandering around this place is Maylin.
None of the girls have long, fiery red hair like hers, though. So, when one of the dancers I grew up with in the house comes over, I decide to ask her.
“Hey, handsome. It’s not a fight night, is it?” Cassandra asks.
“Ah no,” I answer. “I’m looking for a girl, one with long, red hair named Maylin.”
“Maylin?” Cass repeats, her brown eyes widening. “You don’t mean Maylin O’Donnell, Liam’s daughter, do you?”
“Yeah. Is she dancing tonight?” I ask, nodding over to the stage where a woman is hanging upside down from the pole.
“Maylin’s not a dancer, hon. Do you really think Liam would let his only daughter dance naked for all these losers?”
“Yes, she is,” I correct her. “I was shocked as shit too, but she was working Friday night. She came home with me…”
Tilting her head to the side to look at me like I’m crazy, Cass asks, “Are you high on something, sugar?”
“No,” I reply. “Were you even here on Friday night?”
Cass scoffs. “Yes, I’ve been here every night for the last six days, and believe me, that girl is not a dancer.” Leaning down to whisper in my ear, she says, “And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay away from her. The rumor going around this place is that she’s supposed to marry Jimmy Russo, the new Italian boss, any day now.”
“Maylin’s getting married?” I jump to my feet as my heart begins to pump twice as fast. Surely, Cass is mistaken and it’s just a stupid rumor. It’s only been a few days since we were together. What kind of woman goes home with a man and fucks him right before getting married?
“She’s apparently the peace accord between the Irish and the Italians.”
“You’re absolutely sure?” I ask her again.
“I don’t know all the details, but that’s what I’ve heard,” Cass says with a shrug. “And word on the street is that Jimmy loves blood more than a shark. I heard he killed at least ten of Liam’s men in their sleep when Liam first overtook Mario’s businesses after Mario was arrested.”
“Fuck,” I grumble, not liking the sound of Maylin being around this mobster fucker at all. “There has to be some sort of mistake. Liam wouldn’t let his daughter marry some psycho, right? Who would do that?” I ask.
“A man who is desperate to save his own ass,” Cass answers before she mutters a curse. “Fuck, that’s Russo now, and I need to get on stage,” she whispers before walking off. “Stay away from that homicidal drama, Ivan,” Cass calls out over her shoulder.
I turn around to get a look at the fucker who is supposed to marry Maylin, but I only see a quick glimpse of the back of his slick, dark head before he and his bodyguards slip down the hallway, heading for Liam’s office.
Worried about Maylin and needing to find out exactly what the fuck is going on, I ease over, following behind them, planning to play it off as having a question for Liam about a fight if I get caught.
“What do you want now, Jimmy?” I hear Maylin’s father ask the man from inside the office. There are no guards in the hallway, not Liam’s or Jimmy’s, so I assume they’ve all squeezed in the small room together.
“The details are all in place for Saturday. We just need to go over the…security arrangements,” a man with a deep, scratchy, smoker’s voice says. I assume he must be Jimmy.
“Fine, let’s hear it,” Liam says with a heavy sigh.
“No guards.”
“Bullshit. You can’t expect me to come without protection!”
“I can, and you will. There’s an obvious condom joke there, but I’ll abstain,” Jimmy chuckles before it turns into a cough. “Speaking of prophylactics, I warned your daughter that if you or she lied about her purity that I would kill you both.”
“She’s a virgin! How many times do I have to tell you that?” Liam asks. “Why do you think I made marriage part of the deal? I want my sweet girl to do things right, even if she does have to marry an ugly son of a bitch like you.”
“Oh, fuck,” I mutter, flattening my back against the wall to scrub my hands over my face. Cass was right. I mistakenly thought Maylin was a dancer when she must’ve just been here to see her dad. God, I’m an idiot! And the blood…fuck! It was her first time, not my cock bleeding from me torturing it with no release.
Which means…Maylin was a virgin when we had sex.
Why the fuck didn’t she tell me she wasn’t a stripper and that I would be her first?
I’m so goddamn stupid! I should’ve known, but it’s not like I have any experience having sex with virgins or more than one non-virgin, for that matter…
“Fine, one guard!” the husky voice I recognize as Jimmy exclaims, bringing me back to eavesdropping on their conversation. “But only one man with a gun. Everyone else will be searched before entering the ceremony.”
Ceremony? Is Liam seriously marrying off his beautiful, innocent daughter to some old thug? What the hell is he thinking? She can’t marry him! Maylin’s too young. Did she even get a say in this?
“Agreed,” Liam replies. “As long as you abide by the same rule and allow my men to search all of yours.”
“Fine. Whatever. I don’t want any bloodshed on my wedding day except from between my bride’s legs…”
“Watch your goddamn mouth!” Liam exclaims. “She’s my daughter. My only daughter!”
“Yeah, and in two days she’ll be my wife. I don’t plan to leave the honeymoon suite until she has my baby in her either. I need an heir after my last one vanished. We need an heir, one we agreed would take over both the Irish and Italian sides of the family business.”
Thinking of any man with Maylin is a godawful thought, but her with this mobster? It’s like a fucking nightmare. I can’t let her marry him. I won’t. Whatever it takes, I will stop that wedding. That’s why I plan on walking right into his office and talking to Liam as soon as I can. I’ll tell him we need to save Maylin…
And then every thought in my head goes out the window and the world stops spinning.
The dark-haired man Cass pointed out as Jimmy comes out of Liam’s office first, trailed by two tall men in suits, and I get my first good look at his face.
A face with a crescent-shaped scar on the right side, just like the one on my mother’s killer’s face.
“Evening, son,” he murmurs with a nod as he passes me with a smirk. I flatten my back against the wall even more as I hyperventilate, remembering that same scary, demented face…right before he put a bullet in my mother’s head.
Maylin’s not just marrying an Italian crime boss.
She’s marrying my mother’s fucking killer.
Chapter Nine
Ivan
It takes me several minutes to pull my shit together after the motherfucker of ironies was dropped on me like a two-ton Mack truck.
At first, I’m certain I was just seeing things, projecting the scar onto a similar looking face that I haven’t seen in over six years. I haven’t been sleeping much since the night with Maylin, so it’s a possibility.
But even all these years later there’s no way I could forget that fucker. I’ve replayed that scene in my head with him and my mother a million times or more. It’s more real to me than the wall behind my back holding me up. That had to be him.
What are the odds of another dark-haired man walking around with a huge, crescent-shaped scar on his face in the same town?
And he’s in the Italian mafia, which means he’s no stranger to guns or violence against innocent women.
I just can’t figure out why of all times our paths are crossing now…
While I can’t say that I’m a regular a
t the club since this is only my second time inside of it, I would expect the patrons to come to fights, and that man has never been to a fight, mine or any of the other guys. I’ve looked; I would’ve seen him.
Fuck! I need to talk to Liam, to get answers and figure out what the fuck we’re going to do about stopping Maylin from marrying him. After that, well, then I can figure out how I’m gonna finally kill the man who murdered my mother.
Taking a deep breath and blowing it out, I push off the wall and step into Liam’s doorway.
“I’m busy,” Liam says when he looks up from the seat at his wooden desk and sees me standing there. He goes right back to pouring whatever’s in the flask in his hand down his throat. As expected, there are two giants in here with him.
“It’s important,” I tell him. “It’s about Maylin.”
That causes him to splutter and choke on his liquor, coughing for several moments.
“Who the hell are you, and how do you know my daughter?” he asks. Liam and I have met once before at the gym, but he obviously doesn’t remember me.
“I’m nobody, but what I have to say is important. Can we talk about this alone?” I ask, not wanting to go into all the details with two idiot observers.
Liam narrows his eyes at me a minute before he orders the guards, “Search him and then leave.”
I hold my arms out to the sides when both men start for me. One of them pats me down from my shoulders to the toes of my boots before the other lifts my shirt, I assume checking for wires.
“Clean,” the first meathead with a shaved head announces.
“Good. Leave,” Liam replies. A moment later, the office door shuts. “Now who the fuck are you?” he asks.
“I’m Ivan, Ivan Rivers, one of your fighters,” I explain. “And um, well, Maylin can’t marry that fucker,” I say, pointing my thumb over my shoulder to where the murderer just left.
“That’s none of your goddamn business, is it?” Liam barks. “Andre!” he yells, I assume for one of the guards in the hallway to come back.
“Please, just give me two minutes,” I say, taking a step forward toward his desk and begging him when I hear the door open behind me. “That son of a bitch is a murderer! You can’t let him anywhere near your daughter!”
“She’s already with him,” Liam mutters.
“WHAT?” I exclaim. “You can’t let him be in the same room with her! Where is she? We need to go get her!” I say in a rush.
“No, it’s done. Jimmy’s marrying her in two days.”
“You can’t be serious!” I tell him as I start to move closer, but a big hand on my shoulder stops my forward momentum. “He’ll hurt her or…or kill her!”
Taking another swig from his flask, Liam says, “I don’t have a fucking choice.”
“Like hell you don’t!” I declare. “Just tell me where she is and I’ll go get her.”
“You can’t. If Jimmy doesn’t marry Maylin, we’ll all be dead.”
“Not if he’s dead, too!” I counter.
“Who’s gonna take him out? Huh? You?” Liam asks with a chuckle. “He’s always surrounded by military trained bodyguards.”
“Then I’ll kill them all if that’s what it takes,” I assure him.
“Why the hell do you care anyway?”
“Because I…I…” I struggle to find the words to complete the sentence without it getting me killed. Liam needs to know, because based on the conversation I just heard, he’ll be dead when Jimmy finds out Maylin’s not a virgin.
“You what?” he asks with an exasperated sigh.
“I took her virginity,” I announce, steeling my spine and waiting for his reaction. There’s a small, or maybe even very significant chance that I’m about to get shot.
Liam’s jaw drops before he composes himself and his green eyes narrow in anger. “You…”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know she was…” That’s all the words I get out of my mouth before Liam is up out of his chair, lunging at me, grabbing me by the neck and slamming my back into the wall.
“You stupid piece of shit!” he seethes an inch or less from my face. “When Jimmy finds out, we’re all dead because of you!”
“Then we won’t…let him find out,” I say through the tightening of his fist on my throat.
“Fuck!” Liam exclaims when he lets me go, apparently realizing that he is, in fact, fucked if Maylin goes through with the wedding. There’s no way I’m gonna let that happen.
“I’m going after her whether you help me or not,” I tell him, rubbing a hand over my aching neck.
Liam paces in front of me for several silent seconds, obviously thinking, so I keep quiet and don’t interrupt. Eventually, he stops and stares at me before speaking. “Andre, out.”
The bodyguard leaves us alone again, pulling the door closed behind him.
“Are your parents Italian?” Liam asks me after it shuts.
“Ah, what?” I ask. If I had to pick, that would’ve been the question I least expected after telling him I slept with his daughter.
“You’ve got dark hair and olive skin. Any Italian in your bloodlines?” he asks with a sigh full of exasperation.
“I think my mom said her parents were Italian,” I tell him.
“And your father?”
“No idea. My mother was a whore, so…” I lift my shoulders in a shrug because what else can you say to that. I have no idea who my father is, and it’s not like my mother ever told me. Whenever I asked about him, she would always say she didn’t know which of her customers knocked her up. Some afternoons I would sit on the front stoop of the house and watch men coming and going, wondering if one of the strangers could be my dad. I would look for resemblances in each, and even ask my mom if there was one in particular I thought could be a match, but her only response was “maybe.”
When I glance over, I notice Liam’s brow is furrowed before he says, “That’s a horrible thing to say about the woman who gave birth to you.”
He thinks I’m badmouthing her.
“No, seriously, my mom worked in a brothel. That’s where I was born and raised until…”
“Until what?” he asks when I pause.
“Until Jimmy fucking Russo killed her.”
“You know this for a fact?”
“I watched him hold the gun to her head. I-I heard the shots fired,” I admit, swallowing around the boulder-sized knot in my throat. “She was trying to protect me…”
“Protect you?” Liam asks.
“He, um, he wanted me, and she told him over her dead body. So while he was killing her, one of the other girls helped me run. She took me to Mrs. Engle’s house where I stayed until I turned eighteen.” Shit, I don’t know why I’m telling the old man all my deep dark secrets, but they seem to be just pouring out. Maybe because I want him to trust me so that I’ll have someone’s help getting Maylin back. I know Cain and Knox will be up for it, but the three of us can’t take out a house full of guards and come out alive.
“And you’re absolutely sure it was him? Jimmy Russo?” Liam eventually asks.
“Yes. Almost certain,” I answer without hesitation. “I’ve been looking for him for six years but never knew his name…”
“Jimmy’s been in federal prison for five years after he got busted as a convicted felon with a gun,” Liam replies with a nod. “Just got out a few months ago. When Mario Guerra went in, he became his successor. That’s why I made my move on the Italians when I did, while things were shaky for them.”
“Oh,” I mutter, since prison would definitely explain his absence on the streets in this town. Was he caught with the gun he used to kill my mother? Guess they never charged him with murder or he would still be rotting in a jail cell. But cops don’t give a shit about whores getting killed in brothels. I doubt the brothel even reported her death. If there’s one rule I’ve learned growing up with the Italian mob, it’s that you never involve the police.
“All right,” Liam says with a sigh. “I’ll gi
ve you his address.”
“Who? Jimmy’s?” I ask in surprise at his sudden agreement. “So what’s the plan? Go in guns blazing?”
“No,” he says when he strolls over to his desk and grabs a pen to scribble on a post-it note. “You’re gonna get a job working for him.”
Confused, I say, “But he just saw me in the hallway,” I remind him as Liam comes over to hand me the note that I take from him. “Won’t he recognize –” That’s the moment when Liam sucker punches me right in the motherfucking eye without any warning. Or maybe the warning was when I told him I fucked his daughter.
“Goddamn, man!” I groan as I clench the now throbbing left side of my face. I swear it feels like he cracked open my cheekbone!
“That was for sleeping with my daughter, but you can tell Jimmy whatever you like, that you owe me money or that you lost a fight. Whatever. Just get inside his inner circle fast and keep Maylin safe without Jimmy getting suspicious.”
“You’re serious?” I ask, but he doesn’t respond; just goes back to his desk, sits down and tips up the flask to his mouth. “And then what?”
After he swallows the liquid down, Liam finally says, “Then we’ll have to figure out how to kill Jimmy fucking Russo.”
Chapter Ten
Maylin
Going over to the window of the strange house, I try to figure out if I could make the jump from the second story without injuring myself too badly to run. I’m not the most athletic girl, so the answer is likely no. The guard at the front door would likely hear and find me before I made it up and over the tall fence. If I could even make it up and over a six-foot high wooden fence.
I’m not a prisoner in the house — well, I’m not a prisoner in this particular bedroom. I could leave and explore the house if I wanted; but I know that, if I tried to leave the premises, someone would drag me back inside.