Dark Obsession (Famiglia Book 4)

by Andrea Joy

  “You work for Ciaran?” I ask again because I can’t remember if I asked the question out loud or if it was all in my head. Either Ciaran works crazy fast or he’s had eyes on me all this time. Considering I just got off the phone with him, I’m guessing it’s the latter. Once this is over, he and I are going to have words.

  “I’m doing him a favor. He got a read on your location and I was the closest, so he asked me to come get you.” He pauses, his eyes narrowing and traveling down my body, and for the first time since he came barging into the house, I remember that I’m wearing sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt with no bra.

  Classy, Sofia.

  “Ciaran sent you?” I ask again, because I need to make doubly sure that this isn’t some sick game Simon set up, and yet, somehow, I know it’s not.

  Before he can respond, the sound of the garage door sliding open sounds through the otherwise quiet house and not-trying-to-kill me curses under his breath while glancing at the watch on his wrist.

  “We need to get moving. Unless you want to stay here.”

  I chew on my bottom lip while weighing the consequences. I had given Simon my word that I would marry him and stand by his side in all his decisions and in return he’d leave Mason and Braxton alone. I should’ve known never to trust a Cartel boss because Simon was never planning on ever holding up his end of our deal. But if I ran with this man – a man I don’t know – the Cartel will wage a war on the Famiglia.

  Mr.-sex-on-a-stick steps up closer to where I’m still standing. “Whatever’s going through that pretty head of yours, you need to make a decision and fast.”

  The alarm on the panel beside the inside door leading from the garage into the kitchen beeps and then the garage door begins to close at the same time the kitchen door is pushed open and Simon’s footsteps sound against the white tile.

  Without giving it another thought, I place my hand in sex-on-a-stick outstretched one and nod. It’s not just me I have to think about anymore. I send a silent ‘sorry’ to Braxton and the other men. We race down the second set of stairs at the back of the house that lead to the back-living room. We pull up short just before the corner into the bright open space and sex-on-a-stick – I really need to find out his actual name soon – turns to me with an apology in his green and gold flecked eyes.

  “Do you trust Ciaran?” he asks.

  “Yes,” I answer without any hesitation.

  “Good. Then trust me to keep you safe.”

  “Wha-” I begin to ask what he means, when he grabs hold of my arm and yanks me in front of him until my back is to his front, and something cold is pressed to my temple.

  This motherfracker is not holding a gun to my head right now!

  I apparently need to come up with better alternative curse words because ‘motherfracker?’ Really, Sofia? And this is so not the time to be thinking about something other than the fact that there’s a gun pressed to my head right now. He walks us around the corner, and we stop when Simon comes around the other corner from the kitchen with a gun drawn and pointed at us.

  Someone would think that having grown up in the family I had, that I would be used to having guns drawn and aimed at me, but nope. That is definitely not the case. I’m about ten seconds away from peeing my pants. The only thing stopping me from letting it go now is the fact that if Mr.-green-eyes and I make it out of here without Simon killing us, and green-eyes makes it through me kicking his ass for pointing a gun at my head, that I’ll have no clean pair of pants.

  “Drop the gun, Simon,” green-eyes commands from behind me.

  Simon’s gaze jumps from green-eyes to mine and then down to my belly before he puts the safety back on his handgun and sets it down on the ground by his feet.

  “You don’t need to do this,” Simon says, raising both hands in the air, palms out.

  What the hell’s happening right now? I’ve never known Simon to give up so easily, especially when someone threatens to take one of his belongings. I school my features and play the scared wife card while subtle trying to look around to see if any of Simon’s men are lurking around any corners, but there’s no one. Something about this whole situation seems off.

  Green-eyes backs us toward the sliding glass door that leads out into the backyard, his gun still pressed to my temple and his focus still mostly on Simon who hasn’t lowered his hands or made a move toward us. He lowers the gun only briefly to push open the glass door, and I’m fully expecting Simon to make his move and shoot green-eyes, but he… doesn’t. And I’m even more confused. I mean, it’s not like I would let him shoot the man who’s supposed to be my rescuer, but my husband can at least make an effort to try and stop my kidnapping.

  If we weren’t in a standoff with Simon right now, I would be rolling my eyes so hard. How is this my life? Being held prisoner by my husband and then being fake kidnapped by some random dude who says he works for Ciaran. You can’t make this shit up.

  We make it out into the backyard without a shootout and as soon as we’re out of eye shot of the living room and Simon, green-eyes takes my hand in his other one and pulls me along with him as he makes a mad dash for the gate and down the street. We stop beside a black motorcycle and he pauses only long enough to slide his handgun into a holster under his arm and throws on a leather jacket before throwing a leg over the machine and instructing me to “hop on.”

  “I’m sorry, what?” I ask, because surely, I didn’t hear him right.

  “I said, hop on. We need to get the hell outta dodge before your husband comes to his senses and calls his people.” He tries to hand me a second helmet but all I’m capable of doing right at this moment is starring at it.

  “Um, no. There’ll be no hopping on anything.” Liar. You’d like to hop on his… I swallow hard and ignore the way my ears are heating. It’s been years since I’ve been on the back of a bike. I used to mumble obscenities every time Mason would try to get me on the back of his. I didn’t trust the death traps.

  “If you’re not going to get on then go back to your Cartel boss husband,” he grumbles then turns back around to start the bike. The machine starts up with a roar and I jump.

  I look back down the street the way we came. I feel like I’m having an out of body experience. There are a myriad of things I should be questioning right now, and for all intents and purposes, I made my bed and I should be lying in it with Simon, but there’s no way I can be offered this opportunity and not take it. I look back to green-eyes and with a reluctant sigh, take the helmet he thrusts out again and put it on. I throw a leg over the back and scoot forward until I’m pressed up against his back with my arms locked around his waist.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  SOFIA

  Green-eyes pulls off the highway sometime later and into a gas station. He holds out a hand to help me off the bike before swinging a leg over the machine himself. Unclipping my helmet, I pull it off, immediately smoothing down my hair with a hand while hanging the helmet off a handle with the other.

  “You want anything to drink? I gotta make a quick call.”

  Chewing on my bottom lip, I glance behind him to the store, my stomach grumbles and I realize that it has to be close to twelve hours since I’ve had anything to eat or drink beside wine, but I don’t want to put him out more than he already is and honestly, the sooner we get back to Braxton’s the safer I’ll feel. Liar. My inner voice tries to scream but I ignore it and ask him to just get me a coke.

  Green-eyes turns to head into the store but then stops and pivots back, pulling something from his pocket and handing it to me. “Ciaran wants you to call him,” he says, and once I get the phone from him, he turns back and heads into the store.

  Without thinking too much about it, I quickly dial the number that I’ve come to memorize as much as my own over the last several years.

  “Sofia?” Ciaran’s voice appears on the other end after just one ring. He must have been staring at his phone, waiting for it to ring.

  “H-Hi,” I chok
e out on a sob.

  “Christ, I thought I’d never hear that sweet voice.”

  “You talked to me just a few days ago.”

  Ciaran growls. “That was before I got a look into that fuckers life. Christ, Sofia, why didn’t you say anything when you had me on the phone?”

  “There wasn’t time,” I answer honestly. There really wasn’t. Plus, I knew after I asked for help and gave Ciaran access to Simon’s personal computer, he would piece everything together himself, and he did.

  “Is that mom?” I hear through the phone and my heart squeezes.

  “It is,” Ciaran says and then tells Dominic to give him one second and then he can talk to me. A beat of silence follows and I’m sure he’s waiting for Dominic to leave the room before continuing our conversation. “He’s starting to ask questions, Sofia, questions with answers I think his mother should be answering.”

  I huff and lean some of my weight against the bike. “I know.”

  There’s silence on the other end of the line again and I can practically hear the wheels spinning as Ciaran formulates a plan.

  “I’m bringing him out there,” he finally says after several seconds.

  My heart gives a little jump but at the same time my anxiety ratchets up another level. If Dominic and Mason are in the same city, there’s more chances of them meeting and he won’t be able to look at Dom and not know that he’s his son. Worst, he’ll know that I’ve been lying to him.

  “Ciaran, I…”

  He cuts me off. “Enough. It’s time, Sofia. The boy needs to know who his dad is, and Mason James deserves to know about his son. No more hiding.”

  “But Simon—”

  “Will be a non-issue with me there helping to track him down. Morné has orders to not leave your side even after you’re back at Braxton’s. Don’t fight him on it,” he orders, but I hear the smile in his voice. Cocky fucker.

  “Will you make me Greek food while you’re here?” I ask, noticing green-eyes, or Morné, returning. When I was pregnant with Dom, all I craved was Greek food and Ciaran being Greek himself, indulged my cravings. After I had given birth, I was surprised that the craving, although less severe, never fully went away.

  “Anything for you, sweetheart,” he says.

  I hear a commotion on the other end of the line and then my son’s sweet voice fills my ears and I have to cover my mouth with my hand to stop the bubbling sob from breaking free.

  “Hi Momma.”

  “Hi baby. Are you being good for Uncle Ciaran?”

  “We went on a boat! It was so cool!” He gushes and I can hear the excitement in his voice.

  “Wow, a boat, huh?”

  “I wanted to go again today but Uncle C said I already had too much sun.”

  I stifle a giggle. My boy would live outside 24/7 if he could. He loves the outdoors and being in the sun all day, unfortunately his young skin does not and if we’re not careful about applying sunscreen every few hours, he burns to a crisp.

  “When are you coming home, Momma?”

  My chest aches. “Soon, baby boy. Actually,” I say, pushing away from the bike and walking to the corner of the store. “Uncle Ciaran is going to bring you out here to see me and meet your cousins. Would you like that?”

  Dominic grows silent for so long I’m beginning to think I’ve lost the call but then I hear his small voice. “C-can I bring my guitar?”

  “Yes, baby. You can.”

  “O-Okay.”

  There was awhile after Dom turned one when he still hadn’t shown signs of starting to talk, and we thought he never would. We tried several different speech language therapists but to no avail. It wasn’t until he was three and one therapist put a mini acoustic guitar in his hands that we realized he just preferred communicating in a different way. That was also when we found out he spoke just fine but preferred to observe those around him and process things differently. My boy was a genius. At least I thought so. He’s come a long way in three years. His grade one teacher has said that he’s more open to playing with the other kids and doesn’t keep to himself as much as he did at first. However, since I’ve been here and before the whole Simon thing, Ciaran has told me that when in big crowds of people he doesn’t know, Dom, reverts back to his previous behaviour. I hope that maybe his cousin’s will go a long way in changing that.

  “Dominic. It’s time to wash up for dinner,” I hear Ciaran’s voice in the background and grin. It’s good to know that while I’m not there, my son still has his routine to fall back on.

  “Okay. I gotta go, Momma. I love you.”

  “I love you too. I’ll see you soon,” I say and then the line goes dead. I don’t immediately drop the phone from my ear, though, instead squeezing my eyes shut and wishing beyond hope that everything will be okay. It has to be.

  I hand Morné back his phone and then climb back on the bike behind him and settle in for another hour and a half long ride back to my cousin’s house.

  I’m nervous and a bit jumpy as I wait in arrivals for Ciaran and Dominic. After Morné and I arrived back at Braxton’s last night, I stayed up late going over everything with Braxton and Alessandro. And I mean everything, from how Simon cornered me outside of the store and his proposition. About how he was the reason Detective Mickelson had a hard-on for my cousin. I told them about the threat to Mason’s life and to Dominic’s. The revelation that I’ve had a kid stacked away on the other side of the country didn’t sit well with either of them, and I understood that. We’re all supposed to be close, closer than any family, so I get that it hurt them to find out I was keeping such a big secret from them. They were also outraged that I hadn’t told Mason about his son. My cousin even threatened to tell Mason himself if I wasn’t going to do it. It took a lot of back and forth before he finally agreed to give me the time I need to heal from the trauma of Simon and tell Mason myself. I didn’t think I’d ever heal from that, though, but I also never thought I’d survive my older brother’s abuse and yet I did. So what the hell do I know.

  “Will you stop fidgeting? You’re driving me crazy,” Morné warns from beside me. He tips his chin to the arrivals border. “Look, they’ve landed now. It won’t be long.”

  That should be enough to calm my nerves but instead it ratchets it up higher and I start nibbling on the cuticle of my thumb. Christ, why am I so nervous? It’s just my son and the man I’ve come to think of over the years as my best friend. It’s more than that. Shut up. This is the closest Dominic and Mason have ever been. Ugh, stop.

  I turn and start pacing a small strip up and down in front of the arrivals gate. Glancing over every now and then to see if they’re the ones walking through the automatic double doors. And then… and then finally I see them. My little man walks through the automatic doors with his head held high, a kid’s guitar case strapped to his back and his hand securely in one belonging to the giant of a man beside him. Ciaran looks every bit as intimidating as he is and every bit the Greek Mob boss. When Braxton first told me that I would be staying with Ciaran when I moved down to California to attend school, I was livid. I didn’t need a babysitter, let alone another mob boss, but Ciaran was different somehow. He slowly broke down my defences and soon we were becoming friends. He’s been a lifesaver with Dominic too, although I try not to think about how much of a father figure Ciaran really is in my son’s life because it makes the guilt of not telling Mason too much to bear.

  “Mom!” Dominic yells as soon as he sees me and then he’s ripping his hand from Ciaran’s and running at me at full speed. I barely have time to crouch down and steady myself before he’s barrelling into me with an oomph.

  “Hi, little man. I’ve missed you,” I say, hugging him to me and smoothing a hand down his dark hair. It’s grown out some since the last time I’ve seen him, but I like it.

  “I’ve missed you too,” Dominic says into my neck, his small arms like a band around my shoulders. Instead of forcing him to let go, I gather him in my arms and lift him up, causing him
to wrap his legs around my waist. I notice Ciaran and Morné greet each other in my peripheral. Ciaran says something to Morné and then clamps a hand down on his shoulder. I can’t hear what they’re saying, and right now I don’t care. I’m just happy to finally have my son back in my arms, where he’s supposed to be.

  “Let’s go home.”

  Dominic nods against my neck, his back heaving with silent cries. I don’t wait to see if Ciaran or Morné are following us, I just start heading back the way I remember us entering and to the parking garage.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  MASON

  “Come in,” Braxton’s voice booms from the other side of the door when I knock.

  It’s not often that I have to come down to Luca Enterprises but the news I have can’t wait and I didn’t want to deliver it over the phone or through a text.

  “Mason,” he greets, sitting back in the leather office chair. The sleeves of his dress shirt are rolled up, exposing part of the tattoos that start at his wrist and run up to his shoulders.

  “I have news on detective Mickelson.”

  That has him sitting up straighter and pulling in closer to his desk. “What news?”

  Walking over to the makeshift bar at the far side of his office, I pour us both a couple fingers of whiskey and hand him one of the glasses when I’m done.

  “He’s been fired, and the warrant for his arrest was just signed by a judge. Evidence of his involvement with Simon was found on his home computer and numerous calls to Simon were placed from his personal cellphone. Security footage also puts his police issued SUV outside the warehouse where Gemma was found.”

  “Son of a bitch!”

  I agree, taking a seat in one of the chairs across from his desk and sipping my drink.

  “So what happens now?” He asks.

  “You tell me. I’m assuming his original plan was to bring down your empire and take over. Sofia was just a bonus, but now that he’s had her, I don’t think he’s going to be willing to let her go so easy. Especially with there being no chance of you going to prison. He can’t risk letting her go and you coming after him. He knows he’s signed his death warrant and Sofia is the only thing standing between him and that grave.”