The Warden isn’t in his office when I enter; instead I’m met by a grinning Julian and another one of his Capo’s, Rodrigo. Did I mention that Julian was one of the top lawyers in Newton? It’s how he hid all his shady dealings and it provided him with great opportunities for the less dodgy ones. He was the saviour in an Armani suit with baby blue eyes, who gave with one hand and took with the other.
He steps forward and pulls me into a hug. “My friend, it’s been a while.”
“Over a month in this hell hole Julian. What’re you doing here?”
“What do you mean? I’m your lawyer and the conviction against you has been overturned―why wouldn’t I be here?” He grins at me as the words sink in.
“Overturned?” I frown. What?
“It appears that the evidence was tampered with, found to be false and the system that convicted you was corrupt. Blacker than even your soul Eli.” Julian laughs at my expression of bewilderment as he opens his briefcase and shows me the document that states I’m free to go.
I raise an eyebrow, “The Warden?”
“In on it.” He chuckles as he shows me more documents that show the Warden was taking money from some very important people in return for ‘losing’ inmates in the justice system.
“The Judge?” I hiss.
Julian’s grin grows, “So very deep in it. He’s been ordered to stay at home while the investigation into his corruption goes on.”
“Andrew?”
“Will get what’s coming to him.” His face is more serious now, Andrew was one of ours. This never should have happened.
“Anna?” I ask with a hitch in my voice.
“The reason you are a free man my friend. She stole the evidence we needed from her father’s personal files. It appears that she holds a grudge since he got her fired from this place.”
“She was fired?”
“You didn’t think she’d just left you, did you?” Julian says with a teasing smile on his lips. This man missed nothing. It was why he was as formidable as he was charming. Anna had betrayed her own father for me. She’d freed me but she didn’t understand the rules of this game we played. We were coming for Andrew, and Judge Williamson would know that. He would know that it was Anna who shopped him. She wasn’t safe.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Anna
It has been almost three days since I’d handed everything over to Rosie, three days of waiting for Andrew to come out of his hidey hole at my father’s but it just wasn’t happening. Creed had been freed yesterday afternoon; I knew because Langdon had sent me a text in total disbelief. If only he knew the half of it. Everything was happening so quickly and I just wanted the truth. I was sick of being on the outside looking in, especially since everything was collapsing.
I walk into my father’s house, my childhood home, and sit at the table. It’s Thursday but there’s no crockery laid up, no smell of hot gravy or roasted vegetables in the air. The fire isn’t on either. Instead I’m greeted by Andrew, swigging from a whiskey bottle like a man dying of thirst and my father, sat at the head of the table saying nothing. He doesn’t even look at me as I sit.
“Lookie who turned up,” Andrew slurs as he slams the bottle down.
“Why Anna?” he hiccups as he tries to glare at me.
“I want to ask you the same,” I say, leaning forward.
“Why what? Why did I start working for the Mob? Why did I frame Creed? Ask father,” he spits as he takes another glug from the bottle and looks away.
My father’s lip curls up in disgust. He always hated it if Andrew or I drank too much, he said that it demonstrated no control. Andrew’s drug habit must have been a real kick in the teeth.
“Father?” I ask tentatively.
He slams his hands down on the table, “I do not have to explain myself to my children.”
“They know what you’ve done. How you’ve been fixing court cases and evidence for years. Don’t you want to explain it in your own words?” I keep pushing gently but it’s like he’s looking through me.
“I did what I had to. I was getting rid of the scum in this city. In this world. Men like Creed, like his boss, they don’t deserve freedom.”
“What about me father? How am I any different?” Andrew shouts from his seat, knocking the glass bottle over as he swings his arms around. Amber liquid spreads across the table, dripping over the edge and onto the carpet but no one moves to clear it.
“I needed you to carry out justice, if I had known how weak you were…” He hissed as he looks away from my brother.
“Weak?” Andrew bellows, his face red. He pulls a gun out of the back of his trousers and aims it at our father. “I could kill you, both of you.”
I’ve never seen him like this before, he’s switching between angry, frightened and upset and I’m struggling to keep up. My father has destroyed my brother and for what?
“It’s all ruined now anyway... they’re going to kill us,” he half sobs, half shouts.
My father rolls his eyes, “Always the cowards way out.”
How had things unravelled so quickly? How had they turned on each other like this?
“Coward? Fucking JUSTICE?! Says the man who sold out the Mob to a Mexican drug cartel. You weren’t cleaning up the streets; you were lining your fucking pockets!”
“Andrew…” I say softly. His bleary eyes turn on me and he grins.
“Princess Anna, untouchable, innocent Anna.” He laughs but it’s hollow. He aims the gun at me now. He starts to walk around the table as he blabbers on until he’s stood behind my chair.
“You know he didn’t want you involved because he didn’t think you had the balls for it. That’s ironic isn’t it little snitch?” he growls as he presses the cold metal against my temple.
I glance over at my father, his mouth is pulled into a tight line but he says nothing. He doesn’t care about us, only himself and without my mother to hide it, it’s blindingly obvious.
“What daddy, aren’t you going to stop me? Say anything?” Andrew mocks, pushing the gun into my skin so that it hurts. “She betrayed us. She’s ruined everything... have you nothing to say?”
My father looks away as Andrew laughs. I try to slow my breathing down, to calm myself. A few weeks ago I would have guaranteed you that Andrew would never pull that trigger, but the man stood behind me reeking of whiskey and desperation wasn’t Andrew. He was an unhinged stranger, a man of the Mob in the middle of a breakdown. He was dangerous and I was painfully aware of it. I don’t want to spook him so I make no effort to move, I just sit and wait. There’s not much else I can do without ending up with a bullet in my brain.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Creed
Julian picks me up the morning after my release and we decide to make a little visit to Judge Williamson. Julian wants more information from the horse's mouth; he needs to know why a man who worked for us is now working against us. I haven’t called Anna yet, I’m waiting until I’ve dealt with her fucked up family first and then there’ll be time to talk.
As we pull up to Williamson’s mansion it’s not hard to see where the money's all gone. The man loved a fucking rose bush. Immaculate garden, huge mansion and a garage off to the left that could easily house four cars. A lavish lifestyle was apparently his weakness. There are no staff about which sets me on edge, these places normally have a gardener, a driver, a maid―something or someone but it’s deadly quiet. We pull on our gloves and make sure our guns are loaded with our silencers on before we make a move.
I hear a shout from inside and with a quick nod to Julian we burst through the unlocked front door with our guns drawn. Through a door to the left we can see Andrew. He’s standing at the dining table to our left, he’s clearly off his face on coke as he holds a gun against his sister’s head.
“Fuck, they got here quicker than I thought they would,” he slurs with a grin. The man is unstable.
“Don’t come any closer,” he warns and Anna’s eyes widen, she’s t
elling me to listen but I can’t.
I growl as I feel Julian’s hand on my shoulder telling me to back off. Why is everyone being so fucking calm? That’s my Rabbit he has a gun to. Mine.
“Looks like we found your weakness Creed, my whore of a sister,” he cackles, cocking the gun.
I flash Julian a look that says I won’t let this go. Julian squeezes my shoulder again, warning me, holding me in place but seconds later there’s a muffled bang and Andrew falls to the floor with a hole in his head. Julian shot him, and they never saw it coming because they thought it would be me.
“Rabbit, are you okay?” I ask as I rush towards her and pull her into a tight hug.
“I thought he was going to kill me... he wanted to,” she breathes into my neck, fingers digging into my back.
“He can’t hurt you now.” I try to reassure her but the damage is already done. I can feel her trembling beneath my hands and I wish I’d been the one to pull the trigger.
Julian grabs Williamson by the scruff of his collar and drags him to the floor in front of the fireplace.
“I’m not going to talk to a piece of shit like you, so you’re wasting your time,” her father hisses at Julian before spitting at him.
“Judge Williamson, let’s be frank shall we? You will talk. I can be very persuasive and I like inflicting pain.” Julian pulls up a chair and sits, crossing one leg over the other and grins. “I’m very good at it.”
“You fucke―” the Judge shouts, starting to rise from his knees but Julian takes the butt of his gun and slams it into the man’s face, silencing him. He glares at us with his split, bloody lip and Anna stiffens beneath my arms.
“Creed, take Anna home and get some rest. I’ll take care of the Judge.” Julian called for back-up the second we pulled up so I know he won’t be alone in his interrogation but I was still hesitant.
“Are you sure? I mean I wanted to Chelsea Smile this smug fucker since I first saw him.” A Chelsea Smile was something I reserved for those who really pissed me off. It was a sadistic little trick where a small incision was made in the corners of the mouth and then so much pain was caused that the asshole ripped open the cuts with his screaming until his face was split into a massive grin.
“I’ll take care of it.” Julian says with a wave of his hand. “By the way, Rosie wants to invite you both over for dinner next week.”
“We’ll be there,” Anna replies with a small smile, surprising us both.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Anna
“So this is where you live,” I say casually as I walk around the massive loft apartment. There are huge windows the let all the sunlight in, it’s such an open, bright space, no wonder Creed hated prison. The view out over the city is amazing and my breath catches as I try to take it all in.
He chuckles, “I own the whole building but yes, this space is mine.”
He hands me a glass of wine and looks at me like he’s worried I’m going to fall apart. I’m not delicate china and people needed to stop treating me like I was.
“Little Rabbit, how’re you holding up?” he asks, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear.
I sink myself into his massive couch and sip on my glass of red. I wasn’t quite sure how to answer that. How was I holding up? I mean on one hand I was okay, relieved that it was all over. I could be with Creed. I could be me. On the other, that was my family gone.
“My brother is dead. He tried to kill me. My father will be dead soon. He was a monster,” I whisper the words but I still can’t quite wrap my head around them.
“We’re all monsters in some way,” Creed murmurs as he sits next to me and pulls me into his side.
“But you never lied about being a monster. They... they pretended to love me in some twisted way. Pretended that everything was okay when really it was rotten at the core.”
He kisses the top of my head and I feel safe.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Creed, I just want to stay here with you.”
He blinks slowly, a mildly surprised look on his face, “I thought I made it clear. You are mine. You’re not going anywhere.”
I smile at him, “Well, what happens in prison stays in prison―I didn’t know how you’d feel on the outside...”
He sputters, “You didn’t know how I’d feel?” The look of disbelief on his face makes me laugh. He was the most honest man I’d ever met, I knew he wanted me I just wasn’t sure to what extent. I guess I had my answer: I was never leaving. I place my glass down on the coffee table and climb into his lap.
“Shall I stay right here?” I ask, wiggling against him.
He groans, “Woman, don’t start something unless you’re going finish it.”
I kiss him and it’s a kiss filled with anxiety, fear, love and lust. It’s every emotion bundled up in one simple human interaction. I needed Creed, he was my port in the storm. He was my safe place. I tear his shirt up over his head as his hands work to undo the button on my jeans. Quickly we’re both naked and the feel of his skin against mine sets me on fire.
He cups my breasts, squeezing them before taking a nipple in his mouth. He sucks hard and I groan, sliding my fingers into his hair and pulling him closer. I will never get enough of this man. His other hand tweaks my free nipple, taking it between his fingers and making me groan as he taunts me.
I reach down between us and take his cock in my hand. He makes a sound of approval as his teeth tease me, scraping across the sensitive skin. Moving slowly I make a fist and start leisurely moving up and down his length. I love the feel of him. The smell of him. The little fucking noises he makes. It all drives me wild as my hips start to move on their own. His hand leaves my breast to slide down and dip between my thighs. I’m already wet for him and he pulls back and grins as he slides two fingers inside me, his thumb brushing against my clit.
“Always so ready for me,” he mutters against my skin as he kisses me. Grabbing my ass he lifts me and slides me down on top of him.
“Fuck,” I breathe as my body adjusts to his. Everything may have fallen apart today but I was exactly where I needed to be.
Epilogue
Creed
I hate that she’s doing this. It has all the hairs on the back of my neck standing up as she sits at the bar waiting for Tommy Malone. That man was on my shitlist big time which meant I couldn’t get close to him, but he had a thing about pretty little blondes. Which is why my wife sat at the bar, wearing a ridiculous wig and a stupidly short skirt. Fucking Anna.
After her father’s death hit the papers over a year ago it was like a weight had been lifted and she decided that she wanted to help Julian. She wanted to work for the us. It had been ruled that Andrew had been shot in a home robbery gone wrong and her father's body was never recovered. Since Judge Williamson was knee deep in corruption there were suspects galore but with no DNA at the scene and no witnesses, there wasn’t much the authorities could do. Anna was a free woman.
I spy Tommy weaving through the crowds and taking the stool next to her. He orders her a drink which she accepts with a flirty smile. She takes a sip, sucking on the straw. Fucking woman was going to be the death of me. He says something asinine, which she laughs at. She leans in, giving him a great view of her tits and next to me Julian chuckles.
I throw back my whiskey, pacing back and forth in a room above the bar. The one way glass means we can see everything but they can’t see us.
“What? You’d be the same if it was Rosie!”
He grins, “Have you seen my wife? I’d have no soles left on my shoes if I paced the way you do.”
“When do we go down there?” I growl.
“We don’t,” he says as he sips his drink. “She’s going to bring him up here.”
Sure enough she starts whispering in his ear and he grins, his hand snaking around her waist. Tommy Malone needed that grin wiped off his fucking face. She was mine. Anna leads him through a backdoor and he follows like a little puppy with his hands on her ass. I
exhale, reminding myself that it was fine because I was going to break every fucking finger on that hand.
They come through the door, Anna first and I hear him behind her talking about how ‘bad she wanted it’ and how he ‘was going to give it to her good’. He barely gets one foot in before I’ve whacked him over the back of the head with my gun.
“Creed... we talked about this.” She steps over Tommy’s body to give me a quick kiss.
“What? I waited until he was in the room,” I shrug.
“Barely.”
“How are you my sweet?” Julian asks, pulling Anna into a hug as two of his henchmen tie Tommy to a chair. He starts to come around, moaning about being tricked by a whore. That earns him a punch to the jaw.
She pulls the wig off, ruffles a hand through her hair and sighs, “I’m okay. I don’t think I can do this much longer though.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, I’m just starting to show and I’m not sure how many men want to pick up pregnant chicks at bars,” she laughs, her hand resting on her stomach.
Anna wraps her hand around my waist and I kiss the top of her head. We’d known for a while, and I wanted her to stop doing honey trap things like this but she refused. She told me she would only stop when she started to show, and sure enough as I drink in the sight of my Little Rabbit there’s a small bump that wasn’t there a week ago. She was the piece I didn’t know was missing in my life. The Mafia was all I’d ever known but that changed when I met Anna Bishop, a woman prepared to love me for the sinner I was and here it was, about to change once again. The Mafia isn’t something you ever leave, but they don’t leave you either. We were free to live a life of colour in a grey world, surrounded by family and friends who accepted us despite our demons, who accepted us even though we were monsters.
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