BOW DOWN: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance (Barone Crime Family) (16 page)

A
nother shitty motel
outside of a shitty town in the middle of nowhere. Ethan and I had been driving along side roads for the better part of a week, and so far nothing had happened. Just one motel after another, my cellphone destroyed, emails going unanswered.

I didn’t know who I could trust. I knew Arturo had his fingers in just about every pot, and most people were on his payroll. I was trying to still work, sending emails only about important things from encrypted addresses on public computers, but that couldn’t do much. Ethan wouldn’t let me try anything else, and absolutely forbade phone calls. He had us destroy our phones that first day, and so I felt completely disconnected from the world.

There was no word from Louisa, but I knew I couldn’t expect any. After what she said, I had to assume that our ties were completely severed. It was frustrating, but there was nothing else I could do about it.

I stared at the ceiling then stared at the clock. It was three in the morning. I hadn’t been sleeping much lately, for obvious reasons. Ethan was snoring on the cot beside me, and I had a nice buzz still ringing through my brain. The half-empty glass of whisky was gathering condensation on the side table.

I fucking missed her. Despite her thinking that I was a traitor and turning her back on me, I missed her. I knew that was stupid as all fucking hell, but I had never felt the way I felt about her for another person in my entire life. I’d gone through my days wanting only to better myself, to get what I wanted, to take it for myself. But Louisa changed that. She made me want to sacrifice for her. She made me believe in her cause.

She made me want to be a better man, and to make a better city.

But all of that was gone. She turned her back on me and forced me into hiding, all because I had gotten involved in a war between her and her father. It was stupid of me, completely foolish. I had nothing to gain by getting involved with her, or at least nothing I couldn’t have gotten by other means. I wanted her, and that was why I trusted her.

That got me nowhere, only half-drunk at three in the morning in a shitty fleabag motel.I wasn’t going to change anything running from the mob. I could lay awake all night as much as I wanted, but only action was going to get me out of this fucking jam.

The shitty part of it all was, I didn’t want to get out of the jam. I wanted to go back into the city and take Louisa the way I knew she wanted to be taken. I wanted to make her mine and show her just how strong we could be together.

That didn’t seem likely, not anymore. Not after this fucking fiasco.

I rolled only my side, facing the window, and something moving outside caught my eye. It was just a shadow, a movement of light on the other side of the curtains, but it happened. I was probably just tired and seeing things, but then it happened again.

I slowly crept out of bed, feeling paranoid. I grabbed the gun from my side table and slipped toward the door wearing only my boxer briefs.

Everything was quiet. Ethan’s breathing was steady and even. There was nobody outside and nothing was wrong. I was just being completely paranoid. I stood next to the door, eyes narrowed.

The door exploded inward. There was a loud burst and a flash of light as wood splintered. I fired my gun blindly, and that saved my life, because a man followed the flash into the room.

I missed him, but I forced him to dive down to the ground. He hit the floor hard and I was on top of him, kicking at his gun at hard as I could. I knocked it from his hand, sending it spinning away, and he rolled again as I tried another shot at him.

His legs caught my ankle as he lashed out, tripping me up. I stumbled to the side, firing again and again until I was out of bullets. The guy was hit on his shoulder, but he was on his feet and he was coming at me with a knife.

I threw the gun at him and he dodged it. I dropped back into a defensive position as he came at me, stabbing in quick jabs. I managed to fight him off, stepping back and back, closer and closer to the wall.

His knife flashed, quick and deadly, catching me on the arm. I swiped back, lashing out with my fists, but he blocked them and came forward. His face was blank and serious.

He was going to kill me. I knew it in that moment. I was a good fighter, but this was a trained professional assassin for the mafia. This was a man that killed for a living. He was shot in the arm and he wasn’t stopping, because he didn’t stop until his prey was dead.

I was fighting for my life, and I was losing. My gun was useless and I was unarmed. I couldn’t win in a fight against a skilled man with a knife.

It was strange. As the knife tip got closer and close to me, cutting nearer and nearer as my back pressed up against the wall, I kept thinking about Louisa. I kept thinking about all the things that could have been with her, all the things that I wished had happened differently.

And then there was a soft thud and the man’s skull exploded. I was covered in blood as he fell to the ground.

Ethan smiled at me, his gun smoking. “That was close,” he said.

“Fuck. I thought I was going to die.”

“Not with me around.”

“What took you so fucking long?”

“Couldn’t find my gun. And you seemed okay.”

“Jesus fuck, Ethan. I am both angry and very happy right now.”

“You’re not dead. Stick with happy.”

I looked down at the dead assassin’s body, his skull exploded from the bullet tearing through the back of his head. I wiped the blood from my face and chest with the sheets.

“We should go,” Ethan said.

“We should.” I agreed.

He began to pack.

I stared at my stuff, at the man’s body. I knew I should just get back on the road, keep moving. This was proof that Arturo was after me, and my life was in danger now more than ever. I had no clue how they found us, but they had, and that meant more guys were going to find us soon. I needed more protection and to hide deeper.

But I didn’t want to fucking hide. I could see two choices in front of me, clear as day.

I could go on the run and go into deep hiding. I’d lose everything I worked for. I couldn’t be the attorney general, hell, I probably couldn’t even practice law. I’d be a shell of a man, a shadow of my former self, but at least I’d be alive. I could cobble together some semblance of an existence, though I’d always be dissatisfied, broken, undone.

Or I could return to Chicago and take back what was mine. Maybe I couldn’t do it with Louisa, but I had other contacts. I knew men in the Russian mob that could help, and the police force was on my side. Louisa was still going after Arturo, and eventually one of them would win. I could still help her with that, even if she had turned her back on me.

The choice was obvious to me.

I wasn’t the running type. I couldn’t live a life of weakness. I wasn’t going into hiding, because I needed to do what I needed to do. And I needed Louisa, even if she didn’t see it.

“We’re going back to the city,” I said to Ethan.

He smiled. “Good.”

I nodded and started packing. I still had blood splattered on my body, but that could wait. Blood washed off.

I was going back to Chicago, and I was going to take what was mine. No more fucking around. No more weakness.

The last thing I thought about when I was convinced that I was going to die was Louisa. I knew what was important to me.

I had to live and get back what I lost.

T
he new safe
house was nothing like the old one.

For days I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about Wyatt and seeing his face in my mind during those last moments.

I knew it was a mistake to turn my back on him. I knew it the moment it was happening. Maybe Kasia thought it was best for me to move on from him, but she was wrong.

I thought that feeling would go away. I thought if we moved and I kept going forward, I’d forget about Wyatt.

Instead, I found myself on my computer trying to track him down. Each night, late into the night, I searched for any sign of him. I didn’t know why, but I wanted to talk to him. I had no clue what I’d say. I figured I’d think of something whenever I found him.

But each night, I found nothing, and that aching hole in my chest got deeper and wider, deeper and wider.

I knew what it was, but I couldn’t put it into words. Or maybe I just didn’t want to admit it to myself. I didn’t want to admit that I needed someone, that I needed someone more than I’d ever needed someone before. It wasn’t the same way I needed Kasia or the other girls. It was deeper than that.

I hadn’t realized that need was there. I didn’t know it was inside of me, slowly developing, slowly growing. When I sent him away, that only made it so much more obvious that he was incredibly important to me.

Each night, I searched, and each night I found nothing. I didn’t know what I could say to him to make him understand what I did and what I wanted. I wouldn’t believe me or want anything to do with me if I were him.

But it became obvious that I had to try.

And finally, after days of sleepless nights, he appeared. One second it was as it always was, just silence and nothingness, and then suddenly there he was.

His computer was back online. I did a quick search, tracking it down, and was shocked to find out that he was connected on the public WiFi at his normal hotel.

He was back in Chicago, and he didn’t seem to be hiding.

I leaned back in my chair, my hands sweating, my heart hammering. This was what I’d been dreaming about for days. There he was, back out in the open, and suddenly I was afraid.

I was never afraid. I got nervous and worried, but never actually afraid. Now, suddenly, I was afraid of Wyatt, or at least afraid of how he was going to respond to me.

He had every right to tell me to go fuck myself. At the time, in the heat of the moment, it made perfect sense to me that he was the traitor and that he had sold us out.

But as time passed and I really thought about it, that couldn’t be right. Wyatt hadn’t sought me out. I went to him. And he didn’t want to get involved with me, I had to convince him.

Most importantly, he knew where the safe house was before the trap. If he really was the traitor and he wanted to destroy us, he could have given my father my location as soon as he found out about it. He could have destroyed us instead of injuring us.

Wyatt hadn’t turned on us. I had listened to Kasia and fear against my own rational judgment, and I put his life in jeopardy because of it. My father now knew that Wyatt was working with me, and I was sure that he had sent men to kill him.

Still, the fact that Wyatt was back in the city said a lot to me. I didn’t know what he was doing, but he must have made some kind of deal for his life. Maybe I was in danger after all.

I took a sharp breath. No, I couldn’t think that way. That was the old way of thinking, the paranoid way that had gotten me into this trouble to begin with.

I took over his computer. The cursor blinked. I could picture him sitting there in his suit, frowning at his computer, waiting for me to type.

Instead, he started.

“Fancy meeting you here.”

I bit my lip, smiling. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay. Despite your father.”

“I’m sorry, Wyatt. I made a mistake.”

There was a long pause. “I know,” he said finally.

“Come meet me.”

“Where?”

“There’s a safe house we’re working on. It’s not ready yet.”

“When?”

“Now.”

Another pause, this time shorter.

“Okay,” he said. “Send me the address.”

I typed it and hit enter. When I was done, I released his computer and stood. I shut down my work station, threw some clothes on, and ran out the door.

I didn’t know if this was stupid or a great idea. I didn’t know if I was putting myself in serious danger or if I was finally doing what I really wanted to do, what I knew was right.

The only thing I knew for sure was that I had to take a chance. I had to at least try. I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t give myself this opportunity to make things right.

* * *

T
he safe house
was at the edge of town in a rundown neighborhood. The outside looked like it was just another abandoned building, but inside was pretty nice. Some of the girls had been working hard on rehabbing it, and so far it was coming out beautiful. There was enough room for at least ten people, plus a nice little panic room and armory in the basement.

I got there before Wyatt. I leaned up against a wall in the mostly-empty living room and stared at all the building materials and power tools that had been left behind.

I knew I should probably feel worried, but I really felt nothing but excited. I was finally going to get to see Wyatt again, although I never thought I would. Part of me believed that he was going to disappear from my life forever, all because I was stupid enough to send him away.

But I should have known better than that. Wyatt wasn’t that kind of man. He was smart to get out of the city and to lay low, but he was back now. He wasn’t going to just turn tail and run away. Wyatt wasn’t that kind of man.

After ten minutes, I heard his steps on the front stoop. He paused out front, almost as if thinking about something, and then finally knocked softly.

“Come in,” I called out.

He opened the door and stepped in, closing it behind him.

I stared at him for a second. Wyatt smiled at me, that cocky, brash smile of his. He was so damn handsome. I’d almost forgotten about his bright eyes, his clean jaw, his slight stubble, and his muscular body. I’d almost forgotten how he looked like he could break me in half, and that made me more excited than I wanted to admit.

“I’m surprised you wanted to see me,” he said.

“I don’t think I was fair to you.”

“No.” He stepped inside, looking around. “Looks like you’re still working on this place.”

“We’re opening a few new places.”

“A lot of new recruits?”

I shook my head. “Not really. But we’re working on that.”

“Good.”

I bit my lip. “Wyatt, listen.”

He held up his hand. “I don’t need you to say anything. I just want you to listen.”

I nodded, surprised.

He cleared his throat. “Your father wants me dead, and for good reason. He knows I was working with you now. How he figured that out, I have no fucking idea, but he sent an assassin to kill me two nights ago. Obviously, he failed.”

He came a few steps closer, crossing his powerful arms. I took a sharp breath as my heart started to beat hard in my chest, a strange ache running up along my thighs.

“So now I’m back in the city, and I don’t plan on leaving. What I plan on doing is taking your fucking father down so that I don’t need to keep worrying about him trying to kill me.”

“How are you going to do that?” I asked him.

“He’ll meet with me. I know he will. Maybe it’ll just be to kill me, but he’ll show up because that’s the kind of man he is. I want to set the meeting, and I want your people to be there to kill him.”

I bit my lip. “How do you know he won’t just send more assassins?”

“Because I’m going to offer him you.”

I narrowed my eyes. “What?”

“I’m going to tell him that I’ll flip on you in exchange for him letting me live. I’ll even grovel a bit, and I know he won’t pass that up. Your father is too egocentric to miss that sort of thing. He’ll come, maybe with a small army, but he’ll come. And your only job will be to kill him.”

“Sounds easy,” I said.

“It won’t be. But it has to be you, Louisa. It has to be.”

I bit my lip, not sure what he meant. “Why?”

“Nobody else can pull it off. And I don’t trust anyone else.”

“Why would you trust me?”

He smirked. “Good question.”

“Seriously Wyatt. After what happened, why would we trust each other?”

“I wasn’t the one who threw you under the bus,” he said.

“I know. You’re right.”

“But trust is all we have.” He walked closer to me, and I felt like throwing myself at him. I knew that was insane, but the way he was looking at me made me want to give in to everything that I wanted. “We can’t get out of this without each other. You need to win this war, now more than ever. And I’d love to continue to breathe, if possible.”

“My people aren’t going to like this.”

“You won’t need them all. Choose the best of the best and use them. Only people that you trust. The others will fall into line when your father is dead.”

“Killing him doesn’t beat the mob,” I pointed out.

“True, but your brother will step into the power vacuum.”

I nodded. Lucas was the clear favorite to lead the mob after my father was dead. I could work with Lucas, come to some mutually beneficial arrangement. We didn’t hate each other like my father and I did; in fact, Lucas was the only one in the mob that I actually liked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I put trust in you once before and it backfired.”

“I know. But believe in me one more time, and we’ll win. I know we’ll win.”

“Why did you come back?” I asked him.

His smile never faded as he stepped closer to me. I crossed my arms and looked away as he stopped inches in front of me, his smile locked on his face. He took my chin and pulled my face toward him.

I stared back, defiant. I wasn’t going to just give him whatever he wanted, no matter how strong it was ringing through my core.

“This is why,” he said softly.

And then he kissed me.

That was all I needed. As I kissed him back, wrapping my arms around his neck and pushing myself against him, I knew I was going to do exactly as he asked. I turned my back on him once, foolishly, and I wouldn’t do it again.

I wasn’t going to give in to the pressures of my position or fear. I wasn’t going to fail myself, or Wyatt, or the girls ever again. I was going to step up and do the right thing, even if that right thing wasn’t popular.

And I was going to kiss Wyatt as hard as I could. Not because it was necessary, but because I wanted it.

Slowly, our kiss broke apart. My lips were buzzing with warmth from his mouth.

“This is why I came back,” he said softly. “For you. I could live on the run, but I’m not that kind of man. I had to finish what I started.”

“So you came back to beat my father?”

“No. I came back to finish what I started with you. As much as you don’t want to admit it, Louisa, you need me. And I need you.”

“I need you,” I whispered to him.

He kissed me again, and this time I had no hesitation.

He was right. I didn’t know that I needed him until I found him. Before Wyatt, the world was a dour, horrible place. Men were rapists and pigs, and my whole world was dedicated to destroying them. I had nothing and nobody save for my girls, but they could never satisfy me like Wyatt could.

He brought something to my life that I never knew that I needed. Kissing him in the empty safe house was the happiest I’d felt since the day he left. Nothing else could compare.

We were going to win this together. It was the only way, it was always the only way.

The world was against us, but we’d destroy the world and remake it the way we wanted it to be.