Page 169 of Mila: The Godfather

“I’m thankful to my lucky stars, Riagan. They led the path to you.” I whisper.

He smiles at me, then turns me in his arms until we’re chest to chest again. Staring at his lips—those luscious lips of his, all I want to do is kiss them. Kiss him to show him just how much he’s wanted. Just how much I love him.

And I do.

I kiss him like he means the world to me.

Like he’s all I see and feel.

Because he is, and I do.

He is everything.

Message from M

M,

You own every piece of me.

The good and the ugly. - Riagan Cage O’Sullivan

Okay? Okay.

RIAGAN

“I’ll always be here. Always.” — R

After I turned the tables on the contract for Mila’s head no more targets have popped up, but I’m not taking any chances. After both Maeve and Conor relentlessly did their hacker shit, they found one more mercenary that took the initial contract, which is less than the sum I offered. Shit. This means that the price for her head has increased. “Conor, raise the offer. I don’t care how much it costs. Find me that fucker. We’re running out of time.” I bark orders at him while he sits at the far end of the home office. Just as I say it, Kelly enters my office, followed by Bain after spending all day handling business at Mayhem while I’ve been here with Mila. After everything that’s gone down lately, I’ve decided to not leave her alone, especially with this unease I feel. “Anything?”

“Word on the street is that she went rogue.” Bain answers as he steps farther inside the room, taking a seat opposite Conor. Kelly stands leaning against the door.

“Bullshit. She’s too smart for that. She’s coming for her.” I take a cig from behind my ear and place it on my lips. Fuck, in times like this, I do miss the rush of nicotine. “How about the fuckers?”

Kelly takes out a piece of paper and a pen from the inside of his hoodie. “Five down.” I watch as he crosses names off the list. A list Bain gave him with all the men who were in any form disrespectful or abusive towards my wife. I couldn’t keep her safe when she was a young girl, but she won’t spend a single day on this earth breathing the same fucking air as anyone who ever hurt her. I promised to take care of them, and that’s what we’re doing.

“Ya know, most of the men here are no longer breathing, right? The majority of them were sent swimming in the Detroit River by Kadra Parisi and never came back. The ones she didn’t bury alive, of course.” Bain says from his seat. “I’m guessing for those fucks to have lived this long is because she didn’t know about them.”

Perhaps.

“Found you,” Conor crows, standing up and fist-pumping the empty air of my office.

After three days of intense leg work, we’d found the man that’s taken the hit to take out Mila. I picked up my phone and called Byrne, who would do whatever he needed to do on his end next. “Taylor Dean, thirty-six, retired Army sniper. Lives in Colorado Springs, has six kids, and a very, very nice house for someone that works as a public-school janitor,” I said the moment he answered.

“Got it, man,” Byrne said before I hung up.

“How do we pin this on the fucker?” I ask my men, finally feeling like we’re one step closer to ending this shit. I’ve never felt more useless. I’ve always been able to neutralize threats, and in part, I have, but this won’t end until the initial contractor is taken out. I have offered a large amount of money and yet the fucker won’t back down. He or she is very fucking rich, that’s a no-brainer, but they’re also very focused on Mila. No one knew about her up until two weeks ago, and suddenly, they’re gunning for her head. Makes no sense. Months before, they were attacking the future first lady of this country, Mila’s sister, Arianna.

This is about the Parisi family.

One of them pissed off very rich and important people, and they’re now gunning for all of them.

My bet is Kadra Parisi.

“With the information you’ve sent me, and the information I’ve been able to dig up on my own, I’ll call a buddy in the FBI and pull a favor. Without exposing your woman’s name to the world and announcing her location, he’s going to have to find a way to do this with the last hit he took,” he explained. “But with the information Maeve was able to gather off the dark web, we at least have a starting point to stop him.”

“Do that.” We all watch as he stands with his laptop safely tucked under his arm and heads toward the door. “Thanks, kid. Good work.” I don’t say it often, but I lucked out with my team. Every single one of them has proven to be loyal and competent in every way. They all have irritating as fuck traits, but they are also pretty good at what they do. That’s all I ask for, and it’s the reason why I tolerate half of them. Kelly, mostly.

Conor nods once before exiting the room quietly.

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