Page 83 of Trapped

She huffed. “Stop it.”

I smirked. “What about a detailed expense report?”

Delilah rolled her eyes, but the corners of her mouth twitched. “I should start sending you bills for all the therapy I’ll need after being kidnapped. Again.”

I slipped a finger in between the buttons of her shirt, grazing her stomach. “You look good in my clothes.”

Delilah’s fingers stilled, and her eyes closed. When they opened again, she looked like the lost girl that had stumbled into my club. All the fierceness left her.

I kissed her cheek. “Listen, I need to go somewhere.”

She dug her nails into my shirt. “In the middle of the night?”

“Don’t worry about it. You’re safe.”

She still looked freaked out.

I sighed, taking out my Glock. “Safety’s on. It’s loaded with one in the chamber.”

She gaped at me as I set it on the table.

I lifted her off my lap and headed to the coat rack. “You know how to use a gun, right?”

She grimaced.

I stood, heading to the door. “I’ll have to take you to the range.”

Deep inside Franklin Park, through a trimmed path and up lichen-covered stone steps, sat a group of giant, rusted enclosures. The old bear dens of a zoo. They’d been abandoned decades ago, left to rot to their skeletal remains. Early morning sunlight poked through the branches, illuminating the stone carving of two bears standing on hind legs.

I checked my watch.

As I glanced up, movement caught my attention. A strong silhouette moved out from a tree, flanked by two others. Vinn and his bodyguards.

I nodded at him.

Vinn’s eyes were like two tar pits. “You finally show your fucking face after taking off to Italy.”

“I couldn’t do what you wanted me to do.”

He crossed his arms. “Why?”

“She’s pregnant.”

Vinn exhaled roughly. “Knocking up the Romanov girl puts a kink in my plan to wipe them off the face of the earth.”

“Then set it aside. We’re not ready for an all-out conflict with the Russians. We’re still fighting for territory in Chelsea. We have the 12thStreet gang and the Animals growing in Dorchester and Beacon Hill. Another war will break us.”

“Sonny, you brought this conflict tomydoor.”

A foot scraped the path, and cold metal kissed the back of my neck. I didn’t move. I wasn’t too worried. If the boss wanted me dead, I’d be gone already. He had a reason for dragging me all the way out here.

“Look, I get that you’re pissed. But the Romanovs are dying. Mikhail has no heirs except Delilah. This marriage will let us dip our hands in Providence, which no Costa boss has ever been able to do.”

Vinn’s glare didn’t waver, but interest flickered in his eyes. “Those bastards turned our cousin into a human torch.”

“We need to think about securing our future.”

He smiled wryly. “Yourfuture, you mean.”

---