Page 4 of Possessive Mafia Vows

But what I’m really doing is avoiding looking at the scars above the neckline. The shiny pink flesh, like ruffles of frosting that tightens the skin between my cleavage and collarbone. I trace them with my fingertips, and the memories come flooding back as they always do.

My face is pale, making my eyes appear huge and dark. All pupil, no iris. My breaths come in rapid shallow gasps, the skin between my collarbones rising and dipping with the effort of trying to fill my lungs.

Even now, almost six years later, reliving the car crash takes my breath away.

It isn’t even so much the accident that has this debilitating effect on me. It’s knowing that if I allow the memory to keep going, eventually I’d reach the part where I regained consciousness and realized that I was alone.

Kenickie was gone.

I was trapped inside the car. Aside from the safety belt, something heavy and solid was pinning me to the seat. I couldn’tbudge it. I couldn’t unfasten the belt that was cutting into my cheek and neck. I yelled for help, but no one came.

I managed to slide my hand into my pocket and wrap my fingers around my phone. My movements were slow, sluggish, clumsy.

“Please don’t drop the phone,” I muttered under my breath. “Please, don’t…”

I slid my thumb across the surface. I couldn’t move my neck to see what I was doing, I just prayed that I’d find the green button from muscle memory and hit the last number I dialed earlier in the day.

Victoria.

That’s when the mangled remains of the vehicle went up in flames.

I swallow painfully, my tongue sticking to the roof of my mouth and reach for the emerald silk scarf that I bought to match the dress I’m wearing. Looping it around my neck, I fasten it into a bow to cover the unsightly scars.

That night, I didn’t find out that Kenickie’s real name was Kyle.

Kyle Murray.

Billionaire bachelor and lawyer to the Irish mafia family.

I didn’t know who he was until my best friend Victoria agreed to marry his brother Caleb, in an arrangement designed to get Caleb’s crazy ex-girlfriend off his back.

Because this is the kind of world they roll in.

Fake marriages. Casinos. Leaving an innocent passenger to die in a car accident.

Kyle will be at the gallery opening tonight. I can hardly turn him away when it’s his family’s money that paid for it in the first place.

His brothers rescued him the night of the accident. They told him that I must’ve died on impact, and he believed them. Victoria believes them too. He wants us to start afresh. Forget what happened. Put it behind us and build on the connection we had in the short time we spent together.

I’ve told him I can’t.

The problem is, I can’t walk away either.

2

KYLE

“Areyou sure you should be here tonight?” I question Victoria.

It sounds way harsher than intended, but Victoria’s due date was a week ago, and she has that funny kind of walk that women have in the later stages of pregnancy, like she’s trying to carry a ton of boxes and can’t see where she’s going.

“Whoa, is this what the family taught you in Ireland, to speak with no filter?” My brother Caleb places his arm around Victoria’s waist and steers her away from me.

Victoria laughs. “I’m pregnant. I’m not sick. And I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

Her eyes seek out her best friend Sienna who is charming a group of guests in front of a painting that appears to float off the canvas to speak personally to the viewer.

My gaze flits back and forth between Sienna and the artwork. I don’t know what it is—I’m no art connoisseur—but there’s something familiar about this piece.

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