Page 100 of Possessive Mafia Vows

I start choking. Food splutters from between my lips. Tears well in my eyes.

But he clamps a hand over my mouth and peers into my eyes. He is so close that I can smell his garlicky breath, and it makes me retch. My lips stick to the palm of his hand and are dragged away from my gums. I can taste him, and my mouth fills with bile.

“Show me how you swallow.” The innuendo isn’t lost on me.

The rage ignited by Nick is back. It sparks somewhere deep inside me, fanned by this man’s foul breath and clammy hand.

I bare my teeth behind his palm, snarling like a vicious dog. I ignore the stale bread clogging up my mouth, clamp my teeth around the soft pad of flesh between his thumb and forefinger, and bite down as hard as I can.

My mouth is too full to do much damage, but I have the element of surprise on my side. His hand jerks away. But in one fluid movement, he slaps my face with the back of his hand. My skull would’ve bounced off the wall had he not been gripping my hair; instead, his knuckles take the brunt of the force, holding me still as his face lowers towards me.

I start hammering his chest with my fists as his intentions become clear, but it’s like pounding a brick wall. He’s solid. His lips brush mine, and in blind panic, I throw my weight backwards, my knees coming with me, and lash out with both feet aimed directly at his groin.

The pain from my ankle shoots the length of my spine and jars inside my skull.

He lets out anoof, but he’s still gripping my hair tightly. He drags me off the bed and crushes me against his chest. I can’t free my arms to push him off me, and his other hand is sliding over my buttocks, grinding our groins together.

I try to scream, but all I manage is a dry choking sound.

Then he’s being dragged away from me, and I shriek as a handful of my hair comes away in his hand. Someone—another man—throws him across the room, but he lunges back again, fists raised.

Until the new arrival produces a gun.

I shrink back against the wall. They can kill each other for all I care, but if Nick is telling the truth, and I’m pregnant with Kyle’s baby, I’m not getting caught in the crossfire.

“No harm done.” The first man, the Russian, raises both hands in a gesture of surrender.

The other guy has his back to me. “Only because I stopped you. Get the fuck out of here, and don’t fucking come back.”

I must be delirious. Perhaps I imagined the whole thing, and will wake up any moment now, because this new guy, the man holding the pistol, sounds exactly like my father.

The Russian glares at me one last time like it’s my fault that he got caught attacking me and leaves the room. He doesn’t close the door behind him.

My chest is heaving. I’m still clutching the blanket to my chest.

The man with the gun turns around, and I know even before his face comes into view that I’m not imagining it.

“Are you alright, sweetheart?” he asks. “Did he hurt you?”

My gaze flickers back and forth between him and the door. I’m half-expecting Nick to jump out and yell, “Surprise! Had you fooled, huh?” but no one else is coming.

“Wh-what are you doing here?”

“What, no ‘thanks for saving me, Dad,’ or ‘I’m glad you’re here’?” He rolls his bottom lip like he’s seriously disappointed in me.

I can’t help staring at the weapon in his hand and shrinking even further against the wall. My knee and ankle are screaming at me to sit down, but nothing about this situation is encouraging me to get comfortable.

His eyes follow mine to the gun. “Yeah, sorry you had to see this. Lucky I was packing though, huh? Lucky for you, I mean.”

He still hasn’t explained his presence in a cliff-top property in Ireland, when the last time I saw him, he was trying to wriggle his way out of a cheating accusation in the Wraith’s casino.

“How did you get here?” The image of him speaking to Nick on the sidewalk outside the gallery pops into my head. “Did Nick bring you here?” My voice is finally trying to cut and run while it still can.

“I don’t work for Nick. If he had his way, I’d be long gone, and he’d be rubbing his hands together over my share of the rewards.”

“Who do you work for?” I already know the answer, but I need to hear him say the words out loud.

“The Russians. I ran up a little gambling debt, and they offered to help me clear it if I found them a way in with the Irish lot.”

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