Page 110 of Sinfully Savage Mafia

Dominguez in his sharkskin suit, warning me that death is coming and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

Heaven in her wedding gown, bloodstains blooming like flowers of the most morbid type.

I crack open my eyes the next morning, trying to stop the brutal and blood-soaked images from looping through my mind. Whatever snippets of rest I may have gotten were splintered by nightmares.

You’d think that after the carnal wedding night activities carried out in my own private sex den, I’d have been too fried to do much else than succumb to sleep. My body had been zapped of all energy, but the turmoil in my head couldn’t be quelled.

Heaven passed out as soon as her head hit the pillow, but too many toxic thoughts haunted me, keeping me awake as the hours crept past. I listened to her even breathing, marveling at how peaceful she seemed.

I wish I could experience that kind of peace.

But I gave up all hopes of that a long time ago.

Because what the fuck am I supposed to do? A murderous rampage against Dominguez could be long and drawn out. I might strike it lucky, but then there’d be the issue of Heaven’s fuckwit of a brother.

Of brutalizing her family.

If I send her away as I’m planning to do, making that move will result in the Mulligans cutting me out. I can see the war there, too. Because to them, I wouldn’t be protecting her. I’d be kidnapping her.

She’d be out of reach, messages in and out relayed through trusted routes until the scourge and threat of Dominguez and his allies was taken care of.

I can sit back and let the Mulligans close ranks. I can watch Declan promote Conor. The man’s tired. I believe he’s ready to hand over the reins and retire. But now that Conor is spinning out of control, it puts Heaven in too much danger.

Every fucking alternative I look at runs a risk of that.

The what ifs pile up.

What if Dominguez finds her?

When I didn’t care, I’d have declared her safe and played the game. But now? I can’t let even the possibility breathe.

I feel like I’ve just torn hope right out of her grasp, and there’s nothing I can do to salvage it.

I stealthily slide out of the bed, leaving her undisturbed. She lies next to me on her stomach, arms clutching the pillow, her bright red hair fanning around her face. She looks calm and relaxed, the exact opposite of how I feel right now.

I pull on a pair of gym shorts and a sweatshirt before heading downstairs to the kitchen. I rake a hand through my hair, crossing the floor tiles.

I’m going to have to do it. Make a move, some kind of move before Dominguez does. He wants Heaven and he’ll stop at nothing to get her. In his mind, taking her will be the perfect revenge. And I think he’s willing to burn bridges, the whole damn town, to get it.

That’s part of what’s so very dangerous about him; he doesn’t ever see the bigger picture, and that’s why I could have used him, manipulated him, played the game I wanted by very careful planning.

But the death of his daughter changes all that.

Heaven goes today.

I’ll take him and his people out as soon as I know she’s safe. I’m going to make sure she’s so locked away not even Sherlock Holmes could find her. I’ll need help from contacts I rarely use but implicitly trust.

I’ll need all of them.

I start making lists in my head as I brew a fresh pot of espresso and pour two cups, taking one outside to Gio. He can probably use it right about now since he’s been stuck in the car all night long. Besides, I need to know if he’s seen anything suspicious lurking around. He texted me a few times during the night to let me know things were quiet, but now that the sun is up and I haven’t heard a peep, it’s a brand-new opportunity for hell to break loose.

I slip on my Nikes and cross to where the Escalade is parked. All windows, including the windshield, are tinted past the legal seventy percent, so I can’t make him out. I walk around to the driver’s side.

“Fuck.”

The driver’s side window has a small hole in it…a hole made by the bullet that exploded into Gio’s left temple.

Bulletproof glass-piercing ammunition.

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