Page 7 of Mob Princess

“Are you sure, sir?”

I paused, staring up at the facade of the building. “Wait an hour, then head home if I don’t come back down.”

“Of course, sir.”

There was something off about my windows. As I gazed up towards the top of the building, one of the windows wasn’t as shiny as the other. It seemed odd, especially since I saw the suspension system of the window-washer.

Did he miss a window?

I made my way into the building and headed straight for the elevator. Something in the pit of my stomach told me to stay on high alert, so I hyper-focused on everything around me. The smell of the elevator. The feel of the button as I pressed it. The way the elevator lurched to life, lifting me towards my penthouse.

But when the doors opened into my living room, I saw why that one window didn’t look as shiny as all the others.

It was covered in food.

The hairs on the nape of my neck stood on end. I pressed the emergency stop button in the elevator, keeping the doors from closing and giving off the fact that I was home. My eyes followed the trail of food through the living room. My white furniture was covered in it, and one of my glass-blown vases had crashed to the floor.

Someone had been here.

No. Someone was still here.

I placed my other hand on the butt of my gun and slid it out from its holster as I followed the food trail down the hallway, slowly heading towards the kitchen. Evidence of trespassers were all around me. A crooked picture in the hallway. Food stained my freshly-cleaned hardwood floors. I smelled Bonnie’s perfume as I stalked toward the opening for the kitchen, and every single part of me went on guard.

No one hurt my wife in my own fucking house.

“Give me what I want,” a gruff voice said.

Bonnie’s voice quivered. “I don’t care what you want. You’re not getting it.”

“You’ll give it, or you’ll die.”

“Make sure you cover your tracks, then. Because my husband will—”

I growled. “Put you down in a dog’s fight.”

I rushed the massive man that had Bonnie had backed into a corner. Why I didn’t draw my gun, I wasn’t sure. I had it right there on my hip. All I knew was that I wanted to feel my grip around the neck of the man who dared to enter my home and defile what was in it. Bloodlust filled me as I lunged at the man. I didn’t know how badly Bonnie had been injured, or if she was injured at all. But the trembling of her voice told me everything I needed to know.

Which gave me direction on just how badly I wanted to beat this man into oblivion.

The man whipped around on me and pointed my own fucking kitchen knife at my throat. I grabbed his wrist, pulled him close to me, and felt that blade press against my neck.

Then, I quickly withdrew my gun and pressed it to his gut. “Wanna see who moves quicker?”

I peered over the man’s shoulder, and what I saw enraged me. My wife, without any pants on, and her lip was split. Her eye looked swollen. And the fear in her eyes made my blood boil. This man had touched my wife, the woman who had given herself over to me. And if he was the one that had taken her fucking pants off, I’d dismember him in my own fucking kitchen.

Until he bled out on my floor.

“He didn’t,” she whispered.

My eyes moved back to him. “Then, I guess your death will be quick.”

I felt him move the blade, and I ducked. I felt the sharp metal rake against my face, taking with it some of my freshly-trimmed beard. I watched the hair fall to the floor as his knee knocked my gun out of my hand, but that didn’t stop my fist from slamming directly into his stomach. He doubled over, the knife falling out of his grasp. I brought my knee into his nose and felt it crunch.

He wrapped his arms wrap around my legs.

“Israel!”

Bonnie’s yelp pulled me from my trance as the man hoisted me over his shoulders. He growled, barreling me against the kitchen wall. There, I slid from his hold until my feet found purchase as my wife scrambled for the gun. She picked it up with her shaking hands and held it up to the man’s back. But the last thing she needed to be doing in her state was taking someone’s life.

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