Page 47 of Vow of Obsession

Z’s eyes lock with mine, and I hear his unspoken words that nobody knows who he truly is.

"She doesn't know who I am in her world, but she does know who the Marino family is. That much is clear from the messages she's been sending you."

"What's she been saying?" Tova asks.

"I have the phone." I turned it off and put it in the safe.

"I know. It took me all night, but I locked in on the messages, chasing them down. I spent fucking hours, and I got them, but I couldn't get a trace on her." Z shakes his head. "She's fucking good, I'll give her that. It wasn't something she did for me to get them. That was on the Signal app."

"So now what? I just can't be her friend?" Tova stares up at me with watery eyes. "Can we call her?"

"Z?"

"I don't see why not. The only thing thatwasan issue is Tova's phone." Z walks over to his computer. "Which is why I got her a new one." He holds it out to me, but Tova grabs it quickly. Z's eyes bounce between the two of us, and I'm sure he's waiting to see what my reaction is going to be.

“Why was my phone an issue?”

“She could hack it. Listen in on anything. There is a lot she could do if she wanted.”

“Really?” Tova’s face turns to one of panic.

“What?” I ask.

“I let her fix my laptop once,” she admits to Z. “It was being weird, and she remoted in and fixed it.”

“Bring it to me and I can check it over,” Z tells her.

“Wait, like you can check to see if she’s done something? That could clue us in?”

“Possibly.”

“I’ll be right back!” Tova takes off.

“Don’t run,” I shout after her. She can be pretty clumsy, especially when she’s in a rush.

“No running in the house.” Z chuckles. “That a new house rule?” If it were, it would be the purest rule to ever exist around here.

“She trips walking.”

“You really are protective of her.” Z drops down in his chair.

“You think this girl is using her?” I ignore his comment because it doesn’t matter. My wife and how I handle her is my business.

“I don’t know.” He shakes his head. “If she was trying to get to us, it wouldn't be for herself. Someone would have had to hire her, but that would be a long con, and for what? No one knew Dad was going to force your hand to marry Tova,” I begin to protest, but Z puts his hand up to stop me. “Plus, wives are never involved in our bigger dealings.”

“What if it was to take her? To use her against me.” That would be my worst fucking fear coming to reality.

“Like Mom?” I nod. “Again, that’s a long con, and I don’t think Marks does that shit. The few projects that I know we were both on were government jobs. I poked around about her, and she’s a ball-busting jokester. Young too. Obviously not fully on the up and up, but from what I could dig up, she runs pretty clean.”

I don’t get into all the details of the things Z does, but I know he’s worked with the government more than once. He’s also done jobs for other big families on the West Coast. He’s never given me a reason not to trust him, and he’s saved our asses before we even knew things were happening. We each have our part in the family. That’s why it runs as smoothly as it does.

"I got it." Tova comes rushing back in, pink laptop in hand. She starts to hand it to Z but pulls back. "Don't access my Kindlelibrary. Pinky promise.” I can’t help the smile that breaks out on my face at the look on Z’s face.

“She’s not going to back down,” I warn him.

"I promise I won't." Z lifts his right arm, holding up three fingers.

"You were a Boy Scout?" Tova says dryly. A bark of laughter leaves me.

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