Page 67 of Intimately Faithful

Accepting a well-paid job with a member of a crime organization was perhaps not Aoife’s best decision of her life. Though to be fair, she hadn’t know that at the time. She’d gleaned from conversations with Yelena over the months, just how dangerous Grigori and his men were. And though most of those men suddenly disappeared recently, this one she didn’t recognize, but he had that evil man vibe about him.

Stupidly, she hadn’t cared where her paycheck came from as long as she could earn enough to build a life on this side of the world and hope to rekindle with Danny one day.

Now she was regretting not walking away that first day she was told to shut her mouth and do her job.

“Boss look for you. Come.” He grabbed her elbow. The grip was unshakable.

“I don’t think so, sonny-Jim. Get the hell off me before I scream and bring the cops in seconds.” For as mouthy as she sounded, the panic swelled as hot as a summer’s day within Aoife’s sternum and her eyes frantically roamed along the street for the amount of people that could witness her possible death if she kicked this guy and tried to run.

She’d traveled thousands of miles in hopes of leaving behind a family that only knew how to bring shame and hurt to her life. Who thought nothing of offering up their daughter in exchange for money. The same family who robbed Peter to pay Paul and did this religiously frequent.

How then did she land herself in the midst of people who were so much bigger in the criminal world?

Maybe she was cursed.

Being stared at by a member of the Russian mafia meant she was out of options and wholly regretting stepping out of the rectory house against Danny’s orders.

Danny.

Her heart constricted.

Loving him felt like being bathed in pure goodness. All her wrong doings were washed away when he looked at her.

He was never one of those bad-boy brooding men.

He’d been her oasis in a life of shit, and she couldn’t—hell no, she wouldn’t give in so easily. Not when she had a baby to protect and a man to make fall back in love with her again.

The great wall of China wasn’t built in a day, and neither was finally reconnecting her path to Danny Murphy.

“Get your filthy hand off me before I start screaming.”

“Boss want back. He said bring you.”

“Tell your boss I quit.”

His face didn’t flicker. Almost as if he were bored of his assignment, and she was about to tell him to go on his merry way and forget he’d ever seen her when he lifted a hand and patted a distinct bulge on his chest.

Either the guy had grown a boob, or he was demonstrating how big and masculine he was by letting her know that he had a weapon.

Fuck and that, she thought.

It’s strange what a woman, who was outweighed by a considerable lot both heaviness and height, would do in times of crisis, because she kicked him right in the shin. It was enough to dislodge his hand from her upper arm.

She hadn’t crossed the ocean, found a job—the wrong one as it turned out— set about a stable life, a good life, in hopes of winning back the love of her heart, to then have that chance cut down.

Hell to the no way.

She booted the bigger man again with her tennis shoe, swearing right in his face before she opened her mouth ready to let rip the biggest, loudest scream of her life.

She didn’t care what attention she attracted, as long as it was enough to get the big asshole to leave her alone. She’d even talk to the police and take the chance she’d get herself into trouble for not reporting a murder sooner.

“I don’t want hurt you,” He growled in his thick accent, crowding her and giving the exact opposite impression to his statement.

Aoife was from a world where if it appeared bad and was bad, then it was absolutely fucking bad. And everything about whatshisname screamed badness.

Never let them take you to a second location. Second locations were for getting really fucking dead and Aoife … call her stupid—because most of the time she was, she didn’t fancy getting herself dead today.

“Then walk away and leave me alone if you don’t want to hurt me, Russian guy. I quit. Boss doesn’t need to see me now.”

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