Page 93 of Stolen Mafia Vows
“Did they hurt you?” My voice is thick with emotion.
“No.” She makes no move to come any closer, hereyes flitting back and forth between me and the weapon in my hand. “Why are you here?”
“I told you I would never stop fighting for you, Emily.”
She juts her chin defiantly. “And I told you that it was over.”
I lower my gun and step closer. This isn’t the version of me that I wanted her to see, but I’ve already lost her once by keeping secrets.
“Do you love me, mo chroi?”
She swallows hard and folds her arms across her chest as if her heart might give her away. “You shouldn’t have come here.”
Another step. Her emerald eyes sparkle, her pupils dilating as she peers into mine.
“Do you love me?”
She looks away first, her gaze skimming the man on the floor, and my gut clenches with jealousy. “You should go home, Eoghan.”
I close the distance between us and pull her against my chest. She doesn’t return the embrace, her crossed arms forming a barrier between us. But I nuzzle her hair and breathe in the smell of her, and she doesn’t pull away.
“Answer the question, Emily.”
“I…”
I release her and dip my head so that our eyes are level. She hasn’t said no, and that’s enough for me. “What will it take to prove that I want to make you happy?”
She takes a deep breath, keeping her gaze firmly fixed on me. “Let Ilya go.”
A snarl erupts from Nial followed by the whump of metal hitting bone. Emily’s captor collapses onto the floor behind me, and she blinks at the sight, sucking on her bottom lip to stifle her reaction.
“He isn’t the one you should worry about,” she says.
“Who is?”
“Olivia. She’s behind all of this.”
Her tone is flat, but she hasn’t denied that she loves me, and I’ll take all the small wins I can get. Baby steps all the way, until she’s back in my arms.
Then the name jogs a recent memory. “Olivia?”
Even before Emily says, “Dragonetti,” I’m matching the CCTV camera footage of the woman sipping cocktails beneath a wide-brimmed hat to the young woman I met in my father’s study a lifetime ago. She has a motive for kidnapping my wife: my brother’s rejection of her offer to create a merger between her family and mine. The only reason I dismissed her as a potential abductor was because Terry Keegan assured me the bratva were running the show.
“Where is she now?”
Emily’s eyes instinctively dart towards the bedroom doorway. Is Olivia the one she’s afraid of?
“I don’t know.”
She wants to say more, but before she can finish, heavy footsteps reach us from the lower level. They’re filled with urgency, and I instinctively know that they don’tbelong to my men.
I guide Emily back inside the dressing room. “Wait here. Don’t open the door, whatever happens.”
I fight the urge to kiss her, long and hard, to slide my hands inside the dress and feel her nipples against the palm of my hand. Instead, I pull the door closed and follow my men onto the landing as Terry Keegan and his stepsons round the corner of the staircase.
“Where is she?” Terry’s gun is raised, and I experience a moment of distinct deja-vu when he points it at my head.
“She’s safe.” I face him head-on, flanked by my men as several others trail the Murrays up the stairs.
