Page 7 of Accidentally Kidnapping the Mafia Boss
I love that she did this for me. For us.
“I met your boss the other day.”
The air is sucked from my lungs.
“He seemed…”
She pauses.
It takes everything in me not to reach over the seat and demand she continue speaking.
“I dunno. He’s a mafia boss, but I didn’t die.” She laughs a bit. “People say he’s a charming playboy with a side of psychosis, but he was…” That thought gets left unfinished, but there’s a note of wistfulness in her tone that gives me hope. “Maybe he’ll keep your barman position open, or give you another.”
His job is safe, and it physically hurts to not be able to reassure her on that point.
“It’s a long drive if you won’t talk to me,” she interrupts my thoughts. “You’re not going to ask where we’re going?”
I am curious about that, and the edge to her voice suggests her brother would have guessed.
“Nothing, Noah?”
She’d be as fierce a mother as any Irish Mammy. She’d be a queen by my side, and I bet she’d be a minx in my bed. I’d already wanted Millie, but now? So much more.
A decent man would tell her everything, and save her the drive to wherever we’re going.
But I have been an amoral bastard from birth, the son of a bad man and stubborn woman. But they’re all in Ireland, and sometimes I feel that lack of family.
Recently more than ever.
It’s since I met Millie. She brings out all the longing for connection rather than more money and power.
There’s a silence, and I fill the time with the fun little challenge of getting the cuffs off. Pretty straightforward, since she didn’t do them up tight. Soft-hearted.
They’re fecking fur lined, which is adorable.
“We’re going to the beach cottage for a week…” That must mean something to Noah, as she doesn’t elaborate.
But a house by the sea sounds excellent. And small will be ideal for us. Somewhere Millie and I can get to know each other? This couldn’t be better if I’d planned it myself.
“It’ll be our last trip.” Her voice trembles. “I don’t think I could bear to come to Northumberland and not go to the cottage.”
I wrack my brains for where we’re going. Northumberland is on the East coast of England, just before you get to Scotland, I think.
“We have to sell it,” she says eventually. “Because of your gambling debts. This is what your addiction has done, Noah. This is why I’ve asked you, and begged you.”
What? Noah said he had loans, and I arranged for them to be paid, of course. But my sweet pet is making this sacrifice? She’s amazing.
“Are you not even going to reply?” she says, with a touch of annoyance.
I keep my head low and shake it. No.
Not because I don’t feel anything, I do. But because she’s talking to me, and I don’t want that to stop.
“Ourparents’cottage. It’s all we have left of them, and you took it from us.”
My poor pet. I’ll fix this for her, of course I will, just as I’d sort everything she let me.
“Are you not even going to say you’re sorry?”
