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“And tell me these instructions.” She sighed, sounding like her head was hurting.
My head was hurting, too.
“It says that upon marriage, the money will be split between me and my legal wife—and we can never separate.”
Her eyes widened. “We’re going to be married forever? No exceptions?”
I nodded, waiting for her to explode.
“And what else? None of this is making any sense. Then why kill you? Why not just go kill that broker guy?”
Her knowledge of my world—or lack thereof—was refreshing.
“The broker guy is kind of what one would call ‘neutral’ territory. If someone breaks the rules and fucks with him, it will be like that person signing his own death warrant. This broker deals with all the mobs. Russian. Italian. Irish. Seriously, those are just the big games in town. There are likely a number of smaller organized crime syndicates that deal with him as well.”
She looked like she was losing her cool.
“If you don’t get married before you’re thirty, what happens?”
“Then all that money goes to my sister, and my sister will give it all to Pablo.”
“Just like that? Does she know what happened to your father?” she wondered.
I nodded. “But she has a family. A kid on the way. She can’t afford to fight him like I can.”
“And if he kills you, what does that accomplish?”
I grinned. She sounded sick to her stomach even asking that question. I could see it written all over her face.
“Same thing. It goes to my sister, which then goes to him.”
She looked heavenward. “Why? Why haven’t you just married some random chick?”
“A, because Pablo ruins anything that even looks a little bit genuine. B, because I have to stay married to her for the rest of my life. I don’t want to hate my wife. I want someone that I actually like, that’s going to not be scared away by the things that Pablo’s going to do to me…to us.”
I stepped back and went to the back porch door, and opened it. The chill in the air rolled over me like a blanket.
“Uncle Pablo spent years poisoning my father, and nobody but him knew. At least until he told my father on his deathbed, who then told me.” I turned around and let her see my ire. “That man was like a father to me. He was there for every birthday, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. My father gave him a family—and Uncle Pablo thought it’d be perfect to repay him like that. To take away his life because he saw him as weak. Then, the icing on the cake was that Pablo thought I was going to fall in line. Marry his daughter, do his bidding, and be a better man than my father was.”
She swallowed, not saying a word.
“But I’m not the man my father was. My father was soft. He loved hard and was loyal to a fault. Which killed him in the end.” I took a deep breath. “Pablo doesn’t kill women or hurt them for that matter as long as they don’t cross his imaginary line. Otherwise he would’ve taken out my mother when she was leading my father around by the dick. He also knew that all he had to do was go after my sister, and I would’ve fallen in line like he wanted me to. But, his moral compass seems to have a problem crossing a line in regards to a woman—meaning if you take me up on my offer, you’ll be safe.”
She looked surprised. “I would’ve never thought that you wouldn’t protect me. It never even crossed my mind, but…if that’s the case, why not just let your sister have it? If he won’t hurt her, both of you know it.”
Something inside me loosened at the knowledge that she trusted me. But I could still read the fear and the uncertainty in her eyes.
“My sister has absolutely everything she could ever want out of life…why would she take that chance…just in case?”
“But…why me?” she asked. “I’m nobody. I’m just me.”
“And that’s why it has to be you.”
She frowned.
“I know I can trust you not to treat me like my mother treated my father. I know you won’t cheat on me. I know you won’t hurt me on purpose, and I know that you’ll do everything in your power to make sure that this marriage works.”
“So, this won’t be…temporary?”
Was that hope in her voice?
It made my gut clench that she thought she wasn’t good enough.
“No. Not even a little bit.”
She looked like it was too good to be true.
“I…I have to think about this. How long do I have?”
I looked back outside to my own patio door.
“About forty-eight hours.”
She blinked, and her mouth fell slowly open.
“What do you mean forty-eight hours?” She tilted her head in the cutest way I’d ever seen. “Why forty-eight hours?”
“Because,” I hesitated, knowing she wasn’t going to like this next part. “That’s when I start back with the Lumberjacks. Starting Monday, as long as everything is good at my checkup tomorrow, I’m officially free to start playing again.”
