Page 39 of Rent a Mob Boss

Quinn is waiting for me in the hallway, leaning against the wall outside Lillie’s door with her arms folded and her shoulders up around her ears.

It’s only once I join her out there that I face her head-on. “Ask me,” I murmur.

“I don’t need to ask you.” Her voice is flat. Tired. “The man in the van told us everything. You’re the head of a crime family. You run docks and warehouses or something or other.” She lifts her shoulders a little higher before letting them drop. “You’re not in finance or any kind of regular, everyday business, are you?”

“No.”

“And all this time… the wall and the guards and all of it…”

“Yes.”

She closes her eyes. I wait for the part where she tells me she’s leaving. I expect her to push off the wall and walk down the hall, to pack the things she brought and drive away in her terrible car. I’m ready for it because I deserve it. I lied to her every single day, and my lies almost got her killed. They almost got my daughter killed. There is no version of this where I come out clean.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her. It’s not enough. It will never be enough. “I should’ve told you from the beginning, before any of this happened. I should’ve let you decide whether to stay once you knew what I am. I took that choice away from you, and I put you in danger because of it. If you want to leave, I’ll let you go, and I’ll spend every day of my life knowing I was the reason.”

Her eyes open slowly.

“I’m not finished,” I tell her. If she’s going to leave, she should know everything. “I love you. I’m in love with you. I’ve been in love with you for a long time, and I want you to be my wife. And I know—I know it’s insane. I know I just told you I run a criminal organization. I know this isn’t the life you⁠—”

“Yes.”

I stop.

“Yes,” she says again. Her eyes are wet, but her voice is the steadiest it’s been all night. “I’m in love with you too, you idiot. I’ve been in love with you since… I don’t even know when. I don’t care what you do. I care about you, and I care about Lillie, and if this is the life, then this is the life. I’m staying in it.”

I’ve stared down prosecutors and rival bosses. Men with weapons. I have never once in my life been as unprepared as I am now, standing in a hallway outside my daughter’s bedroom.

“You’re sure?” Because I need to hear it again.

“I’m sure.” She pushes off the wall and takes my face in both hands. “Now stop talking and take me to bed, Mr. Moretti.”

I take her to bed because I am not a man who looks a gift horse in the mouth.

For the first time in my life, the door I walk through at the end of the night isn’t the one that separates me from the work. It’s the one that leads me to her, and to my daughter sleeping down the hall, and to a life I don’t deserve but am going to protect with everything I have. With every single thing I am.

She falls asleep against my chest, but I stay awake, holding her. I listen to the house creak around us, and I wonder exactly what I did to deserve everything I’ve ever wanted and never knew I needed.

Maybe I’ll never find out.

I only know I’m never letting go.

EPILOGUE

QUINN

Three months later

“Stop fidgeting.”

“I’m not fidgeting.”

Mom gives me an evil look in the mirror mounted to the back of the closet door. “You’ve been fidgeting since I zipped you into this dress, and if you don’t quit it, I’m going to pin your arms to your sides and walk you down the aisle like a mummy.”

“Mom.”

“Quinn.” She’s standing behind me in Dorian’s bedroom—our bedroom—holding a veil in one hand and a glass of champagne in the other, and she is in her absolute element. This is the Super Bowl of motherhood. This is the event she has been training for since the day I was born, and she is not going to let a little thing like her daughter’s nervous system ruin it.

“Hold still.” She sets the champagne on the dresser and brings the veil up behind me, and I watch in the mirror as she pins it into my hair like the entire future of the human race depends upon the outcome. “There. Don’t touch it.”