Page 59 of Unruly

“I met her a year ago when we had to deal with the Russians for a shipment that came into one of their ports. You remember that?”

“Yeah, somebody fucked up where it was supposed to be brought in.”

Zeke nodded. “So yeah, I met her then.”

“She’s involved with the Bratva in Odessa, then?”

“Daughter of one of their captains.”

Jesus.

“You didn’t think to mention you were seeing somebody to me?” Cross asked.

Zeke let out a hard breath. “Nothing was going to come of it, man. Nothing could come of it.”

“Why not?”

“Because she was set to marry some cocksucker that’s in lockup right now.”

Cross stiffened on the spot. He didn’t agree with arranged marriage, but it was still far more common than anybody in the business wanted to admit. It still happened fairly regularly.

He didn’t like what Zeke was saying, or trying to say, for that matter. It sounded like it was going to leave them in a hell of a lot of trouble.

“Was, you said,” Cross pointed out. “Was set to marry.”

“Kind of hard, now.”

“You have thirty seconds to tell me what in the hell is going on,” Cross told his friend, “or one of us isn’t leaving this office. Do not forget details. Talk.”

“You know how over the last year I’ve kind of went on and off the radar a lot? I head out of town a bit, sometimes, when I can or whatever?”

Cross said nothing.

Zeke kept talking. “I was with her.”

Still, he kept quiet.

“The only reason they didn’t marry her to that guy when she was sixteen is because he got put away for ten years on a robbery. The arrangement is still valid. I guess he’s the boss’s man—like an enforcer, but whatever the fuck they call it. She was a gift to him for being so loyal, Cross. A gift.”

“What did you do?”

“Took her.”

“When?”

“A couple days ago.”

“And then what?”

“We got married at the courthouse this morning.”

Fuck.

Fuck.

“Fuck,” Cross snarled out loud.

His fist slammed into the closest thing it could find. The wall. Plaster crumbled under the force, but damn, it felt good.