Page 76 of Possessive Mafia Bodyguard

“On your side, you mean.” There’s no resentment in her tone; she’s simply stating a fact.

“You don’t get it, do you?” I trace a line down her neck to her collarbone with my fingertip. “There is no ‘my side, your side’. We’re in this together.”

She nibbles her bottom lip, studying my eyes like she’s trying to see right through them, and my pulse races. She’s going to tell me that she’s pregnant, and I’m going to control my excitement and tell her that I’m here for her and the baby. If she’ll have me.

But instead, she says, “I’m going to buy a blonde wig and pretend to be Ivana.”

The cargo that Tamara almost intercepted wasn’t human.

She risked her life over a shipment of fertilizer, and she takes the news without a glimmer of emotion. “Next time it might’ve been humans, and I did it to find Ivana.”

Aiden provides her with weapons on the understanding that we don’t step on the Ivanovs’ toes, and we don’t get ourselves killed. He sends Connor along for the ride.

Seems that while Tamara and I were riding around Chicago’s harbors and getting nowhere, Aiden was busy infiltrating the Illinois International Port District and getting his foot soldiers strategically placed at each dock. It does little to ease my fears when I watch Tamara approach workers at the Iroquois Landing wearing a white-blonde wig and orange hi-vis jacket. My cock doesn’t even rise to the occasion at the thought of fucking her later while she keeps the wig on.

One worker, a stout guy with a belly that refuses to be covered by his jacket, smiles when he sees Tamara, and I ball my hands into fists when he touches her arm in a gesture of familiarity. My nails dig into my palm when she smiles back at him, and they’re joined by another man, younger, toned, abs visible beneath his tight T-shirt.

“Easy, brother.” The humor in Connor’s voice doesn’t go unnoticed. “Jealousy doesn’t suit you.”

We’re behind the containers where I first met Tamara, and if I look around us, I swear I can see the indents of our bodies in the grass from when I pinned her down.

“I’m not jealous.”

Okay, so maybe I am. It’s an alien concept; I’ve always believed that you can’t make someone love you, and if they choose someone else, then it wasn’t meant to be. But since meeting Tamara, I’m starting to understand why people commit crimes of passion. The younger guy doesn’t touch her, but if he did, I’d have no qualms about barging down there and testing those abs with my fist.

“I am,” Connor says flatly.

I stare at his profile until he faces me, aware that taking my eyes off Tamara for a moment is all it would take for them to end her life. But there are no Russians here today, and we’ve already located the foot soldiers in various positions on the quayside, keeping her in their peripheral vision.

“You seem… different.” Connor shrugs. “Happy.”

I bump his elbow with mine and turn my attention back to the woman I love. “I’ll be a whole lot happier when we find her sister.”

“Do you think she’s still alive?”

The honest answer is, I don’t know. But Tamara believes she is, and that’s good enough for me. I haven’t allowed myself to think about what will happen if she isn’t.

“She has to be.”

“She loves you too, you know,” Connor says.

I huff out a small laugh. “You’re an expert now, are you?” I like that we’ve settled back into our regular banter without need of an apology or explanation on either side.

This is just who we are.

“It’s an idea,” he says. “I could hang up my weapons and my golf clubs and set myself up as a love guru.”

“Aye.” I track Tamara with my eyes as an older man with silver hair and a shiny bald patch at the top of his skull joins the small group down below us. Even from this distance, I notice the way he blinks when he sees her, keeping a few feet between them briefly as if shocked by her reappearance before closing the gap. “So, what advice would you give me then?”

“Just keep being you.”

I grin at him. “That’s it? That’s all you’ve got for me? I’m your first client, and I’m seriously starting to question your credibility as a love guru. I mean, where did you train? What experience do you have that qualifies you to give me advice?”

“Hey, it was your idea, remember? Call this a freebie as we’re brothers.”

“Fine. Not sure I’d be inclined to pay for your services without some framed qualifications on the wall.”

“Now you’re being fucking picky,” Connor says, squinting at the conversation taking place on the dock as if he can lipread them from this viewpoint. “All I’m saying is, she loves you the way you are.”