Page 8 of Possessive Mafia Bodyguard

I swallow the liquor in one mouthful and follow the burn as it goes down.

“Not even close.”

It’s the understatement of the fucking century. Not only did I not get any information on the Russian Bratva, but I also saw no evidence of illegal trafficking at the Iroquois Landing, and the frosting on the cake: I lost my heart to a Russian beauty over one kiss that may or may not have been my undoing.

Only time will tell, I guess.

“Talk to me, Finn.” Aiden knocks back the whiskey in his own tumbler and refills both our glasses, gesturing for me to sit on one of the squashy, beaten-up leather sofas he had shipped over from the family home in Ireland after he took over the Kavanagh mob. “What did you see?”

A Russian beauty with a green stripe in her raven hair, black eyeliner flicks on her eyelids that make her look like a heroine from a dragon-riding fantasy, and black Doc Martens that are sexier than a pair of boots have any right to be. I haven’t made a conscious decision not to tell my boss about her, but I won’t anyway.

Because she’s mine. She’s my secret, and I’m keeping her tucked away inside my chest until I find out who she is.

“No sign of the Russians doing anything illegal.” Unless you count sending in their greatest weapon dressed in black to steal the heart of anyone who stands in their way.

Aiden narrows his eyes at me. “And yet you got close enough to get a black eye.”

My swollen eye twitches in response as if offended that the boss noticed the bruises it’s currently wearing like a trophy. “This was a misunderstanding.”

“One day, you’ll learn to stop teasing the opposition.”

I shrug. “Nothing wrong with a little foreplay to make them believe they can win.”

Heat pumps around my body at the word ‘foreplay’ and hits my loins with an erection that hurts. The Russian beauty didn’t need foreplay to believe she could win. She had me the instant she kissed me back on the grass behind the shipping containers, and she knew it. Even now, sitting opposite my oldest friend in his penthouse apartment with the whiskey slow-burn in my gullet, all I can feel is her body beneath mine, and I know that I would take a bruise on the other cheek to find out her name.

Aiden tilts his head, watching me closely. “Was the information worth it?”

“Short of torturing the fuckers, I wasn’t getting any information out of them, and torturing isn’t my style.”

This conversation is doing nothing to suppress the raging erection tenting inside my pants or the heat flaunting its way around my veins and setting me on fire. I need to get back on track and try to get the Russian girl out of my head where she seems to have taken up permanent residence since I first saw her.

“But the port is clean. I spoke to a couple of workers in need of some decent remuneration to sort their lives out, and they’ve not seen a Russian ship or heard a Russian accent in a while. I checked out the containers coming in myself.”

After I’d watched my heart walk away in Doc Martens and with my gun in her hand, I gave her description to everyone I spoke to. I would’ve believed she was a dark apparition were it not for my lingering hard-on and the taste of her lips on mine.

“Typical cargo: fertilizers and pharmaceutical products. I’d have smelled the shit if they were hiding a few bodies on board.”

Aiden nods slowly. He can see right through me and he’s deciding which parts of the story I’m holding back on.

“Twenty-seven years we’ve known each other,” he says finally, “and I think this is the first time you’ve ever lied to me.” He grins. “But I understand you have your reasons, and you’ll tell me when the time is right.”

“I’m not lying about the port being clean.” No point trying to deny it.

Aiden’s world is my world, the only life I’ve known since I was eight years old, and his pa found me on a Dublin street rooting around inside a discarded carrier bag for a bite of something to eat. I’d have stolen a clean bone from a guard dog given half a chance, and when Seamus Kavanagh wandered a little too close, weaving drunkenly and singing ‘Danny Boy’ at the top of his lungs, I’d followed him, hoping to catch a few coins from his loose pockets. Instead, he turned around and waved his wallet at me, the song lyrics fading into the icy night.

“This what you’re looking for, lad?” he’d asked.

“Aye.” I’d already recognized that you didn’t lie to the Kavanaghs, not if you wanted to stick around in this life. So, I took honesty to another level. “I’m fecking starving, mister.”

Seamus Kavanagh had smiled at me with the same familiar smile I’ve seen on his son’s face every day since. “Where’s your ma?”

“She’s dead.” I’d already hardened to the feel of those words on my tongue.

“Your pa?”

“In the pub.” I didn’t add that my pa would either stumble home when someone kicked him out of the bar, or he’d sleep off the booze in a gutter somewhere.

“If you can take the wallet, it’s yours, laddie.” Seamus Kavanagh raised his arm and held the wallet above his head.