Page 86 of Ruthless Enforcer

The beautiful thing about a family feud is that nobody bothers asking who lit the match.

Smiling, I start the engine. By nightfall, neither family will remember they weren’t at war this morning.

66

GABRIEL

Clara tastes like sleep and something I don't have a name for yet.

We've been awake for maybe twenty minutes, and I've spent nineteen of them kissing her. Slow, languid kisses, just her mouth under mine, her bare leg hooked over my hip, her fingers tracing lazy patterns across my chest.

The storm broke sometime before dawn. Now pale-gray light filters through the curtains, sparking copper in her red hair.

I could stay here all day.

I should stay here all day.

Only my phone rings and I recognize the ringtone: Alessandro.

I almost don't answer. Almost.

Sighing, I give my wife one more kiss. “I’ve got to get that, sweetheart.”

Humming, she stretches, her warm, soft skin sliding against mine. “Afterward, can we pick up where we left off?”

“You know it.” Smiling, I drop a kiss on her lips as I reach for my cell. As I answer the call, I cradle her head and hold her to my chest. "I’m kinda busy."

"We have a problem."

Something in his voice has me releasing Clara and sitting up before I consciously decide to move. "What happened?"

"Someone just blew up the garage in Billings."

My entire body goes cold. "Anyone hurt?"

"Mateo."

Fuck. "How bad?"

"Alive."

Not an answer. I wince. Tia Maria is going to kill us for her son getting hurt—or at least torture us during holidays. "Who did it?"

Alessandro says the one word guaranteed to turn my temporary fucking paradise into a war zone. "Whitlock."

I'm already moving toward the dresser, pulling on jeans with one hand while I keep the phone pressed to my ear. "Evidence?"

"Vehicle registration traces back to a Whitlock subsidiary. Phones were clean, but the explosives weren't. C-4 with a signature that matches a shipment stolen from a Whitlock construction site six months ago."

I pause. "That's too clean."

"I know." Alessandro's voice is tight. "But it doesn't matter. It matters what the family sees when they look at the evidence. It matters what our enemies see."

Behind me, Clara sits up, the sheet pooling around her waist. Her eyes are wide, alert, already reading the situation from my body language alone.

"How bad is Mateo?" I ask again. My cousin is twenty-six. He has a fiancée. He was supposed to get married in the spring.

"Burns. Shrapnel. He was inside when it went off." Alessandro exhales roughly. "He's in surgery now. They give him fifty-fifty to pull through.”