“And death threat or not, I’m not sharing any of his secrets with you. It ain’t my place. I’m sorry, but some things you got to get from him, or go without knowing.” She stared at me, silence between us; then she turned and started washing dishes.

I sank my head back on the soft couch. After a few minutes she wandered over and clicked on the small TV set on a side table, flipping through the stations till she found the one she wanted. On the small screen a preacher stood at a pulpit, gesturing wildly and shouting words of redemption and praise. I watched as she settled into her chair, pulling an afghan over her legs.

Sitting in her cozy living room made me think of home, and my parents. I stood, pulled out my cell and glanced at Martha. “I need to call my mom,” I said softly, over the words of a sermon.

“You can use my guest room, if you’d like,” she said, nodding with her head to a closed door and preparing to hoist herself to her feet.

“You sit,” I whispered, moving around the couch and heading for the room. “Thanks.” I dialed as I walked, quietly opening the door and pressing Send before I stepped inside.

For a woman who had initially seemed inhospitable, she had certainly made her guest room comfortable, with a recliner, neatly made twin bed and thoughtful items placed around the room. I curled up in the chair and listened to the phone ring in my ear.

* * *

TO SAY THAT I am an independent daughter would be putting it nicely. In actuality, I pretty much walked across the graduation stage, accepted my high school diploma, then left town in a cloud of dust, happy to never look back, adios familial responsibilities and obligations. That might be a bit of a dramatization, but not by too much. And now, after three years away from home, college had become the justification of the bridge between my parents and me.

When I was a child, my mother blamed the emotional distance on my intelligence. She referred to me as an “old soul,” blaming our lack of connection on my mature, wise-beyond-my-years outlook. In my teens, our distance was blamed on hormones, my friends or my heavy academic schedule. It’s not that she and I fought; we just didn’t speak, at least not about anything emotionally fulfilling. We were two opposite souls, coexisting in a home with my wonderful father, who robotically went about his day while trying his best to not irritate my mother.

A death threat seemed like a valid reason to break the silence. I’d spent the first three years of college acclimating my mother to accept occasional calls as normal college student behavior. Initially, our lifeless conversations occurred weekly, then biweekly, then monthly. It had been a while since I had called home, longer than usual. I leaned back in the chair, trying to think of the last time we had spoken. It had been over two months, the extended silence my doing. I hadn’t yet figured out how to break the news to her that I had ended my engagement. Mother had adored Luke, my ex-fiancé, and would not take our breakup well. So I had handled it as immaturely as possible, by simply avoiding the conversation.

The ringing stopped and voice mail picked up. I frowned, wondering what to say, then left a generic message, asking them to call me back.

Thirty-Five

An hour later, I again sat at Brad’s kitchen table. He had come up to Martha’s, finding her reading and me pacing. Now, after fifteen minutes of discussion, I looked at him with something akin to panic.

I had told him everything I knew—Broward’s angry words, Genovese, Magiano, the connection I had made to mob activities, the voice mails I had left Parks. In return, he had told me nothing. It was beginning to really piss me off, and I told him so, my hysteria held off by my anger.

He groaned in exasperation, leaning back and looking to the ceiling as if for help from God. “Julia, the little that you know—that alone almost got you killed! Are you stupid enough to want to know more, to endanger yourself further?” He slammed his fist on the table, his dark eyes smoldering.

I stood quickly, my chair scraping against the stone floor, and snarled at him across the table. “According to you, I’m on the kill list regardless. I think I deserve to know what the f**k I’m being killed for! And you! In case you forgot, with all the hit men, and dead partners, and police interviews—I’m in love with you. You, who I apparently know nothing about. I know you think because I’m young that I don’t know what love is, that I attached myself to you because of your big dick and fancy house, but that is bullshit! I know that I should run, run far away from your untamable sex drive, your Mafia friends and your pain-in-the-ass self. That is the logical, sane thing to do. But I’m not! I’m sitting here, in your f**king kitchen, waiting for the next person to walk in and blow my brains out! For you, you selfish prick. Because I love you!” I was screaming now, my mind emptying out through my mouth, my throat hoarse from the effort, and I leaned on the table, taking a deep breath, waiting for his response.

He looked at me, started to say something and stopped. Then, “Julia, you don’t want to f**k with these people.”

I sat down, looked at him across the table, begged him with my eyes. “I need to know more.”

He cradled his head in his hands, then looked at me. “All you need to know is that Broward was helping one family gain power. It was supposed to be done discreetly, without alerting those who the power was being taken from. Something went wrong, and the situation was discovered too early. Broward was collateral damage, killed to erase all evidence of their involvement. He was a weak link, someone who would have yielded easily to persuasive questioning.”

Persuasive questioning. Torture. “So now I’m the weak link,” I said softly.

He nodded, his face grim, handsome features almost pained in their seriousness.

“And you are involved...how?”

He ran a hand through his thick hair, and the traces of gray in it picked up the light. “I have a lot of...connections to local organized crime families. I was originally approached for a family takeover a couple of years ago. I was not interested, wanted no part of it—plus, corporate structures are not my area of expertise. When I refused, they looked elsewhere.”

Genovese. “Broward.”

“Yes. I’ve heard about a few other clients of this variety he has taken on. I approached him, several times, telling him to refuse the business, to get out of this situation, but he has always shut me down. Whether it’s because of our history, or his own ego, I don’t know.” He blew out a burst of air and looked at me, frustrated. “From the sound of the conversation you overheard, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was me he was speaking to. We just argued last week about it.”

I nodded, absorbing the new information. “Will they know I’m here?”

“They’d be idiots not to, and they are not idiots. Dangerous, impulsive, but not stupid. By now they know everything about you, and that is the biggest problem we have.”

“Will they use you to find me?”

He laughed wryly. “Not in the manner you might think. But, Julia, you are looking at this the wrong way. There is no way to hide. If they don’t already, they will soon have your Social Security number, your car registration and know when your next period is due. There is no point in hiding. There is only one thing to do.”

“What?” Hope had entered my voice, a small glimmer, and I was afraid of giving it too much credence.

“It’s something I have to do on my end. It’s better if I don’t tell you any more.” He rose, taking his empty glass to the sink. I ground my teeth in frustration and rose, following him and grabbing his arm.

“And what, I’m just supposed to be a sitting duck while you ‘try’ something out without clueing me in on it?”

He growled, grabbing my wrists hard and pinning them together behind my back. His face, inches from mine, was tortured. He stared in my eyes, reading them, then lowered his mouth to mine, hesitantly at first, then harder and deeper, his hands releasing my wrists and sliding down my waist to my ass, which he gripped tightly, a hand on each cheek, squeezing and kneading the muscles there. I felt his emotions through his mouth, his kiss possessive, protective. I wrapped my arms around his neck and he lifted with his hands, picking me up easily. Our kisses frantic, I wrapped my legs tightly around his waist, my hands in his hair, and he carried me to the table and laid me down, leaning over me. His mouth left mine, me gasping, my hands reaching for him, but he held me down and trailed his lips down my body, pulling up my tank top and exposing my br**sts and pink nipples.

Hot breath hit my skin as his soft lips traveled, down my neck to my breasts, him planting small kisses along the way. He took his time on my nipples, being impossibly gentle with them, and I arched my back, pushing into his pelvis and lifting my br**sts deeper into his open mouth. A small cry left my lips as he grabbed my tits, pressing them together and sucking them into his mouth.

“Please,” I whispered, frantically reaching down, grabbing his jeans, trying to unbutton them, my hands grabbing and pulling anything and everything, the overwhelming need to have him inside me ruling out any logical thoughts in my head. “I need you.”

“I don’t have—”

I cut him off, moaning the words of my beg. “I don’t care. Now. Please. I need you to f**k all of this insanity away.”

He lifted his head from my br**sts and yanked open his fly, bunching my skirt around my waist and moving aside the cloth of his underwear. His c**k popped out, hard and ready, a drop of precome glistening on its tip. I practically swooned, and before I could move, he was pressing the tip of it on my wetness, past my panties and shoving the thick girth all the way in.

I gasped, entering some unworldly plane of delirium. The release of having him bare inside me, of having his strong, massive body over me, my legs spread and back flat on his kitchen table, was mind-blowing. He moved inside me, his mouth at my ear, hot breath on my neck. My hands pulled at his T-shirt, pulling the cloth over his head, exploring the tight muscles on his back, my body craving more, more, more of him. He moaned in my ear, f**king me faster, our skin slapping together, filling me completely, then leaving me wanting. Fill, want, fill, want. Words came out, jagged in my ear.

“God, I need you, Julia, so f**king bad.”

It wasn’t enough for forever, but it was enough for right now, and I held him tight and squeezed my muscles around his cock, him moaning in immediate response. At that moment, in his arms, I didn’t think about the danger, or my job, or any of the shit that was falling down around us. He gave me what I needed, and I took what I wanted. I came, dissolving in his arms, screaming aloud, releasing my fear and frustration in a wave of exquisite pleasure. The orgasm was strong and beautiful, and I went limp when it ended. He slowed his strokes, breathing hard and kissing my face, lips and neck.

“I love f**king you,” he whispered, still moving inside me, slow and delicious, burying himself with every stroke. His words awakened my spent muscles and I moved, pushing against the table with my feet and rolling him over, straddling him for the first time, and gasping at the feel of him from this angle, his whole c**k inside me. I rode him, pumping up and down, his hands traveling over my torso, his face strong and possessive beneath me. I leaned forward, my hair brushing his face, and buried myself deep on his cock, grinding my cl*tagainst his pubic bone, moaning at the pleasure it brought me. He took over, wrapping his arms around me and f**king me from below, fast and hard, our bodies slapping, slick and furious. The orgasm came, jarring me, taking my breath, an explosion of my world, and I screamed his name as his c**k carried me through it. The last waves were still subsiding when he jerked out of me, his voice terse and quick.

“Suck it.”

I moved off him, as quickly as I could in my final stages of euphoria. Burying my fingers inside me, I moved them in and out while I took him in my mouth—gagging on his width, and sucking hard and fast, my free hand resting on the rough fabric of his jeans, still on.

He came, filling my throat, his hand on my head with gentle pressure, his voice calling my name over and over until he was limp and drained. I rolled over, spent, next to him on the hard table, my skirt bunched and twisted around my body, my panties discarded somewhere on the floor.

I laid there for a solid minute, then rolled on my side, resting my head in the crook of Brad’s arm, tracing a line on his abs. He spoke, his hair muffled in my hair.

“That was incredible.” He kissed my head, then laid his head back on the table.

“Yeah. But it doesn’t help my current predicament.” I sighed, tucking my hand into his jeans, into the hardness and warmth there.

“It’s going to be okay, Julia.” His words were reassuring, his tone terrifying. It spoke of desperation and fight—as if he would somehow force the fate of my future. This shouldn’t be his fight, but I was powerless in it, an easy pawn that could be swiped off the game board without consequence. I said nothing, rolling over and hugging his hard body, wanting the strength it provided.

Thirty-Six

I needed a distraction, and Brad needed twenty-four hours to take care of whatever his cockeyed plan was. We argued, a discussion bordering on a serious fight, about his refusal to share his plan with me. It was an argument I lost, his face stern and unyielding. I was almost grateful. I didn’t know how much more information I could take. To be safe, we decided that I should stay in the house, out of sight. A ridiculous plan, but I didn’t have a better one. I called Becca, asking her to come by and hang out, promising mimosas if she would come and keep me company. I would have asked Olivia, but she would have sniffed out trouble before she even walked in the front door. Becca was a lot less observant.

She arrived thirty minutes later, her silver Mercedes convertible pumping out music loud enough to cause the closest blueblood to have a heart attack. Becca doesn’t leave the house unless she is perfectly coiffed, so I wasn’t surprised to see her trot up the front steps wearing designer jeans, four-inch heels and a sequined gold top. Martha answered the door with a grunt, and I stepped out of the kitchen and waved Becca in.