Page 6 of Forced Mafia Bride
The urge to scratch his face or punch him in the nose was as overwhelming as the desire to run away from this horrible nightmare and not look back. I wanted death, and sometimes I wished I’d gone with Father that day.
“I hate you, Ronan.” I resisted the urge to spit when his eyes twinkled mischievously.
“Get her the fuck out of my sight,” he ordered Hannah, his eyes still holding mine, “and I don’t want to hear that anything went wrong. Do you hear me?”
Hannah gave a curt nod, and he brushed past me, knocking my shoulder with his elbow. We both waited in silence until his steps behind us faded to nothing.
****
“I’m not getting that wedding dress.”
She ran her fingers through her bob and smiled at me as we walked down the front steps. The air was warm, but the black gown made it feel like a hundred degrees. One of Ronan’s men pulled up in a Benz, got out, and handed Hannah the car keys before returning to his station.
“He’s going to kill you, Lyn.”
I flinched at the nickname and eyed the bonnet of the car, wishing it could combust under the heat. “Then, I would rather die than get married to that old bastard.”
She sighed. It was heavy and sad, mirroring exactly how I felt on the inside. “Rosalyn….”
An engine purred as another Benz pulled up on the driveway, and a warm breeze ruffled his jacket when the man stepped out. Hannah didn’t bother finishing the rest of her sentence, and I shoved my pain aside to muster a smile.
“Aiden,” she greeted when he came up to us.
His eyes caught mine, and a different kind of heat crept up my neck. I fumbled with my fingers and caught my lower lip between my teeth.
His lean, broad shoulders blocked the sunlight, and the rays made his blond hair glow like a halo. At five-foot-eleven, he stood much taller than me. So, I tipped my head back to see his face. Today, he didn’t smile. His blue eyes were hard but not cold like Ronan’s.
He nodded toward his cousin but assessed my face. When his eyes touched the tear stains on my cheeks, his jaw moved, and he opened his mouth to say something, but he clamped it shut again and kept walking.
“I’ll see you two later.”
Then, his back disappeared when he shut the door behind him.
When I was younger, I always believed Aiden O’Connor was one of the few responsible men alive. Unlike Hannah, he had worked longer years in the Gallagher household, and, just as Father treated him like a son, he treated me like a sister with more care and devotion than I thought I deserved.
I turned to Hannah. “What was that about?”
Aiden was almost never in a hurry. He could be brisk, but he always managed to maintain his composure, like a man born into stealth mode, while getting the job done. I made a list of the things I liked about him: He was level-headed, slow to anger, and cool.
Also, so damn fine.
We had eleven years between us, but it didn’t stop me from having a hard crush on him when I was eighteen. I believed he was the dream man for every woman—for every woman who doesn’t mind seeing their man shed a bit of other people’s blood here and there.
Over the years, I’d learned to accept the life I had been born into. Virtues like honesty, purity, and humility were hard to find among them. Backstabs were more accurate, distrust was rampant, and there were more enemies than friends. Sometimes, it got down to the ultimate battle: to kill or be killed.
We got into the car, but Hannah didn’t respond until she strapped her seatbelt on.
She moved the gear and steered the car out.
“Looked like an emergency,” she murmured with knit brows, racking her brains to pinpoint why her cousin couldn’t stop to talk. “Probably the Russians.”
“The Russians?”
My heart skidded to a stop, and Hannah continued to explain. Things between the Bratva and our people were getting more heated as the days went by, and what was worse was having Nikolai Yezhov to deal with.
Once, I spotted the man from afar during an auction. He was known for being the most cunning and ruthless boss anyone could deal with. Rumor had it that he was more terrifying than theirPahkan, his brother, Egor Yezhov.
“That man…. He is smart, terrifying, and should never be underestimated. He always finds a way to be ten steps ahead of us, and we haven’t been able to figure out why.”