“I always do.”
“Be discreet. Don’t let her see you. She’s been adamant that she didn’t need protection in the first place.”
“And you’d rather lie to her?”
He ignores my question, and I have a feeling it’s because he knows she’d hate the lies even more.
“We have intel that the Moscow Bratva is moving and looking for new allies. Your brother is moving, too. We’ve managed to infiltrate his operations, but it’s… Fuck, Toma, your brother is a sick fuck.”
“I know. Is this going to come to bite you in the ass, Dante?”
“Hopefully not. We’re forming our own army with The Morettis at our side. For now, it won’t come to us, but we need to be careful. Lucie can never know.”
I close my eyes and shake my head though he can’t see me. Witholding information is the same as lying and it feels wrong to keep Lucie in the dark. She’ll hate it. I tell Dante as much but he’s inflexible. Lucie is meant to live her life as far away fromthis clusterfuck of a war brewing in the European underground. According to him, the farther she is, the least likely she’ll be a casualty. I agree but it’s one more white lie to the long, growing list of secrets we all keep. All in the name of protecting her.
“Make sure she has fun, that she studies,” he says. “No boys. And no older women. She has a thing for older women.”
He doesn’t need to tell me that. No one but me will get close. And her new friend. Even if Mina Chadha is the daughter of a major player in New-York and already engaged to the son of the New-York Irish mob boss. That complicates things but I’ll monitor the situation. I just hope Mina didn’t befriend Lucie as a power play. It would devastate my thorny little rose. She doesn’t seem to have any other friends and the assholes she used to surround herself with in France don’t care much for her.
“Do I need to look into her friend?” Dante asks.
“No. She’s harmless.”
But her family and fiancé aren’t. Just one more hateful secret I keep to protect Lucie’s happiness. If Dante knew who Mina is, he’d make arrangements to have her sent back to New-York and right now, Lucie only has one friend. No one else ever texts her, no one from her past life, which threatens to send me into a violent rage.
It doesn’t look like Lucie was looking at her new friend’s identity online so she probably don’t know she can’t escape the mafia even when she tries.
Instead, it was all reserved for her kinky mind and her desire to be protected and taken by a masked man. I’m that man. I’m the one for her, even if I have to hide my face and pretend she doesn’t know me. The way she smiled when she saw my note and the pathetic little flower I left for her last night is something I need to study up close, to devour directly from the source with my own lips.
“I have to go,” I tell Dante.
“Kovac, you’ll meet the same fate as Milosh and Gemma if anyone touches a hair on Lucie’s head,” he threatens, voice low and menacing.
“If that happens, I’ll demand you slit my throat. But no one is getting past me.”
“Good. And you better pray to any God who will listen if you break her heart.”
He hangs up. I believe him. But I’d tear my own heart out before I’d hurt my bright Lucie.
So she can never know that her desire to party and be a normal girl just cost two people their lives. Protecting her also includes protecting her from guilt.
I check on my phone where Lucie is. When I’m sure she’s safe in her flat, I make my way to Milosh and Gemma’s. Across the hall, the woman who haunts me is probably nursing a nasty hangover but I have a task to carry out. One I won’t take any pleasure in.
I’m actually surprised Milosh and Gemma didn’t flee or report this morning. Valium or whatever drug Lucie used shouldn’t be in their systems anymore, especially with the sort of poison training I know Dante puts everyone through.
I don’t wait before opening the door as silently as I can then twisting the silencer of my gun into place. It won’t completely make the kill silent, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
Except I won’t need it.
My arms fall by my side, the gun hanging loose on my fingers.
The walls of the small flat are covered with blood.
Flies already buzz above the two corpses laying on the floor in the middle of the living space. The stench makes me gag. I have to cover my nose and mouth with my elbow.
I take a step forward and my boots land on a pool of blood so dark I mistook it for a rug. It sticks and squishes.
I don’t go further, observing the scene in front of me with disbelief. This isn’t just a hit. This is a display of horror.
