The question gnaws at me. I don't like questions I can't answer, and I loathe feeling off-balance, my thoughts reactive instead of proactive. Control is everything in my world. Lose control and you lose everything else.
My phone rings a little before five, and I look down to see that it’s Kazimir. I answer immediately.
“Her name is Mara Winslow,” he says without preamble. “She’s twenty-seven. An art dealer. She owns a gallery in Manhattan, very high-end, in high demand. She lives alone in Tribeca. No criminal record, not even a parking ticket. Parents died in a car accident when she was nineteen. No siblings. She graduated from Columbia with a degree in art history, then went to graduate school for a master’s in art history, and worked at Christie’s for three years before opening her own gallery."
I listen carefully, committing every detail to memory. "What's she doing in Boston?"
"Visiting a friend. Annie O'Malley."
That explains where I saw her this morning, then, heading toward the same brownstone I was leaving, where I was meeting Annie O’Malley’s husband. He’s been loath to take meetings away from home recently, since his wife started to struggle with her pregnancy. Not my problem, but I agreed to make the trip anyway. There have been… delicacies in territorial boundaries lately, and I know when it’s wise not to poke the bear. It was clear that arguing with Elio Cattaneo over a meeting place was not going to be a fruitful argument.
Annie’s brother is Ronan O’Malley, the head of the Irish mafia here in Boston—and someone that I’ve recently been engaged in tense discussions with over territory. I wonder, as I sit there listening to Kazimir run through the list of information about this woman, how much she really knows about her friend’s dealings and connections? Does she know Annie is an Irish mafia princess? That she uses her extensive financial knowledge to launder money for her family? That Annie’s husband is the Italian don? Or is Mara Winslow in the dark about her friend, the family she comes from, and her friend’s husband’s work?
"How close are they?" I ask. "Her and Annie O'Malley."
“Best friends from college, from what I dug up on social media.” Kazimir pauses. “But there’s no sign of her ever attending any formal events associated with the family. She wasn’t at Annie and Elio’s wedding, either, nor was she at Annie’s former sister-in-law’s funeral. In fact, any time she visits Boston, any evidence of the trip appears to keep her well away from the family.”
“Hmm.” I tap my fingers against the desk. It sounds very much to me as if Annie is keeping Mara out of the loop, as it were. Keeping an ordinary friendship separate from the drama and danger of the mafia world.
If I were a better man, that would be enough to end this burgeoning infatuation. I’d respect that, back off, and not keep digging into Mara in an effort to figure out how and when I can see her again.
That’s not the kind of man I am.
“Anything else of interest?”
“I’ll send you everything I found,” Kazimir promises. “But there’s not much else to tell. She has the usual social media presence for someone her age, but it’s nothing particularly interesting. She seems to focus more on her professional Instagram for the gallery. It doesn’t look as if she’s been in arelationship in a couple of years; I dug up some tagged photos of her with guys she’s dated, but they’ve all been scrubbed from her profiles. A lot of traveling photos, restaurants, that kind of thing. It looks like she lives a pretty quiet life, all things considered.”
Just the mention of other men has my body tensing, muscles winding tight as I fight off a disproportionately jealous response. There’s no reason for me to feel territorial over her, but just the thought of another man looking at her, touching her, has me fighting the urge to tell Kazimir to send me the photos he found so I can hunt those men down and break every one of their fingers forever, laying a hand on this woman.
Mine. The word thrums through my head, as if my body and consciousness has already laid claim to her. I feel tense and on edge, my cock thickening at the idea of punishing the men who have touched her when I’ve yet to have the chance.
“Good work,” I tell Kazimir instead, forcing the urges down. “Send over everything you’ve collected. I’ll let you know if I need anything else.”
There’s an almost instantaneouspingfrom my computer. I end the call and open my email. The dossier is there, a PDF with her name in the subject line. I click it open and start reading.
There’s all the same information Kazimir gave me—her name, where she was born, where she went to college, her previous work history, and the information about her gallery. She doesn’t seem to deal much in modern art, preferring instead to chase down older and hard-to-find pieces. She has a graduate degree in art history, so it’s clear she has a preference for pieces of a more historical nature.
Scrolling through some articles, I find out that she’s built a reputation relatively quickly for being able to track down art for buyers with specific tastes and that she’s curated an impressive client list. I’m impressed, reading about her—she’s built a career and a life out of nothing, attending Columbia on scholarshipand staying even after the death of her parents. I look through the financial records Kazimir was able to find and see that she’s not in need of anything; if I was hoping to find a way into her life by swooping in and rescuing her, it wouldn’t be necessary. She’s managed to pay off her student debt, has a one-bedroom apartment in Tribeca, and a comfortable amount in savings. She has no criminal connections. No debts to the wrong people. No vulnerabilities I can exploit. She’s the very definition of a self-made woman.
And with every sentence I read, I want her more.
I flip to the photos Kazimir attached—mostly professional shots from gallery events, with her standing next to expensive artwork, polished and professional in black dresses and elegant jewelry.
I sit back for a moment, looking at the photos, the information. Everything I’ve seen and heard suggests to me that Mara has no ties to Annie’s world and is likely completely oblivious to it. Annie likely thinks she’s protecting her.
Except this will work to my advantage. Mara will have the usual hesitancies about a strange man approaching her in any scenario, but she won’t have any suspicion about what or who I am. What I'm capable of.
She has no idea that I’m not just a man—I’m a monster. A killer in an expensive suit, willing to cross lines that she doesn’t even know exist in order to keep my place in this world.
And I’ll cross those same lines to get to her.
For whatever reason, I can’t stop thinking about her. And this has only cemented my realization that ridding myself of this newfound fixation won’t be so easy as telling myself it’s pointless.
Since I was old enough to want, I’ve never been denied. What I want, I take. And I want Mara Winslow.
I flick through the rest of the photos, my arousal building with every picture, every shot of her in black evening dresses, diamonds, sapphires, or garnets winking at her throat and ears and wrists. I reach down, gliding my palm along the curve of my erection through my suit trousers, in no hurry to ease it. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt desire this potent, since a woman has made me feel sohungry.
They all start to blur together, after a while. But this woman could never be lost in a sea of others. She stands out. And she makes mewant.
