As I do, my breath catches in my throat.
Loitering about fifty paces behind me, a man hovers near the edge of an alley.
Thick, burly build with a barrel chest and muscled arms clearly earned from daily labor or violence rather than the gym.
Rough stubble blankets a mean face with scars and nicks. Unlike the beautiful specimen of a man I spotted in the arena, this guy—with his steel-reinforced combat boots hidden beneath dark jeans and a jacket big enough to hide his double holster—is downright scary.
Tattoos peek out from the edge of his collar, and the flat, cosmos black eyes of a killer meet my gaze.
An anxiety-fueled orchestra of alarm bells rings in my brain.Wait a second.I saw this same guy in the parking lot earlier.
I assumed he was just a straggler. Or someone out for a smoke.
My heart stampedes through my chest. Why, oh,whydid I give my security detail the day off? Big mistake, because I finally recognize that man as a mob enforcer.
And I think I’m his target.
Chapter 2
Brody
I weave through the sparsely populated campus of Aurelian University like I belong here. Maybe I would have, in a different life.
To any onlookers, I might pass for the older brother of a graduating student. Or for a college professor in this stuffy fitted blazer. No one would ever suspect that I’m one of the Port Kings’ top lieutenants, here to snatch Trinity Gallagher at my father’s request.
For the past hour and a half, I’ve been tailing my prey.
I admit she threw me for a loop when she left the stadium before the ceremony concluded, but her rush works in my favor. The farther she gets from the graduation crowd, the fewer witnesses to her kidnapping.
I’ve performed similar snatch-and-grab operations in the past, but this mission still feels different. Maybe I’m on edge because I’ve never abducted a young woman before.
I’m more used to sniffing out turncoat former-allies who’ve gone into hiding. Guys who cower in shitty apartments after letting their beards grow for months to better shield their identities. Or the men who think they possess enough money and power to get away with betraying Declan Gallagher anddecide to kick back on an island somewhere, assuming they’ve won until I show up to divest them of their fingers.
Trinity doesn’t fit the profile of the usual riffraff.
She’s pretty. Fair-skinned, even after living in one of the sunniest places on the planet, and with coppery hair that screams of her Irish heritage. The fiery waves contrast with her soft, subtle facial features. Button nose. Green doe eyes. Pert pink lips.
Clearly a brainiac, since, unlike most of the mafia world, she graduated college. She reminds me of my sister in that way. Maeve finished university, too, though she majored in business. According to the file my father gave me, Trinity majored in psychology.
One night, she wore glasses while she studied, and the way she chewed on the end that tucks behind her ear mesmerized me.
But I won’t let a pretty face or the way her hips move in those baggy jeans distract me. Under that blue tank top, she exudes a quiet, subdued confidence. She knows exactly who—and what—she is.
I’ve never nabbed someone as well-connected as Trinity. She’s the half-sister of Finn Gallagher, who now leads the most powerful mob family in New York City. Before their father’s death, the man was my father’s biggest enemy.
And I’m about to nab her.
I feel like I’m stealing a princess from a rival kingdom. A little surreal, but one-hundred-percent necessary considering the Gallaghers of New York recently invaded our West Coast territory. I don’t know whether to be insulted or impressed that their hostile takeover only required one man. I’d never say as much in front of my father, but the plot was a stroke of genius.
They sent one of their men to LA and installed him in the center of my father’s territory, the Cypress Hotel. Mysister’shotel.
Could we have handled one rogue enforcer on a mission? Of course…except Kellin Brennan and Maeve fell in love, and then he saved her from the Russians. So, as much as I may want to, I can’thatethe man.
Kellin sticking around was a bad enough prospect before Finn Gallagher assisted Maeve in buying out Declan’s stake in the Cypress. In a short period of time, we lost our hub at the hotel and found ourselves under constant surveillance from our East Coast rivals.
To put it mildly, Declan finds this predicament intolerable, and thus, so do I.
I’m an extension of my father’s will. My existence is that simple. If he wants leverage against those fuckholes in New York, I’ll ensure he has some.
