“If you want children and a white picket fence, then yes,” he answered again, giving her a ghost of a smile.“It is thefamilybusiness after all.”
“So, let me just go over the facts.”She counted on her fingers.“One, you’re in the mafia business, which I didn’t know was a modern thing.Two, if I don’t marry you, I assume I’m sleeping with the fishes.Three, because I know too much, I have to marry you.Four, we’ll have kids.Five, you’re sometimes a bad man.Is that about right?”
“Pretty much.”He reached out and took hold of her hand, entwining their fingers.“I care for you, Quinn, and I know you’re alone in the world.We can have a good life together.”
She admitted to herself that it sounded nice.“There are a few stipulations.”
He tilted his head, waiting.
“If you ever come to the point where you don’t want me, you can’t kill me.”
“I would only kill you if you talk to law enforcement.”
“I would never do that.Not to you.”
“Good.Then that one is easily granted.”
“Okay.”She took a deep breath.“No mistresses.Or hook-ups.Or coffee dates with women.Respect me, and I’ll respect you.”
“Another easy one to grant.I will be faithful, but you must be faithful as well.Anything else?”
“Don’t hide anything else from me.I was blindsided by Savage.If I’d known, I wouldn’t have gone off by myself to inspect the gallery.”
“I will not be able to tell you all of what is going on, but what I can share I will.”
“Am I gonna have to kiss a ring or something?”
He chuckled.“No, we’re not Italian.”
“Good point.What are you going to do about Savage?”
“When I find him, I’m going to kill him, and I hope you’re okay with that.”
Casually admitting he was going to commit murder should’ve given her pause.However, the memory of Savage pressing the knife into her flesh, and the agony it had caused her, still resided in the forefront of her mind.The bandage across her torso pulled the skin when she moved, and she didn’t need anyone to tell her that she would forever have a scar transversing her chest.Savage admitted how he earned his name.How many women had he terrorized.Had he done that to children as well?
“The law doesn’t do anything to men like him, do they?”
“No.We’re playing on a level where many cops have been bought off.”
“Before I agree to anything, I’ve got to know.Do you traffic women and children?Because that’s my hard limit.”
“No,” he replied, staring her in the eye.“The Lemaire family mostly deals with money laundering, and it’s a very lucrative trade.Like I said earlier, my gallery is a front.Art can be a cash only business where price is set by interpretation of the work, so large amounts of money flowing in and out of the gallery usually doesn’t raise any red flags.”
“That’s actually pretty clever.”
“Thank you, I thought of it.Another thing I used to do as a kid was get lost in museums.My appreciation of art isn’t a lie and I do paint on occasion, so that art of mine I display is real.It was just a catalyst to clean dirty money for our Asian partners.”
“That’s all you do is launder?”
“That’s all you need to know.We are moving into more legit businesses like nightclubs, bars, property, industrial buildings.I actually own a plant in LA, manufacturing pipes for various occupations like plumbing and HVAC.”
“I’m strangely impressed,” she said, surprised.This helped put her mind at ease.Just went to show that she considered some things morally ambiguous.“I don’t care if you kill Savage.You might be a somewhat bad man, but he’s evil.”
“The entire Voclain family are evil.”He took a deep breath.“My boss’s wife was raped and killed by that scum.I treasured her because she became the mother I never had, and I helped her move past grief by becoming the child she had lost.For that, I will never forgive the Voclain.”
Her heart bled for the little boy who had found a home, only to lose his adopted mother in the most horrific way.She laid her other hand on top of their entwined ones.
“Then I will stand with you and cheer every time you kill a monster.”
