Driving the Mob: A Steamy Standalone Instalove Romance Read online

  Dad’s about to reply when Murphy’s phone blares, this time with the same alarm that interrupted us when we were downstairs, in the moments after he called me beautiful and promised that nothing would ever happen to me.

  It’s the emergency ringtone, for mob business, I remember.

  How is it possible those revelations only happened an hour ago, maybe less? All the closeness we’ve shared since then… all the kissing and the heat and his hand jammed between my legs, rubbing firmly, causing a sizzling fire to move through me make it feel like hours and hours, days, months, ago.

  Murphy answers the phone, his face turning from neutral to something like murderous, his eyes narrowed, his temples pulsing, his jaws clamped so tightly I’m surprised his teeth don’t shatter.

  He lets out a gruff growling noise.

  “Yes,” he says. “I’ll be right there.”

  He hangs up and stands, shaking his head and letting out a deep sigh.

  “I have to go.”

  He glances at me, face tight, eyes brimming with all the things he wants to say, and knows he can’t.

  “Wait here for me,” he says. “I’ll… I’ll need my driver when I return. Henry, you’re welcome to wait, too, if you want.”

  Dad nods. “I’ll hang around and have my coffee, thanks, Murphy. Is everything okay?”

  “No,” he snarls. “But it will be.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Murphy

  Cillian’s face grows even more severe as we sit in his sedan, down the road from where the police are securing the murder scene. Tape stretches from corner to corner and a crowd has formed, many of them with their phones out, aiming them at the collection of police officers.

  Juan has killed one of my men.

  He cut off his head and left it there for a goddamn kid to find.

  “He’s bringing Cartel shit to my city,” I snarl.

  Cillian nods slowly, his hands tight on the steering wheel. He’s worked as hard as I have to make this city safe, to rise above our mob origins and bring some legitimacy to the city. Idiots think that crime means blood and violence and pain, but it doesn’t have to.

  It can mean using our underworld gruffness to make things better, safer, more civilized.

  But I’m not feeling very fucking civilized right now.

  “Do we know who did it?” I ask.

  “No. But they left a calling card on the body. One of our contacts managed to grab it before the police turned up. It has an address. A warehouse on the outskirts of the city. Apparently Juan wants to talk.”

  Tension pumps through me when I think about our man, Jamie, and his wife and his kids… all the pain that’s going to tear through their world because of Juan and his Cartel tactics.

  “That sounds like a trap,” I comment.

  Cillian laughs gruffly. “Yeah, I’d say so.”

  “Then what the fuck are we waiting for? Let’s go.”

  Cillian flinches, glancing at me. “Are you serious?”

  “He wants to scare us,” I tell him. “He thinks that just because we’ve led this city into a better place, we’re not willing to do what’s necessary. We’ll show him how fucking wrong he is. This is his message. We need to send one of our own.”

  The anger that rises up from inside of me – that twists my gut and makes me want to roar like a damn lion – comes partly from Juan but also partly from Molly… not anger aimed at her, but for her, for us, for our family. I’ve worked hard to make this city safe and now Juan wants to change that, meaning that when she brings our children into this world they’re going to grow up in a crime-ridden hellhole.

  “Are you sure?” Cillian murmurs.

  “Rally the troops,” I snarl. “We’re going.”

  He nods. “Yes, boss.”

  I can feel Cillian’s nerves swarming around the car as he drives up to the warehouse, sitting in a rundown industrial lot where half the units are empty. He stops and so do the cars behind us, dozens of my men ready for war if it comes to that.

  He nods at the warehouse, with its broken windows glinting in the light like winking eyes.

  “Gunmen in the windows,” he murmurs.

  “Juan would be a fucking idiot to kill me,” I growl. “He knows it’d start a war, a real war. He knows you’d be forced to hunt him down and murder him, and anyone who’s ever supported him.”

  “I know.” Cillian sighs darkly. “But maybe he is an idiot.”

  I stare at the weapons poking from the windows, a war song moving through me, hammering in my chest. Expressing my true feelings for Molly has done something to me, changed me in a vital way I still don’t understand. He thinks he can take everything we’re building.

  He thinks I’m scared of him.

  “Boss, wait…”

  But it’s too late.

  I climb from the car and stalk forward, my footsteps smashing hard against the concrete, fury rushing in my ears as I walk right up to the warehouse and stand in full view of the gunmen.

  I hear my men behind me, and I hold up a hand.

  They stop immediately.

  I don’t turn, but I know they must be exchanging confused worried looks.

  “Well?” I roar up at the warehouse, staring at the gunmen one at a time, or rather at their masked faces because the cowards are too chicken-shit to show me what they really look like.

  “Go on. Pull the fucking trigger.”

  Rage pumps inside of me, making my muscles tighten, ready to do serious harm.

  How is it possible that only hours ago I had the patience to sit in the car when the Cartel threatened us?

  It’s because your woman was there, my seed roars inside of me. You knew you had to protect her.

  Yeah, that’s right.

  But I still need to protect her.

  I always need to protect her.

  “Juan,” I roar, spreading my hands to my sides to make my chest the largest target I possibly can. “Is this how you want to play it, hiding behind your men like a coward? Is that the sort of rat you are?”

  I hear a few of my men gasp from behind me, and his tighten their grips on their guns and lean forward as if getting ready for an order to open fire. I straighten, projecting the message I’m not afraid.

  “Open fire, then,” I bellow, my voice echoing around this lonely rundown place. “If that’s how you want to play it.”

  The door at the front of the warehouse creaks open and Juan steps out, followed by what seems like a hundred of his men. Cartel members, some of them in suits, some of them in tank tops, some of them shirtless – bloated with steroids and covered in tattoos – stand behind him like legionaries ready to go to war.

  Juan tilts his head from side to side, all twitchy as if getting ready for a fight or snort a line of coke as he paces over. He tightens his fist and a knuckle duster glints in the sunlight, winking a challenge at me.

  He seems even more swollen than the last time I saw him, as though he’s been injecting himself with more muscle-building drugs, taking the easy road like all cowards do.

  “Don’t call me a fucking rat, Murphy,” he snarls.

  I grin wolfishly at him, flashing my teeth.

  “Don’t give me a reason, then,” I say. “You killed one of my men. You declared war. He had a wife. He had children. And you killed him. You cut off his fucking head.”

  Wife. Children.

  These were words that meant nothing to me until recently… recently, and yet it’s like I’ve felt this way forever. The craziness doesn’t feel as strange to me as it should.

  It feels right.

  She’s mine.

  Forever.

  And this bastard wants to change that.

  “I didn’t cut off anyone’s head,” he says, with a snakelike sneer.

  “Yeah, not personally,” I growl. “But one of your men did. I know that much. So send the prick out, we’ll take him, and then we’ll be on our way.”

  “Give up one of my men?” he says, and his
soldiers chuckle throatily behind him. “You must think I’m as stupid as you.”

  I scan my eyes over them… there’s probably around forty, plus the men in the warehouse windows. We have around the same number.

  This could turn into a bloodbath at any moment.

  “I think you’re a coward,” I tell him flatly. “I think you hide behind the word Cartel thinking it makes you tough. I think I’d dismantle you like the amateur prick you are if you ever had the balls to fight me for real.”

  The color drains from his face and he takes a shaky step forward. “Be careful.”

  I laugh, making it purposefully obnoxious. He’s so full of bluster and drugs and foolish confidence, he can’t tell I’m paying him, maneuvering him exactly where I want him.

  “Why? You’re not going to do a damn thing. Oh, you’ll send men to jump someone without giving them a chance to fight back. You’ll hide behind your goons. But you won’t fight, Juan. Not in a million years.”

  I reach behind my back and take out my gun, causing all the men to stiffen, dozens of guns aimed at me cause my men to tense up and respond.

  I smirk, tossing the gun onto the ground.

  “There.” I spread my hands again. “Show your men how tough you are, Juan.”

  A smart man would be able to think of something to say to get himself out of the challenge. He’d say something like, We’re not animals, fighting in a pit. We’re leaders. Have some self-respect.

  But Juan isn’t a smart man. He’s a violent goon here to peddle drugs to the most vulnerable people in my city.

  “Well?” I smirk when he gapes at me. “Or are you too scared, you rat fuck?”

  He takes a step forward, aiming his fist at me, the knuckle duster glinting. “Be. Careful. Murphy.”

  “Say that a thousand times, Juan, and it still won’t sound tough. You’re just proving how scared you are. Right now, by not accepting my challenge, you’re showing your men how scared you are of me. What sort of a man lets another man call him a fucking rat to his face, a worm, a lowlife loser whose little prick doesn’t work because he’s popped one too many pills…”

  Ah.

  I see the moment I press the right button, the way his eyes widen, the way his whole body stiffens.

  Panic streaks across his features and then rage floods into him as he takes another step forward.

  “Don’t make me hurt you,” he says.

  I laugh, not having to force it. It’s the most ridiculous thing he ever could’ve said to me.

  “Are you going to hurt me with your pathetic threats?” I say. “Because you’re not going to swing at me, Juan. I know that for a damn fact.”

  His lips tremble and he glances behind him, at his men, as though gauging their reactions. They all try to stare impassively, but I notice a couple of the shirtless ones twitching angrily, as though they’re willing him to charge at me.

  And then he does.

  He turns to me and he charges.

  “Motherfucker,” he roars.

  I stare at him in disbelief, at how slow he is, at how clumsily he moves. It’s like he’s never been in a fight before. By the time he gets to me the swollen sac of drug-peddling shit is almost out of breath.

  I duck under his clumsy hook and coil my arm under his armpit, shoving my other arm behind his neck, lifting him off his feet as he chokes and sputters and kicks his legs. He’s trying to scream, to whine, to make any noise, but I squeeze him harder and harder, compressing his airway.

  “This is your leader,” I roar, turning him, displaying him to all his men. “This is the man you’re following. Look at him. Remember him like this.”

  I release some of the pressure on his neck, letting him place his feet on the ground, but there’s nothing he can do but stand in the chokehold as I move my body so any bullets fired at me will also hit Juan.

  “Shoot him,” Juan cries, which is the worst and stupidest thing he could possibly say.

  If they shoot me, they shoot him as well, but in his panic, he doesn’t seem to realize this.

  His men exchange glances, silently agreeing not to open fire because they’re not the ones in the chokehold. They’re not the ones panicking.

  “If you try to take me, they’ll open fire,” Juan whimpers. “You know they will.”

  He doesn’t realize his control has already slipped.

  The moment he charged at me, he lost any right to command these men. The Cartel will devolve into in-fighting as a result of this, as the hungry wolves lurking in the wings rise up to try and take power from their weak leader.

  Still, he’s right.

  I can’t take him, I can’t hurt him, because then the men would be honor-bound to protect their leader.

  No, not honor-bound. They’d be compelled by fear.

  Because they can’t know that Juan will be ousted from power. They can’t be certain. None of them wants to be responsible for their leader getting taken or killed and then have the higher-ups at the Cartel hear about it.

  But that doesn’t mean I’m going to leave empty-handed.

  “Who killed my man, Juan?” I snarl. “Who cut off his fucking head? Tell them to step forward or I swear to God – I swear on everything I’ve built – I will choke the life out of you right now.”

  He makes a pathetic whimpering noise as I apply more pressure to the back of his neck, driving with my forearm.

  “Raúl, Carlos, Martin, step forward,” Juan says.

  More disgust flickers across the faces of the men, and nobody moves.

  “Time’s running out, Juan,” I snarl, crushing him even tighter, making him feel like he’s trapped in the unstoppable clutches of an anaconda. “Tick tick.”

  “Step forward,” he cries. “Or I’ll order my cousins to hunt down your families. Now.”

  Reluctantly, the men step forward. Two of them are shirtless and bloated, a real goon look about them like they’d carry out any command their cowardly leader gave without a second thought. The third is wiry and looks strung-out, as though he’s addicted to something more than steroids.

  “Here’s what’s going to happen,” I snarl. “We’re taking these men with us and they’re going to face justice for what they did to my man. Or they can run and I kill you, Juan. I choke you out right here and leave your body to rot. Your choice.”

  One of the big men scowls, his teardrop tattoo puckering. “I’m not going with you.”

  “Is that so?” I smirk. “Then I guess Juan here is going to have to carry out his threat and hurt your family. Is that what you want?”

  I would never allow a woman or a child to be harmed, but this motherfucker doesn’t know that.

  “Cillian, take them,” I snarl.

  “Do as he says,” Juan whines, forcing the words out past my throttling arm. “Just—just do it.”

  My second-in-command steps forward, backed up with a couple of my men, their guns raised and their eyes trained on the Cartel members. I can tell they don’t want to go with him, but what other choice do they have?

  Juan gave them an order and, if they don’t do as he says, word will get back to the Cartel and fucked-up things will happen to their families. That’s exactly the reason I'm fighting so hard to keep them out of my city, so it doesn’t devolve into this sort of careless violence.

  “Motherfucker,” the big man grunts as Cillian tosses his gun to the ground and grabs him by the arm, leading him toward our cars.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Cillian says. “Just keep moving.”

  I wait until all the men are in the cars, listening for the heavy shutting of the doors, and then I lean close to Juan so only he can hear me, whispering in his ear.

  And I fucking hate him for it.

  I shouldn’t be here, doing this, whispering in his ear.

  I should be with my woman.

  “Tell them all to go back inside and wait until we’re gone. Tell the men in the windows to put their guns away. Or I’ll kill you, Juan. I’ll choke you to your last bre
ath.”

  Juan raises his voice and gives my instructions, his voice trembling as he betrays the fear that must be stabbing through him. The men turn and walk inside, dragging their feet like reluctant school kids returning to class, the weapons disappear from the window.

  None of them are happy about this, but they have no choice.

  It’s that or open fire, killing Juan and facing the Cartel’s retribution.

  I walk backward toward the cars, dragging Juan, my forearm unyielding against his throat.

  “You can’t—take—me,” he manages to choke out.

  “I know,” I growl. “But I’m not going to take a bullet, either.”

  I back up until I’m at Cillian’s sedan, and then I toss Juan aside and climb in.

  I wish I could take him with us, use him as a bargaining chip, but that’s not how the Cartel works.

  Maybe with the Italians, the Yakuza… hell, even with biker gangs, that sort of shit works. But the Cartel is ruthless. They’d lay waste to the city if they learned I’d kidnapped one of their leaders.

  But I can take the grunts who actually wielded the knife.

  Cillian backs us out, his jaw tight, his eyes glinting. “That went better than expected.”

  “But…”

  “Who said there’s a but?”

  I laugh gruffly as he drives toward the road. It’s just us in the car. The prisoners are in another car, bags over their heads, their hands tied in their laps.

  “Your face, Cillian,” I growl. “So get on with it.”

  “But it was risky.”

  I nod. “I know. But it had to be done. Nothing will stop me from protecting this city.”

  Nothing will stop me from protecting the world my and Molly’s children are going to be born into.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Molly

  I sit across from Dad, back in the break room, emptier now that everyone is back to work after their lunch breaks. I expected him to go after he visited, but it turns out he wants to wait to see if he’ll get any news about the job.