Chapter 47 – Liam
Here I thought we were making plans to go fishing, but my wife stopped mid-sentence, looked to the left, and then slowly swiveled her head to the right.
I cursed under my breath. Something was clearly bothering her. And who could blame her? Shooting somebody for the first time would leave a stain on anyone.
I felt something with her this morning that I hadn’t felt previously. When we had talked last night, we reached a point where our feelings were out in the open. We cared for one another, we admitted we were bonded. It was just the two of us, and I would kill to get back to that place.
That was why the thought of sitting at the office, working with construction details, or hell, even going and overseeing the books at our most profitable illegal gambling den, weren’t things that were going to hold my interest. I had to be with Gabriella.
But now, the missing pieces, the parts she kept secret, swarmed to the surface and threatened to swallow us whole.
She turned to me sharply, and her eyes brightened as she rapidly waved her hands about while talking.
“I think fishing on Friday sounds great,” she said. “You just tell me what you need, and I’ll get the supplies, and we’ll pick a spot. I’ll pack a picnic.”
A grand distraction technique.
“Gabriella.” I cut her off. “If you don’t want to go fishing, you don’t have to go fishing.”
Her shoulders sank. She chewed on her lip, just as a female walker passed with a buggy cart. I wouldn’t have noticed—because it wasn’t a threat, and my brain didn’t calculate the approach as such—if Gabriella hadn’t shifted her eyes to the side and then back to my face.
It happened in a split second. If I had blinked, I would have missed it. I angled my body so I could watch the woman pushing the stroller from my peripheral without taking my eyes off my wife.
This woman was the key.
And just like that, I knew. I don’t know how I knew, but I did.
When Betty had given me the information about the residents living on Flintwood Avenue, I had paid special attention to the brownstone where Gabriella stopped.
It was the same woman pushing the stroller that had walked past us.
There was a connection. Some reason Gabriella sat on this bench, watched this woman, and then sometimes walked past her house.
My wife was an amateur stalker.
Hell, it would be comical if it wasn’t so damn frustrating.
“What makes you so squeamish about fish?” I asked, interjecting a thought into the mix so Gabriella was forced to talk to me.
She shook her head, doing a double take. “Fish…oh, right—fishing Friday.” She smacked her forehead with the heel of her palm. “I’m sorry, Liam. I just…I didn’t sleep very well. Maybe I am having a rough time.”
I nodded. Understandable.
But if I had to place a bet, it had nothing to do with shooting my cousin and everything to do with this key to the mystery.
“Come on,” I said, pushing to my feet and holding out my left hand.
Gabriella looked at my hand, and I clenched my jaw as she paused. She hadn’t had problems touching me before. I didn’t know what it was about right now that made her hesitate before she slid her tiny paw into mine. I gripped hers tight and began to walk slowly down the path of the park.
I kept the suburban housewife with the stroller a good twenty paces ahead, making our walk seem like we weren’t following her. Gabriella fidgeted, sipping her latte, eyes looking every which direction but refusing to focus on the mom and her precious cargo.
At the entrance to the park, I pulled Gabriella into my arms, putting my hands on her hips and dropping my forehead to hers.
“Maybe we should go away this weekend,” I insisted. “Go on a fishing trip upstate where the lakes are clear and the fish are fresh. Just the two of us.”
Why was her face so damn sorrowful? She chewed on her bottom lip again, and I snapped.
Surging into her, I caught that bruised, swollen lip between mine, sucking hard.
Her gasp sent a crackle of electricity through my veins.
Peaches and something that was all her attacked my sense of smell as I drank her in.
The idea of pushing my little exhibitionist’s boundaries was tempting.
There were bushes not fifteen feet away.
But we were going to lose our prey if we lingered here.
I tore myself away before I could devour her mouth.
“You want to go upstate?” Gabriella asked as we continued to walk down the sidewalk.
“Yeah, it could be fun,” I said lightly. “A proper honeymoon in a cabin, just the two of us—and the dog.”
Gabriella muttered under her breath, “I suppose we can take the bleeding pup.”
“Don’t sound too upset about it,” I teased. There was no smile on her face. Her gaze kept darting to our prey as we meandered down the sidewalk.
When the mom turned and crossed the road, we followed suit. A car honked in protest, but he could feck off. We had the right of way.
Not ninety seconds later, Gabriella stopped, fidgeting with her pants.
“Alright, a honeymoon,” she said, taking a step in the wrong direction. “Let’s get back and pick out a cabin.”
I looped my arm around her shoulder, tugging her close.
“Nah, I’m out with my best girl. Time to see the sights,” I said pleasantly.
Gabriella’s steps slowed. She pretended to read the label on the iced latte, swirled it around in her cup, and then took a sip. Anything to stall, which only made me walk faster.
By the time we reached the brownstone on Flintwood, the mom had disappeared inside with her stroller. I took a few steps to the side and stopped beside a raised flower bed that was part of the sidewalk. I brought my boot up to it, muttering something about stepping in dog poop.
Gabriella was basically dancing in place, trying to get me to move away.
Storm, feeding off her energy, jumped and spun around instead of sitting nicely by my side, as I had tried to train him to do. I corrected the dog’s behavior and made him sit.
Then I planted my hands on Gabriella’s shoulders, looked her in the eye, and arched a brow.
“Is there something you want to tell me, little wife?”
She swallowed hard, shook her head, but my phone rang, cutting off my response. Since it was on Do Not Disturb, it could only be one of two calls. With Gabriella in front of me, I answered with a bark.
“What’s the craic?”
“Boss, there’s trouble,” Connor said rapidly. “Cops raided The Ace of Spades.”
I cursed as he gave me a play-by-play scenario of what happened this morning at one of our gambling dens. We paid the cops well to look the other way, but this wasn’t our guys. Connor explained that someone tipped off the 57th precinct.
“At least it wasn’t the feds,” I muttered.
I was too distracted with the current crisis to realize that my little bird had suddenly gone still. Very still. She wasn’t trying to avoid the house anymore—she was staring right through the window.
Connor’s voice faded away.
I did a double take.
I’d never seen Gabriella so angry before. Not last night when she killed someone. Not when she recounted her father’s abuse. No, there was something righteous, holy, and all-consuming. My Roman goddess burst into flames, standing before me in all her beauty.
Before I could break the spell, Gabriella moved.
My heart slammed against my ribs. I scanned our surroundings for a threat as Gabriella rushed up the steps to the brownstone. She flung herself to the door—which happened to be unlocked—and disappeared into the interior.
“Connor, get over here! That bleeding house on Flintwood! Bring the lawyer!” I yelled, giving him no moment to respond before dashing after my crazed, psychotic little wife.
The yelling greeted me as I stepped into the tastefully decorated interior. The temperature dropped several degrees, but it wasn’t the AC. The space reeked with an unwelcoming perfume. Curated and posh, it turned up its nose as if to say my kind didn’t belong.
But I didn’t stop to argue.
A baby—the same that had been in the stroller—wailed at the top of its lungs. I rushed into the front sitting room. Gabriella’s voice rose above the whole mess as she pointed an accusatory finger at the mom.
“How dare you put my son in danger?” Gabriella seethed. “And then you yell at him! Give me one good reason I shouldn’t kill you right now!”