CHAPTER 23 #2
“First of all, my jig is up. He knew way too much about me to buy my act. He knows I’m trained in jujitsu, a good shot, have an MBA, he even knows my secret hopes about taking over, which is weird because why would Papa have told him that?
Just to have my new husband laugh at little me? ” She hums in confusion.
I start to pace the room as I think aloud, “The compound is like a frat house. Like a million Quinn juniors who look like him and walk and talk like him and worship the ground he walks on. All young, all happy and bro-ing around like they’re not all working for the most terrifying crime lord of our time. ”
“Really?” She gasps the word. She gets it. It’s just too strange.
“Yes, and they make eye contact with him and clap him on the shoulder like he’s their best friend. Not their boss. And the man talks to his dogs in baby talk, Ellie. Baby talk.”
“No!”
“Yes again! Like, wait, maybe they are all on drugs. Maybe there’s a new drug on the market, some weird, happy trip like super-charged ecstasy or something.”
“But you said he threatened you.”
“Yes. He did a couple days ago. And it was terrifying. And just now, he was a beast, tearing through his men in a training fight. For a few minutes, he was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen. Then he’s hugging his dogs. Like an unhinged Jekyll and Hyde.”
“Well, Mark is different with me at home than he is out in public, right? That’s not that weird.”
“Mark goes from giant asshole to medium asshole when you’re around. This feels different than that. I mean, can you imagine your uncle or my dad joking around with their young soldiers, Papa doesn’t even let initiates around him for the first three to five years.”
“Hmm.”
“Yeah, El, hmm.”
“So, if annoying him is out, what’s your new plan?”
“Seduction. I tried sweet and cute and that didn’t work, now I’m just being my sneaky self while wearing as little as possible.
He has to cave eventually. Then I’ll get close to him, dig, find his weaknesses, and leverage the hell out of them.
” I snort. “Basically exactly what he said he’d kill me for. ”
“Luna!”
“It’s a risk I have to take! What else am I going to do, roll over and play mob wife? Make babies and fucking bake stuff?” She makes a noise and I realize I’ve just described her ideal life as the corrupt senator’s wife. “Sorry, El, you know I love it for you, it’s just not me.”
“I know, but at least he didn’t force you to have sex with him, right? Maybe it won’t be so bad, being married to him?”
“I’m not staying married, we’re not giving up!
I can’t stay here. It’s like I’ve time traveled.
I spent these last few days trying to find something, anything of interest. It really is like going back to the eighties.
Stranger fucking things, Ellie. No internet, no cameras, he doesn’t have an office here that he uses, so no spying on product deliveries or updating my spreadsheets.
Sheila, his little maid, said I could take up decorating or gardening.
Gardening, Eleanna! I mean, please, kill me now!
No. I’m getting out.” I nod to myself. “Somehow. I’ve scoped the whole property, aside from the creepy woods, and didn’t find so much as a loose screw. ”
“Creepy woods?”
“His property is like half the state of Massachusetts. I walked most of three of the four perimeters, which took me all damn day, but the one corner goes way off into thick trees for forever.” I can hear her grimacing on the other end of the phone.
“Yup. Exactly where a creepy mobster is probably keeping all his creepy secret mobster things. Today I ventured in there just a little bit and I found them sparring in a clearing. Which is really odd because they have a state-of-the-art gym. What is this, fight club? Tomorrow, I’m going deeper.
Seems like anything of interest is hidden out there. ”
“Take your phone with you!”
“I will, a whole lot of good it’ll do me, but I’ll have it just in case.”
She sighs, “You’ll find a way, Lu. If anyone can go toe-to-toe with Skulls, it’s you.”
I thank her, feeling better.
Inspired by the unreal display I just witnessed, I start a workout. I could go to the gym but I don’t want to see anyone. I just want to think and sweat. Pushups, crunches, lunges, squats. Rep after rep after rep.
Clarity doesn’t really come to me.
But I can smell dinner cooking now, and my limbs are trembling. I hop in the shower and stand under the glorious spray of five shower heads. Quinn knows how to have a bathroom remodeled, I’ll give him that. This thing is like a human carwash.
I sigh, hating that I love this shower. That I love something of Quinn’s.
Today wasn’t a total loss. There’s shit going down in the woods. And Quinn does look at my body even though he ignored me for two days. He didn’t want his fighters checking out my nipples through my top.
I get out of the shower and put on more of the same: anything tight, thin, white or light pink.
I pull my hair back into a low knot, put on a few coats of mascara, lip stain and a little blush.
I hear the men entering the house for dinner like a rhino stampede.
And my mouth is watering at the aroma, so I head down.
Quinn’s already there, sitting at the table but not eating yet. He’s not going to ignore me tonight. I walk right up to him and sit in his lap. He’s talking to a guy next to him and doesn’t pause at all for me. If it weren’t for a quick squeeze of my hip, it’s like I didn’t sit here at all.
Mac and Collin come to the table and join in, all of them discussing some soccer team, for shit’s sake, and Quinn picks me up wordlessly and deposits me in the seat next to him.
No scolding.
No playing a part.
Just…nothing.
Like I don’t exist.
Hell, no.
“Um, baby,” I start, making my voice breathy.
But he drags my chair close in one motion, making a loud scrape sound that startles me. He puts his mouth to my ear.
“Enough,” he says, gently placing his huge, warm hand on my throat.
“You will not seduce me. You will not gain my trust. I don’t give a fuck what you spend your time doing, cello, painting, walking the woods, fine.
Just stay the fuck out of my way,” he leans back, his expression grim.
Then he looks away and removes his hand as he says, off handedly, “Your workout was almost two hours long, wife, go and get some food.”
My mouth falls open before I can stop it.
Of course he knows what I was doing alone in my room but how, if there are no cameras?
I get up quickly and head to the kitchen. I want to defy him and head the other way but I feel light-headed. I do need to eat. I do need to keep up my strength.
The confidence I felt after talking to Ellie is gone.
If anyone can go toe-to-toe with Skulls, it’s you.
I appreciated her words but I don’t know anymore.
He just…affects me. And not in the way I was ready for.
I’ve brushed off mafiosos my whole life.
I’ve dodged creeps and nasty old capos. I’ve played around with a few guys I thought were hot but as soon as we moved from flirting and hinting to actually kissing and touching, the heat evaporated like steam.
I should hate sitting on Quinn’s lap. I don’t.
My skin should crawl off my bones every time he leans in to whisper threats in my ear. It doesn’t.
I should be scared, not impressed, not…heated at the way he fights with his bare hands. I should not have been flooded with warmth when he wrapped his long fingers around my throat.
I should be happy he’s so uninterested in me.
It’s unusual to be rejected this way, but I should be relieved.
Sure, I want to seduce him for my plan, but he’s still a mad man.
Underneath my plots and plans, my genuine self should be thrilled at the thought of him banging his little Irish mistress, and thus staying the hell away from me.
And, damn it, I’m not.