The Mafia Heir’s Obsession (Mafia Obsession #1)

1. Callahan

ONE

callahan

A sharp cry tears through the toxic night air.

I drop my cigarette, grind it into the cracked concrete, and move in the shadows, trying to work out where the sound came from.

Across the street, near the nightclub I’m watching, I spot the source.

A man’s getting rough with a hooker in shorts so short I can almost see her pussy.

I grit my teeth but stop myself from crossing the street to deal with the asshole.

I’m not here for either of them.

But if he crosses the razor-thin line he’s on, all it’ll take is one flick of my wrist to grab my gun and bury a round in his skull.

The night’s clear, but this part of fucking Queens is shady in all meanings of the word.

There are a few burned-out streetlamps and no real foot traffic, especially on this side street lined with decrepit buildings and dilapidated warehouses.

The girl cries out again and I tighten my hand on my gun, just as another man rounds a corner.

He walks past the Tits and Tails club—not its real name but pretty appropriate from what I’ve seen inside—and chases them off.

A half-assed Good Samaritan?

Or something else ?

My gaze shifts from my original target spot, the nightclub with blacked-out windows and a Hitchcockian shadow of a bouncer who I bet is packing, then back to the guy who just appeared.

He’s just fucking standing there, waiting, watching.

There’s something not right in the air here, something I don’t like, and after a lifetime of working the streets of Dundalk, then Limerick, Belfast, and Dublin to build my reputation, I’ve learned to trust my instincts.

Something is definitely up.

“We can send someone in to take out Mitchum, Cal,” my brother says through the Bluetooth speaker in my ear.

“The de Rosa deal doesn’t hang on this favor.”

“He wants to see what we can do. Mitchum’s a problem. And he’ll be one to us, too, if I don’t take care of him,” I murmur.

Crooked politicians who present themselves clean in public are trouble.

They get others to do their dirty work, they pit groups against each other, and they do whatever they can for money and influence and power.

And this guy Mitchum is hungry.

Wants to be mayor and sees Vincent de Rosa and other crime families as something to control.

I want him removed. I want to show de Rosa I go the extra mile.

I don’t mind blood and danger.

I’ll take Mitchum and his crooked little organization out.

I’ll?—

My next thought skids to a stop before my brain can complete it when a girl in a short fuckin’ dress with long, toned legs darts down the street, from shadow to shadow, and captures my attention.

She’s wearing some kind of mask that covers the top half of her face.

She doesn’t move like a hooker or stripper.

Hell, she doesn’t move like someone who belongs here at all.

And I’m fucking mesmerized.

Long curly hair, reddish gold, streams out from a black fedora, and it’s not a dress she’s wearing but a short-ass coat that shows even more leg as one side flaps up in the night breeze.

My pulse hammers hard against my throat.

Not sure why. I can’t even see her face.

Then again, maybe that’s why.

But pussy’s everywhere.

There’s something else about this girl, and I wanna find out what.

“I’m here,” she says, her voice carrying over the street.

The man loitering outside the club grabs her by the throat and slams her against a brick wall, his face way too close to hers for my liking.

“What the fuck,” I mutter, my voice barely above a whisper.

Now it’s my other brother Seamus speaking in my ear.

“Whatever it is, Cal, leave it alone. We’re here for Mitchum, the guy who’s causing de Rosa problems.”

The guy who wants de Rosa to do his bidding.

But my mind can’t stop wondering about the girl, who she is and why the fuck she’s here.

I’m here to take out the man in the running for mayor, Mitchum, who’s up to his eyeballs in illegal activities, ones that are causing Vincent de Rosa problems.

I need to forget about everything and everyone else.

Seamus is right, even as adrenaline courses through me, as every fiber focuses on that hand wrapped around her slender throat.

I want an in with de Rosa, who has contacts and business interests that are important to me.

Taking out Mitchum is the kind of sweet extra touch that will buy me leeway beyond the wedding contract.

It will solidify my standing.

I crack each of the knuckles on my left hand, then my right.

The guy—he has all the hallmarks of a thuggish cop, probably one who’s crooked—shakes the girl.

She’s still breathing.

And now they’re talking.

My gaze shifts between them and the club.

Mitchum’s attending a party inside, some glittering midnight deal where donors need to be wooed.

Men like him don’t miss shit like that, and I know for a fact that Vincent de Rosa, who never dirties his hands unless he needs to, will be there.

Not at the event, but the restaurant next to it

Tonight’s the night to take Mitchum out.

I never fail in my missions.

Not even to save a fucking girl.

So instead of the girl and the conversation I can’t even hear from my spot across the street, I focus on my mission.

When I returned to New York six months ago, quietly setting up a permanent US base, I took my time.

And now that my empire is built, I’m ready to make some moves.

Ready to take more power.

My mother’s the last Amalfitano in the family line.

American Italian. She should have inherited plenty, but after politics, sexism, and all the shit that comes with organized crime ravaged it, there was nothing left.

My uncle made sure of that.

But I don’t need it.

I can use my own name.

My Murphy clan’s already known and feared in Ireland and across Europe.

I want the same in this country, more power and influence.

And this is the place.

I’ve found a way in, a fast-track plan with mutual beneficiaries.

It’s a win-win for both parties.

All I need to do is prove myself with this hit and then marry Vincent de Rosa’s daughter.

De Rosa has power. Businesses I want to be involved in.

A reputation. And he wants to break into parts of Europe and the UK.

Under his own name, he might step on established Italian mafia toes.

But if he goes in under mine?

Problem solved.

I shift against the concrete wall.

Do I trust him, though?

As much as anyone outside my family, which is to say not at all.

Marrying his daughter is buying loyalty.

I’ll have something precious of his if he decides to pull any shit.

She’s probably boring, the perfect little mafia princess.

I frown as the girl in the mask struggles.

This isn’t something I can write off as a heated conversation anymore.

She’s frantic.

I grab my gun, right as the guy hits the girl.

“Fucker.” I don’t like that kind of violence.

My mam brought us up with fucking manners.

The girl in the mask hits him and he hits her back, throwing her down to the ground.

She’s up fast and pulls a move a football hooligan would admire, slamming him in the stomach with her foot like his body is a football and she’s trying to score a goal.

This time the supposed cop doesn’t hit her; he smacks her in the face.

She falls and meets the pavement with intent.

And I make a snap decision, right as he pulls his gun on her.

She struggles to get up.

Rage breaks free, cold and merciless from deep in my bones.

I zero in on the fucker as I quickly walk across the quiet street, gun out.

The only people outside now are us and the bouncer.

Just as the guy raises his hand to her again, he must see me because he turns with a surprised look on his face, pausing with his hand in the air.

I squeeze off two bullets.

Chest. Head .

He goes down hard and I’m next to the girl in seconds.

The bouncer comes running toward us and I raise my gun.

“Run, this isn’t your fight,” I snarl.

He does just that, taking off around a corner.

I grab the girl, kicking the asshole’s body off her, not letting her go.

“Dec—” Before I can finish telling my brother what happened through my earpiece, three men—Mitchum’s men—step out of the club.

The man himself will be minutes behind.

They see me. The gun.

The body.

The girl.

She struggles but I don’t let go because she might be able to identify me.

Fuck.

For a moment time stops and I throw us behind the open steel door, right as the men start to shoot.

Bullets whizz past.

I need to neutralize the shooters.

If Mitchum sees, then my mission’s toast.

The adrenaline lights me up as I kick the door shut and shoot back, wounding one, killing the other two.

Dragging the girl behind me, I run to them and grab one of the weapons, shooting that third man.

I stare at him where he lies motionless.

“Cal? Talk to me! What the fuck is happening?”

I ignore Declan’s screaming in my ear.

The door opens again.

The music pumps loud inside, hard techno vibrating the ground beneath my feet.

All hell breaks loose in a hot fucking second.

Mitchum and two of his guards step out, mid-conversation .

“The minute John gets our bargaining chip or takes her out, then we’ll be able to manip?—”

Mitchum stops short as he sees the carnage.

Me. The girl. His eyes widen when his eyes land on her.

And then he dives behind one of the men.

I relax into the moment and shoot the one to the left.

Once in the head is all it takes.

I swing the gun to the one he’s hiding behind and shoot that bastard next.

The man falls right as he’s about to pull his trigger.

I drop, pulling the girl next to me.

My eyes meet Mitchum’s.

“Please, don’t do?—”

I shoot him in the head, right between the eyes.

“Sleep tight, motherfucker.”

The girl hasn’t screamed once since the bodies have started falling down around us, but now she starts tugging at me.

I’ve held people against their will, I’ve held the dead in gunfights, so a slight thing like her is nothing at all.

She obviously has no idea who or what she’s dealing with.

“Dec, get?—”

I stop speaking.

Behind me is the crunch of tires on the pavement.

A shout pierces the air.

Fuck. More of Mitchum’s men.

We have to get away, head into the nightclub.

I turn and squeeze off a round, then dart inside with the girl.

I know the layout of the club.

They probably shouldn’t have hired the Irish when they laid it out.

We step into the darkness.

Shit. It’s a fucking graveyard inside.

The stage is empty. A boot is sticking out from the floor behind the bar, and a tray of drinks is toppled over on the floor, surrounded by broken glass and ice cubes, a naked girl pressed into a booth.

But everyone else?

I look right.

The exit door swings shut.

Gone.

Goddammit.

Someone must have called the cops already.

And with Mitchum cooling outside, I can’t be here.

A bullet hits the wall, and I dive forward, my arm wrapped tight around the girl’s waist. She trembles against me, her breaths raspy and shallow, but she doesn’t say a word.

She doesn’t cry or scream.

It’s almost like she’s been through this kind of thing before.

We duck behind the bar and I reload.

The bartender yells, but I ignore him, pressing my captive against the sinks as the bottles on the wall opposite us explode, bullets peppering the walls and the bar.

Better them than our heads.

“Go,” I growl at the bartender who’s still there.

“Get to the exit.”

He doesn’t need another invitation and slithers away along the floor.

I peek out from the bar again and shoot back, hitting one of the men.

There are four of them out there.

I duck back down as a bullet narrowly misses me.

With a rocketing pulse, I pop up again and fire off another round, taking out two more.

There’s one left, and he dives, squeezing off another stream of bullets.

A cry rises from the naked girl in the booth.

Fuck.

He’s behind her now.

Waiting him out isn’t an option.

Shooting like a crazy man isn’t either.

I need to think .

I look at my masked girl, the smatter of pale freckles on her nose, the soft lips, the spatter of blood on her cheek.

She doesn’t look like she’s ready to run.

Probably because she thinks I’d shoot her if she did.

And I’m basically on top of her anyway.

She wouldn’t have a chance.

My brothers’ squawking in my ear doesn’t help me fucking focus.

I tune them out. They know my protocols.

But I have some big problems. There’s one active shooter in here with me in his sights.

Cops might be on the way.

And there might be more gunmen either outside or en route.

This was supposed to be quick, with a clean escape for me.

And somehow, I now have a captive who’s witnessed me kill multiple assholes in the past few minutes.

One who could identify me.

One who for some unknown reason I don’t want to let go.

I have limited bullets left.

So I slowly count in my head, then I look around.

“Give me the bottle next to you,” I hiss at her.

The girl does as I command.

I launch my arm back and throw it.

Glass shatters midair when the man shoots it.

I jump to my feet and take him out, my bullet ripping a hole in his head.

The girl in the booth screams. At least she’s still alive.

And now it’s time for us to move.

Not out the exit door, but through the secret one.

The one I’m hoping they don’t know about.

I grab the girl’s arm and pull her to her feet.

We quickly move down a hallway past the bathrooms. I shoot off the lock on the one marked Staff Bathroom and haul her into it, and then down into the last toilet stall, through the door at the back of the empty little room .

She makes gasping, mewling sounds now, like it’s all hit her at once.

But she still hasn’t screamed.

Yet.

“Shut the fuck up,” I say, “or I’ll kill you.”

“Please don’t. Let me go and I won’t?—”

“How is that shutting up?”

We’re inside a long corridor that bends and twists and leads us into a warehouse a block away.

It’s dark in there, but now I can hear sirens and shouts from behind us.

“Please, please let me go. My dad?—”

“Fuck that. Why’d that guy grab you in front of the club?”

“I don’t know… His friend knows my sister. I-I had to get something for her.”

That story has more holes than a moth-eaten sweater, but I let the lies slide.

For now.

“What’s your name?”

“Joy,” she whispers.

Another lie.

I nod, playing along.

"Frank."

Her eyes flick to mine, unreadable.

I know she doesn’t believe me, just like I don’t believe her.

But it doesn’t matter.

What matters is getting out of here before the cops flood the place.

“It’s Frank,” I say into my earpiece, my voice calm despite the fury thrumming beneath my skin.

“Need a pickup.”

She doesn’t resist as I lead her through the back exit, but I can feel the shift in her.

The calculation. The moment she decides to run.

And she does. A sharp twist, a kick to my shin, and she’s gone, sprinting into the night.

Seamus leans out of the limo that just pulled up with a gun in his outstretched hand, amusement dancing in his eyes.

“You lose something? ”

I shove his gun down before he can lift it.

"Don't shoot her."

“She a witness or a problem? And are you gonna tell us what the fuck just happened in there?”

I don’t answer. I’m already moving, already hunting.

Because I need to know who she is.

Why she was there.

And why the mere touch of her, the feel of her against me, felt so fucking right.

I will find her again.

And when I do, she’ll have nowhere left to run.