Kane's Ransom: A BWWM Mafia Romance Novel (12 page)

"And as a surgeon," Killian continued, not noticing her lack of surprise, "I did some great things - but I also developed some habits, expensive ones. And even though I was making money as a surgical resident, I didn't have enough to pay back all of my loans, all the medical costs I incurred by becoming a doctor."

Here, Alicia found herself nodding. She could imagine exactly how a younger Killian had felt, fighting against an ever-growing mound of debt. She often felt exactly that same way, even though her circumstances were surely much different.

"I had to start trying to find a way to get myself out of that debt, some way to pay down all the bills coming due," Killian explained, twisting his fingertips together. "I tried all the normal avenues, taking on more work, looking for a second job, anything like that, but it just wasn't enough. I either couldn't find any more work to do, or else the work that I could find wasn't enough or didn't pay well enough to really make a big difference. I started to give up, to think that I was trapped that way forever."

He sighed, tossing himself back on the bed and staring up at the ceiling. "And that's when they approached me," he said.

"Who?" Alicia leaned in, propping herself up on her elbows as she lay on her stomach. She would never admit it, but she found herself drawn into the story already.

He kept his eyes on the ceiling. "The Mob," he said simply.

Alicia gasped.

She didn't mean to, of course. It just slipped out of her, in the air before she could catch it back. It was enough to make Killian tilt his head to look at her - and he hastily scrambled up when he saw the emotion in her eyes.

"No, no, it doesn't have anything to do with your brother!" he hastily hurried to clarify. "This was years ago! I'm not involved in this, in what's happening now!"

For a second, Alicia found herself torn, staring back into those blue eyes of the man on the bed beside her. His expression looked genuine enough, but she suddenly wondered if he was just good at lying, good at hiding his real intentions behind those icy blue eyes. She let herself relax a little, but didn't fully drop her guard.

"Keep talking," she said, a little bit of the ice still in her tone of voice.

Killian kept his eyes on her, watching her reactions closely, but he did as she said. "The Zerellis, that was the family in particular that approached me," he went on. They were expanding their operations, but things were getting bloody. They needed a surgeon, someone with real skill at taking out bullets and stitching up wounds, to be on the take, willing to work for them under table so that the cops wouldn't catch on to what they were doing. Of course, no surgeon would usually risk his career like that, no matter how much money the Mob offered.

"But for a guy in trouble, like me, I couldn't say no - and they knew it."

As he paused to consider the next chapter in his story, Killian pulled himself a little more upright into a sitting position, leaning back against the pillows and headboard of the big bed. He looked down at Alicia, sorrow evident on his face.

"What else could I do?" he asked rhetorically. "I needed the money to pay my debts, and I was young. I convinced myself that I was still doing good, that I was still helping to keep people alive by working on the Mob's bruisers and enforcers that got shot up. And before long, I was hooked on that new flow of money, hooked too deep to ever cut off that string tied around my neck."

He lapsed into silence. Alicia waited for a minute, and then spoke up.

"But you're not working for them now," she said, the statement a half question.

He shook his head. "No, I'm not."

For another minute, the two of them sat silently, and then Killian cleared his throat again. "There's no real story to my getting free of their hold on me, as great as one could be," he revealed. "I realized that I was trapped, forced myself to start cutting out my bad habits, putting that money away and saving it instead. I kept on working for the Mob, never fully severed ties, didn't do anything too dramatic. I didn't want them seeing me as an enemy. But bit by bit, I took on less work for them, faded myself out, until eventually they barely ever called on me. I was their best surgeon, but they had new kids, now, men and women more desperate than me, willing to work for less money, with more strings tied to them.

"Eventually, the Mob just let me go. And I took the chance I was offered to run, to get the hell away from them before they decided to try and pull me back in - or erase me completely, so there'd be one last stooge to rat out the atrocities they'd performed in the past."

Now, Killian finally looked back up at Alicia, and she could see the pain in his eyes. That pain looked too real, too genuine and raw, to ever be faked, she knew. "I ran away, hid, decided to devote myself to other pursuits," he went on. "I started writing, wanted to try and put out a book. Everyone wants to be a writer, don't they? Crichton did it as a doctor. And that's about when I first met you, once I started going out to eat and try and get past my writer's block."

Sighing, Killian dropped his gaze back down from Alicia's face. A few feet away from her, she could feel him slipping back towards depression. She pulled herself up into a sitting position beside him, reaching out and picking up one of his hands before he could start anxiously twisting his fingers together again.

"I'm proud that you got out," she said softly to him, leaning in against him a little as his eyes moved over to her. She tried to smile, to show him that she believed him, that she trusted him. "And now I know why you want to help me - and I'm so grateful for it."

He nodded, but she couldn't stop, now, feeling tears start to well up in her eyes. Did his look a little misty as well? "If it wasn't for you, I would have already fallen apart, would have been stuck," she half-said, half-sobbed, leaning in against him. She clung to the hard shapes of his muscles, his brawny arm, pushing her face in against him. Suddenly, she wouldn't have cared if he was a complete stranger. He was her only rock, all she could rely on.

A second later, he lifted his arm, putting it around her shoulders and holding her closely, pulling her in tightly up against him. "There, there, it's going to be okay," he murmured down to her, pressing his face against her frizzy, curly hair as she buried her head against his chest and neck.

She felt his eyelashes blink against her hair, felt a slight dampness there. It took her a moment to realize that he must have a couple of tears as well, flowing down onto her head as she cried (again!) into his chest.

"There, there," he repeated, his hand around her shoulders rubbing gently at her arm. "We're going to figure things out. It's all going to be okay. I promise that I'll do everything I can to help you and your brother."

Blinking furiously at the tears, Alicia lifted herself up a little, turning so that she could look into Killian's eyes. "Why?" she asked, the word coming out a little raggedly. "Why are you helping me, when you barely know me?"

For a minute, he just looked back at her, his gaze looking fragile but still meeting her dark eyes with his blue ones. Finally, he shrugged helplessly.

"It's- it's a way for me to maybe make amends," he offered. "I know that sounds stupid, but I've done so many bad things in the past. I might never be able to make up for all the violence that I helped the Mob cause, but maybe, if I help you to stop some more violence from happening, it might be a start."

He blinked, and Alicia realized with a start that thin little tears were running down Killian's face, as well. "It's all I can do, even if it's not enough," he said, dropping his head down and shaking it back and forth.

His words sounded rough and ragged, but Alicia believed him.

"It's more than enough to me," she replied, reaching up and gently stroking his face, wiping around a tear with her dark thumb. "It's everything to me, and I'm more thankful than I can ever say."

Her hand gently lifted Killian's face back up, until they were looking into each other's eyes once again. Their faces were only a few inches away from each other, and Alicia suddenly felt a pull, almost magnetic, drawing them in closer towards each other.

She parted her lips slightly, her mind going blank. She could feel what was coming next, knew that the attraction between the two of them would lead to a kiss. Before, she might have broken away, tried to prevent it from happening.

But now, in the moment, she couldn't even avert her eyes from his arresting gaze.

Their lips moved in, closer, only an inch or two away-

-and then, cutting through the silence with a deafeningly shrill buzz, her phone started to ring.

Chapter fourteen

For a second, Killian saw Alicia freeze, only an inch or so in front of his face. Her lips were slightly parted, and she looked as though she was still hoping that maybe, despite the ringing phone, he might lean in and kiss her.

He could feel that pull, still, tugging them closer together. His arm still rested around her body, holding her leanness up against him, ready to pull her close as their lips finally met. He physically hungered for that, wanted that connection to happen more than anything he could imagine.

"You should answer that," he forced out through his lips, tearing his eyes away from her anxious but desirous face. "That's probably them."

With his eyes now averted, the spell between them broke. Alicia also turned her head away, suddenly scrambling back away from him. Killian knew that she was only scooting away so that she could grab her phone from her purse on the edge of the bed, but he still keenly felt the loss of her body heat as she pulled away. A little part of him wanted to reach out and grab her, pull her back into her arms. He had to work for a moment to suppress the irrational urge.

Alicia dug through her purse and pulled out the ringing, vibrating phone. "I don't recognize the number," she said, glancing back up at Killian. She moved back a little closer to him, and he hated the little surge of pleasure as he felt her thighs lean up against his legs once again.

"Answer it," he assured her, reaching out and patting her upper arms with his hands. "Just stay calm. Ask why Marcus is in trouble, why he owes them a debt. Tell them that you want to pay, you'll do anything to help your brother, but you don't have a lot of money. Be open with them, try to be honest."

She nodded, taking a deep breath. "You can do this," Killian told her, trying to inject as much conviction into his words as possible.

"I can do this," Alicia repeated, although she still sounded doubtful.

And then she answered the phone, lifting it up to her ear. "Hello?" she said, managing to keep the quiver in her voice to a minimum. Killian squeezed her shoulders again, hoping that he was managing to pass some of his belief into her.

He leaned a little closer - only so he could try and hear the voice on the other end of the line, he told himself. Not because he still wanted to stay close to this woman, to somehow try and bring back the moment they'd almost shared just a few seconds previously.

Alicia caught his movement, and she lowered the phone, putting it on speaker. Holding it out on her palm, she leaned back against Killian, back against his chest.

"This is Marcus's sister?"

From the way that Alicia stiffened, Killian guessed that this was the same voice that had contacted her previously. "Yes," she replied. "Listen, is my brother-"

"He's still alive - for now." The voice cut her off impatiently. "About the money-"

Killian could feel Alicia's reluctance to speak up, but he gently tightened his grip on her shoulders again. She needed to be the one to push for more information. If he said anything, he'd give away to the kidnappers that someone was helping Alicia, that she'd told someone else.

If they knew that fact, her brother might not live to see the sunset.

But Alicia managed to speak up again, despite her evident fear. "Please, why does my brother owe you money? What did he do?" she asked, her voice plaintive and pleading for answers.

The voice at the other end of the end went silent for a moment, but they didn't disconnect. Killian took that as a good sign, and he sent mental signals to Alicia to wait, letting the silence build up.

"He fucked up a deal with us." It was hard to tell for certain through the low quality connection, but the voice sounded annoyed at having to share this information. "He was supposed to run a package for us, but he pussied out at the last minute, left us holding the bag. He lost us a lot of money, and now, he's gonna lose his life for that mistake unless you pay up for it."