Shotgun Wedding: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance (12 page)

"I'll listen, I'll listen, I'll listen," I cry out. "I'll listen to you!"

"Tell me you trust me." His voice sounds so tight, like's he's as worked-up and on the edge as I am.

"I trust you, Gray!"

I barely get the words out before he attacks my clit, thrusting against me, fucking me from the outside while his fingers fuck me from the inside. I fly apart—over the edge—my orgasm so intense I see stars. I fall to the bed, and Gray keeps pumping his fingers inside of me, aftershocks of pleasure torturing my body.

Then Gray comes. I hear him grunt, feel the one second of hot come before it cools, spread across my back. Hear him say my name, like a prayer to a goddess.

"
Katya, Katya, Katya
."

This time I don't fight him when he takes me to his room, and puts me in his bed.

I
trust you
.

The next day, I wake up in Gray's arms, my words from the night before ringing in my ears.

I trust you
.

As Gray showers and gets ready to leave for the day, he tells me he trusts me, too. No bodyguards, no following me. My heart soars—and then plummets.

Because the only thing I want to do requires me to break Gray's trust, implicitly: I need to get to the bar and get my birth certificate. Even though last night, in his arms, I never wanted to leave him, I have to be smart. We've only been together two days.

I laugh, remembering our shotgun wedding. We are
literally
in the honeymoon phase.

I needed to remember that he left me once. That he works for a psychotic Russian killer.

That he himself has probably killed people.

It just doesn't hurt to be prepared. I should have a passport, no matter what.

Still, my heart beats faster when Gray comes out into the kitchen. He's wearing a black t-shirt and jeans and looks impossibly beautiful. He comes up behind me, wraps his arms around me, and I lean back into him.

Don't trust him, don't trust him, don't give your heart away
. In the cold light of day, I'm trying to talk some sense into myself.

He kisses my cheek and it feels so damn good.

"You made me breakfast, babes?" Another kiss. "What is it?"

I laugh. He sounds incredulous. "It's just scrambled eggs with cheese. Well, and a little Half and Half for richness." I fill a plate with eggs and thick, buttered toast, and watch him dig in. He eats like a starving man.

I find myself just standing in the kitchen, holding my cup of warm coffee, smiling because I get to watch him
eat
.

Jesus. I am in trouble. Because I thought Gray would trap me with locked doors and bodyguards.

But it's my own damn heart that's going to bind me here.

Gray looks up, catches my eye, and winks.

"Barefoot in the kitchen, babes. Makes me want to put some babies in you."

I almost drop my cup. Yep. That's a sign—as much as his words make suddenly tingle from head to toe—I
cannot
get pregnant and have a mafia warlord's baby.

Or whatever his official title is.

"Eat your eggs," I say, turning around. I suddenly have the need to clean all of the pans. Anything so I don't look at him.

He comes up behind me. Another scratchy kiss.

"I've gotta go. Duty calls."

"Mafia warlords have to work on Saturdays? Sucks to be you. You guys should form a union or something."

Gray laughs. "I actually won't be at the bar until later. Got some…errands. And then
very
later, I'll be back here." He leans into me, snuggling.

Mafia warlord snuggles. Fucking hell. They're the best
.

"Wait for me in my bed tonight?"

I nod, then turn around and kiss him goodbye.

I'm about to go break his trust into a million pieces.

* * *

I
take
the subway to Brooklyn. My mother's parents opened O'Malley's Irish Tavern when they immigrated to the U.S. I have vague memories of my grandfather polishing the bar, and feeding me piles of maraschino cherries behind my mother's back.

The memories of my mother, sadly, are just as vague. She passed away when I was eight. Cancer. My eyes tear up as I walk down the worn sidewalks in Williamsburg. This used to be a rough neighborhood, back when my mother would pick me up from school and walk me to the family bar.

I have memories of holding her hand, dappled sunlight peeking through the trees, her long brown hair flying in the wind as she looked back and smiled at me.

I remember the feeling of holding her hand more than I can remember the details of her face.

I take a deep breath, pass a group of loitering hipsters, and make my way toward the bar. After my mother died—followed a few years later by my grandparents—my father lost his way. Or his will to live. I don't know what went wrong. But he let the bar go to shit—along with his relationship with his daughter.

My dad had blamed the U.S. government, the state government, the city, gentrification, the President and about fifty other people for O'Malley's demise. Now I know it was just him. He probably wasn't just skimming off the top. He was probably taking large chunks of profit and blowing them up his nose.

I've worked here since I was a teenager, when I'd bus tables and wash dishes after school, then do my homework in the basement office. By the end of high school, I was cooking in the kitchens, though none of it was glamorous. Burgers, fries, cheese sticks and fried pickles mostly. But I'd loved it, even when Elle would wrinkle her nose and tell me I smelled like French fries the next day in class.

The bar is on the corner, with remnants of brick walkways peeking out from underneath the blacktop in the street. The sidewalks are all red brick, and once you get inside, the wood floors and beams are all original and probably close to a hundred years old.

I walk in and smile, looking at the cheesy but cute framed photos of Irish kids and the Irish flag hanging on the wall.

Then I look at the customers.

Normally we'd have a few regulars and a whole lot of hipsters, who'd been gentrifying Williamsburg at a lightning pace.

Today the place is packed. With Russians.

Lots and lots of huge Russian men.

Gloria's behind the bar. She raises her eyebrows at me, and I sneak up to talk to her.

"Well, congratulations?" Gloria's fifty, looks sixty, and due to her heavy smoking and drinking, sounds seventy.

She's got the attitude of a twenty-year-old, however.

I hug her and shake my head. "How are you?"

"Honey, I've seen the size of your husband. How are
you
? I'm surprised you're not walking bow-legged!"

"Gloria!" I know I'm blushing wildly. She just cackles. "How's it going here?"

"Well, I gotta say, honey. They tip for shit, but your new man is whipping my old ass—and everyone else's—into shape."

"Is he here?" I look around the room, but can't see him. I see enough scary-looking thugs, however, to make me actually happy I don't have to work here anymore. "And—are you okay? Are they treating you well?"

Gloria grins and takes a swig from her open can of beer. "Doll, I've seen 'em come and I've seen 'em go. These boys don't bother me. And Gray's payin' better than your Dad, so that's a plus."

I raise my eyebrows. "Wow, well. That's good. Have you heard from my dad? The bastard?"

"Honey, he ain't been seen. Disappeared. Off the map. And that's maybe the only smart thing that damn fool's ever done."

I nod, but am distracted by a few of the men who are starting to stare at me. It's hard to tell them all apart. None of them are as good-looking as Gray, but they are all pretty big, wearing predominantly black, and full of attitude. One man in particular, with pinched black eyes, seems to be studying me. I don't know why, but it makes me feel nervous, like the back of my neck is exposed and an ax could swing down at any time.

"I'm gonna say hi to the guys in the kitchen," I tell Gloria. The man with the dark eyes is sitting at a table near the back, but he hasn't stopped watching me.

"Bring me back a coffee!" Gloria calls out, before taking another sip of beer.

I follow the dark, winding hallway back to the kitchens. When my grandfather ran the place, I remember loving the quaint, old photos he had framed and hung all over the place: Irish immigrants, parades, cute kids with potatoes. Now the wallpaper is peeling and all the photos are gone.

It just makes me even more depressed.

The kitchen smells like bleach and fried food, and I say hi to Derek and Smalls, the two fry cooks. They're sitting on folding chairs, drinking beer.

"Katie, what's up, girl?" Derek says. He's my age and has worked here a couple years, though he's saving up to go to culinary school in the city.

"Yeah, girl, what the fuck is going on out there?" Smalls chimes in. He's closer to sixty, a Cuban immigrant with a belly and a laugh like Santa's. "It's like a fucking Communist Party meeting or something."

I grin and start rifling through the shelves, looking for my cookbooks. It would be good to have them at Gray's. "I think it's maybe exactly the opposite of the Communist Party, because I'm pretty sure every one of those guys is getting paid."

"But Katie, what the fuck—did you
marry
that guy? The big one?" Derek says.

"Which big one?" Smalls guffaws and slaps his knee.

"The
real
big one!"

I start loading dirty glasses into the huge, industrial dishwasher that fills the corner of the kitchen. "I guess," I say.

"You guess?" Smalls says. "Sounds like there's a story there, girl. And after seeing all those guys in the front of the bar,
I
do not
want to hear any part of it
."

I have to laugh along with the guys.

"Yeah, me either, really," I say.

"Let's see the ring!" Derek raises his beer to me, from the other side of the kitchen.

I'm glad my hands are busy so he can't see my lack of a ring, and I'm glad I'm on the other side of a long, steel counter with some hanging shelving in between us. Because I'm sure I'm bushing.

Their questions shouldn't bother me—it's just
business
—but I'm embarrassed.

"
Da
, let's see your wedding ring,
Katya
."

I freeze at the voice behind me.

It's a deep voice, with a thick Russian accent. And he's calling me "Katya," but it's sure as hell not Gray.

I have a sinking feeling in my stomach, even before I turn around.

It's the man who'd been watching me upstairs. He's tall. Not as tall as Gray, but much bigger than me. Thick, stocky, with close-cut dark brown hair, and bloodshot brown eyes. He's wearing multiple gold rings, and I can see tattoos on his neck, rising up from beneath the collar of his starched, white shirt.

He's wearing an ill-fitting suit, and an aura of menace.

"Ah, shit," I hear Smalls mutter quietly behind me.

"You have a problem?" The man jerks his head and hones in on the guys behind me. "Get the fuck out of here. I want to give my congratulations to the blushing bride."

"Ah, leave her alone, man," Derek says from the other side of the work station.

I feel this mystery snap to attention, glaring over my head at Derek and Smalls. Then he slowly opens his suit jacket, revealing a gun in a holster.

"Do we have a problem here?" His accent is thick, his tone cruel. I'd heard the description "dead-eyed" before, but until I met this man, I didn't really understand.

"Nah, man, nah."

"Get the fuck out. Now. If you don't listen to me, don't come back to work."

I gasp. Smalls' paycheck helps take care of his wife
and
his two little granddaughters who live with them. And Derek is helping out his mom with medical bills while also trying to save for school.

I hear the shuffling of chairs and the men rushing out the door, though I'm afraid to turn around and watch them go. I feel like a deer, and this man is a wolf.

It hits me: when Gray stalks me, I want to be caught.

Right now, I'm frozen because I half-think this man really might hurt me.

But he wouldn't, would he? Not in my—I mean, Gray's bar? Not with so many people upstairs?

But shit. Gray's not here.

"Are you a friend of my husband's?" I say, my voice shaking.

He grins, but it's the scariest smile I've ever seen.

"Oh, I wouldn't call Petrokov a
friend
." I can smell the whiskey on his breath. "We are associates, you could say."

He stares at my T-shirt, like he's trying to imagine the color of my bra.

"What's your name?" I can barely get the words out. I eye the door, wondering if I can make it past him and run up the stairs.

He moves closer. Then closer. He blocks my exit.

"Grigor Markov." He reaches down and takes my hand, bringing it up to his lips. I watch in horror as he kisses the top of my hand. It's the act of a gentleman, but the intent is his eyes is pure subversion.

"Pleased to meet you," I say, attempting to pull my hand from his. He presses tightly for just a moment, refusing to release me, then laughs at what must be panic on my face. I'm pulling away from him so strongly that when he finally, suddenly, lets go, my hand flies down and hits the countertop behind me.

That's when I realize I've slowly been moving backwards, and he's been following me, and now I'm trapped between the countertop and the man Gray warned me about.

"Do you know, sweet girl, that I was your intended? Before Petrokov stepped in?"

My lips are suddenly dry, but I won't lick them. Not in front of him. I try to slow my breathing. "Gray might have mentioned something about that."

"It's too bad, really, that he so desperately wanted this bar. But now that I see you up close, I have to wonder: was it really the bar Petrokov wanted?"

Markov leans down, putting his face inches from mine. "Or was it you?"