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chapter 62
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Mafia's Cruel Arrangement chapter 63
ASHTONThree months later and Elijah was directing Shorty Easter to my new place of business. It was just one of many. I’d moved it farther north of the city, and we owned a good acreage on the Hudson River. This particular new building was a warehouse, one that no body of government was aware of. Yet.It was also the perfect place for me to fulfill my second promise to Molly.Elijah brought him inside. We were both ignoring his protests as he put him in a chair and whisked off the bag from over his head.Shorty quieted, blinking a few times for his gaze to adjust to the change. It was daylight outside, the sun fully shining down, and in here, all dark except for a few lamps in the corner.“Ashton Walden?” Shorty’s hair was greasy, as always. He had his usual homeless-esque attire on. A cargo jacket with holes for the elbows. The pocket was pulled off. The ends of his jacket were shredded and frayed. His jeans were just as bad, and I couldn’t see what kind of shirt he had on under the
Mafia's Cruel Arrangement chapter 64
MOLLYAshton wanted to take me on a trip, but I hadn’t expected a helicopter ride.I gaped at him when we drove up to the helipad. “Are you serious?”He smiled before nodding. He’d also asked for me to dress up, so I was wearing a dress. V neck. The material was the softest fabric. Sequined. It looked light pink, but in the right light, it could sparkle and give off undertones of lilac as well. And it was wrapped around me like a robe. I tied it in front. Ashton was wearing a black suit and an off-white shirt under. He looked dashing.“What’s the occasion?”He squeezed my hand, nodding to the helicopter. “Just get on. You’ll see.”A guy approached us, wearing a bright-orange vest. We were given these helmet/visor things with radio pieces for our ears. It helped silence the sound, but we could still talk to each other. After we got in and seat belted, the helicopter lifted off.I’d never imagined this was something I would do in my life. Never, ever. Not being the daughter of Shorty Ea
Mafia's Cruel Arrangement Epilogue
ASHTONI waited until the next morning. I didn’t want to be predictable, but as soon as she started waking up, with her coffee already on the nightstand, she rolled over, and I was there.“Morni—” She stopped because she saw what was in my hand.The ring. I moved so I was half lying on her, nestled between her legs, and I held it up to her. “Will you marry me?”“Ashton.” She sat up slowly, reaching for the ring.She’d start crying. She was a crier, at least lately, but she cried when she was happy. She rarely cried from the other reasons anymore.Those tears were starting. Her bottom lip beginning to tremble. “Is this—are you sure?”I groaned. “God, I’m sure.” I reached forward, brushing her hair back, tucking it behind her ear, and I held her head in the palm of my hand. “I meant it last night. I think I’ve loved you since we were kids. Just took me a long time to figure it out.”She was biting her lip, still crying, but her eyes were beaming at me. She kept looking from me to the ri
Mafia's Cruel Arrangement Bonus Story
Rex, a dedicated lawyer, finds himself caught in a dangerous web of deceit and betrayal when his best friend and law firm partner becomes the target of a vengeful client. As tensions rise, Rex's attention turns to protecting his friend's daughter, Raina, who unwittingly becomes a pawn in this high-stakes game.Driven by a fierce sense of duty and an unyielding desire to keep Raina safe, Rex goes to extreme lengths to shield her from harm. Their bond grows stronger amidst the palpable tension, leading Raina's father to entrust Rex with her protection while he deals with his own troubles.But Rex's unwavering commitment to Raina comes at a cost. As their connection deepens, he must navigate the blurred lines of their relationship, grappling with his protective instincts and the undeniable attraction between them. Will Rex be able to keep Raina safe without losing himself in the process?
Mafia's Cruel Arrangement I
REXSleep is the only thing I want when my phone rings ten minutes to midnight. The darkness of my bedroom shatters with every flash of the screen, forcing me to roll over to grab the obnoxious device off the nightstand.“Yeah?” I answer, my voice rough, and sleep desperately wants me to go back to bed.“Rex.” Owen strains just saying my name, which gets me to sit all the way up. I’m wide awake as I wait for my law partner and best friend to tell me what’s going on.“Hey, I’m up. What’s happening? Where are you?” I ask him. The bed creaks quietly under my weight while I swing my legs over the side. The dark gray carpet is warm as I pad my way into the bathroom. The lights force me to squint, waiting for my eyes to adjust to being open at this hour.“Saint Salvatore’s,” he grunts out. I’m already doing the math of how long it will take for me to get dressed and drive over there.I tell him, “I’ll be there in like twenty minutes.”“No, don’t.” He strains and grunts from the obvious pain
Mafia's Cruel Arrangement II
There’s no lock on the lobby door, which I don’t like under the current circumstances. The dim lights cast an ugly yellow hue across its ordinary light beige floors and dark beige walls. The grid of silver mailboxes is directly across from a hallway holding three apartments. There’s another hallway in front of me beside the elevator.A glance over my shoulder at the mailbox shows the names of the tenants on each. It’s convenient, but I don’t like it. After ripping Raina Olsen’s name off her mailbox, I head toward her apartment. I don’t want to wake her, and instead of ringing the bell, I test the doorknob to make sure the lock is still intact.The door doesn’t budge, which makes me feel slightly better. I want to get my eyes on her. The windows to her apartment are around the back of the building from what I remember. It only takes me a few minutes to make my way around the side of the building.My eyes continue to drift to the fence line separating the building’s property from the ho
Mafia's Cruel Arrangement III
RAINASage and leather are the scents that hit me first any time Rex is nearby.I’m not sure if it’s his soap or cologne, or if his skin just pushes the scent out like a pheromone. It’s not a shock that I’d dream about him. He smells so close and I call out to him, but sleep still holds me close.The banging on my door forces my eyes open before I can have my way with the Rex of my dreams. Only when I get up to stop the incessant noisemaker do I turn around to see him standing by my bed.Fear hits me before I realize it’s Rex, and the banging on the door isn’t stopping. After I throw on a robe to answer the door, I want to know what he’s doing here. However, the sound of keys unlocking my front door makes my heart stop. Rex points for me to get back and sit on my couch. I obey him this time.I sit down and the door swings open with Drew, my building super, rushing inside and crashing into Rex’s broad chest. Drew’s about an inch taller than Rex, but they’re around the same build. It be
Mafia's Cruel Arrangement IV
I pull away from Rex, his hand lingering on my ass longer than necessary as I go to lock the door.“What are you doing here, Rex?” I ask him, going into the kitchen. I’m desperate to distract myself from the way he makes me feel. There’s an anticipation of what can happen. He’s a man in my apartment in the middle of the night.He follows me to the kitchen, his size swallowing me in the open space. There’s barely enough space between my slim dining table that only seats two and the counter where I sit an empty glass I’ve pulled from the cabinet. Rex approaches me, his presence dominating and strong. I want him to kiss me. Forget answering questions.He takes the lapels of my robe, holding it open for a moment, dragging his gaze up and down my body before sliding the robe back in place to cover me.“You shouldn’t answer the door like that,” he says.I shrug. “I wasn’t. I was going to yell from this side of it that I was fine and go back to bed.”Rex hooks a finger under my chin, tilting
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Mafia's Cruel Arrangement chapter 11
“He has a point. You got shot four times.”“Six times, actually.” I touched the spots on my body like a prayer. “Drive-by shooting. It was apparently meant for him, but I stepped out of the house at the wrong time, and boom. They decided to settle for his daughter instead.”“That’s not supposed to happen,” Mona said, frowning. “We’re not supposed to be fair game.”“It’s not a game to them though, to guys like that. Those assholes don’t care if we’re innocent or not. They’ll hurt us if it gets them what they want.”“I’m sorry that happened to you.”I waved it away and stared out over the yard. I didn’t remember much from the aftermath, but I remembered it happening vividly: the black truck that pulled up, the guns that appeared in the windows, the way I screamed, the pain as it flared, the weird, almost calm knowledge that I was going to die. Then black, then waking up in the hospital, in pain, very, very angry, and all the rehabilitation, the surgery, the bullshit. It took months to g
Mafia's Cruel Arrangement chapter 10
Amber After that very strange, but surprisingly good night out at the bar, I did my best to hide from him for the next couple days. When we were sitting at the bar, our legs touching slightly, I felt it: that tingle down my spine, that buzz on my lips. We ate, he asked about me, made me laugh, and toward the end of the night, our fingers touched as we reached for the check, and I stared into his eyes, and I knew in that moment that if he’d kissed me, right then and there at the bar, I would’ve kissed him back. We walked back together, said goodnight, and I’ve been hiding from him ever since. I should hate him. I don’t understand what the heck would attract me to a guy like that. He robbed a man in front of me for fun. I hated that sort of thing, hated men that bragged about crime and thought it was exciting, hated that sort of macho arrogant crap most of all, and yet somehow, he was different. He didn’t seem to take himself too seriously, and he made jokes all the time, and of cou
Mafia's Cruel Arrangement chapter 9
I walked along the bar toward a large man up near the door. He was on the way to the restrooms, so I had a good excuse to pass him. I exaggerated my sway, just a little bit, making myself look drunker than I was. The guy had a goatee, a double chin, and a tiny sprout of hair at the top of his head. I noticed the Rolex first, then the way he leaned toward a much younger, much prettier girl and grinned at her with a creepy hunger in his eyes, and I’d watched him down three drinks since I’d started my first. He was rich, he was trying to impress a girl, and he was drunk, which made him ideal.It wasn’t a complicated maneuver. Amber stared at me, wild and ready to get up and chase me down, so I hurried a little bit. I turned the corner toward the restrooms and bumped into the guy, grunting as I did it loudly. My hand slipped into the pocket of the jacket he had hung on his chair— found nothing.“Shit, sorry,” I grunted, and slipped my hand into his pants pocket. It was tricky, but they we
Mafia's Cruel Arrangement chapter 8
“To our night out,” I said.She smiled, met my toast, and sipped her drink. “This place isn’t so bad.”“You got a lot of spots like this back home?”She shook her head. “I didn’t come to fancy places like this. I’m more of a dive bar girl myself.”“Funny, I’m the same way. South Philly is filled with little holes in the wall, bars that have been there for generations. Some real cheap, trashy places, but you can get good and drunk and see the boys from the neighborhood there, so it’s not so bad.”“Philly’s a weird place. It seems so small, you know?”“It’s old. Not built in an ideal spot. Didn’t sprawl out like the newer cities. Chicago’s kind of that way too.”“I guess that’s true. I like it though. It’s got character.”“That’s what I think. Philly’s got everything you could want, and it’s cheaper than most other cities, plus it’s a lot smaller, so you can get around way easier.”“If you’re trying to get me to move here permanently, I think I’m sold.”I laughed. “I’m not sure you’d wa
Mafia's Cruel Arrangement chapter 7
Ren At first, the job wasn’t so bad. I hung around that big house, watched TV when I felt like it, bothered Amber when I got bored, and kept out of Mona’s way as much as I could. Things were quiet for a while, but after a few days it started to get real old, real quick. Amber wasn’t happy. That got pretty obvious by the fiftieth time she told me to go fuck off. Not that I minded if she told me to go to hell, to be totally honest—I sort of liked that she pushed back against me. The girl had spirit, she was a goddamn handful, but I could tell something hung over her. I kept thinking about those fresh-looking scars on her body, so like the bullet wound scars I’d seen on countless other guys, and had a couple myself, but that made no sense. I couldn’t imagine what a girl like her would be doing with bullet scars. One night, Mona decided to head into the city. Amber watched her go like a sad puppy, and I knew she wanted to go with her, if only to escape the house for a little while. I l
Mafia's Cruel Arrangement chapter 6
I climbed out of the water, intensely away of his eyes on my body. He was a good-looking guy, muscular but trim, with light eyes and dark hair slicked back. His pouty lips would’ve made a younger version of myself swoon, but I was over all that, over and done with it. I felt self-conscious, though, and realized that some of my scars were visible— the two on my leg, and the one on my shoulder. I quickly walked to my towel and grabbed it, wrapping it around myself, but too late. I caught him looking with a thoughtful frown. “We should set up some ground rules, if we’re going to do this for real.” He looked at me and shrugged. “All right. You played along with me, so I’ll play along with you. Give and take, the bedrock of any healthy relationship.” I doubted he’d ever been in a healthy relationship, but I didn’t say that out loud. “When I’m swimming, you can’t sit there and watch me.” “Fair enough.” “And you can’t follow me around all the time.” “That’d make me a shitty bodyg
Mafia's Cruel Arrangement chapter 5
Amber Vincent hustled me out to his house in Mt. Airy the next day, accompanied by my hired goon babysitter. I ignored him. It wasn’t easy though. He was a big guy, broad shoulders, stubble on his face and chin, but he held himself with this strange grace that I couldn’t totally understand. He commanded a room, and I kept sneaking glances in his direction, and caught him looking back at me, seemingly unashamed at being caught. I didn’t know what his deal was, but it annoyed the hell out of me, and drove me wild at the same time. The Mt. Airy house was Vincent’s wife’s place, a nice, pretty girl named Mona. She met us out front in black pants and a white button-down shirt. She was a few years older than me, with dark hair cut short, and dark brown eyes. She smiled, hugged me, glanced at Ren, then held me by the shoulders. “You must be Amber. Vince told me all about you.” “Yeah?” I asked, smiling a little, trying to ignore the way Ren loomed behind me. “I hope it’s all good thin
Mafia's Cruel Arrangement chapter 4
“If you’re asking me to fight your war, I’m not interested.” He shook his head and held up his hands. “Something simpler, actually. There’s a girl that came to live with me, daughter of a capo in the Chicago family. She went through something recently, they’re having their own problems out there, and she was sent here to get away from the heat. Unfortunately, things are getting hot around here now, too.” I thought of the girl I’d seen with the long dark hair and the intense expression. She must’ve been twenty, maybe a little older. It must’ve been the same girl he was talking about. “Not sure what she would have to do with me.” “I need you to be her bodyguard.” I let that sink in for a second then burst out laughing. He stared at me, eyes hard and cold, and I knew this wasn’t a joke—but it had to be. I wasn’t a bodyguard. I was a thief, and the occasional thug. I had a reputation for myself, sure enough, but nobody entrusted a life in my hands—much less the life of a young, bea
Mafia's Cruel Arrangement chapter 3
When Vince came calling, I had to answer. The Leone family was the largest mafia in Philadelphia, and I was still an independent guy, working all my jobs alone. I was happiest that way, and didn’t want to get tangled up by the Leones, but their money was good and the job was simple: track down a couple goons and beat the ever-loving shit out of them. I brought Floyd along and offered to split the pay sixty-forty. He thought it was an even split, but shit, that’s on him for not asking. “Either way. I hope they got the message.” Vincent smiled and clapped me on the shoulder, the one with the knife wound, and I grimaced. He had the good manners to look a little embarrassed before turning to Floyd. “Thanks for the assistance. I’m sure Ren will have your money soon.” “When I get paid, he gets paid,” I said, nodding. “Very good.” Vincent squeezed my shoulder. “I actually have another job for you, if you’d be willing to talk?” I hesitated. I really didn’t want to get too involved. The Le
