Falling for the Killer: A Dark Possessive Mafia Romance, B.B Hamel [good story books to read .TXT] 📗

strange sort of smirking grimace, like a skeleton showing its naked molars.

I took his hand and shook it. He blew out smoke up into the air and released before standing.

“Consider it done,” Colm said. “Stuart’s all yours. My boys will move onto their turf as soon as he’s dead.”

“Fine,” I said, nodding.

“Lovely doing business.” Colm tipped his hat and put the cigar between his teeth. He walked off, puffing away, his hands shoved into his pockets as the rain splattered onto the ground all around him. He disappeared down the paths until he was nothing more than the glowing cherry, then nothing at all.

I looked at Ash and squeezed her hands again. She took a deep, shuddering breath and let it out before moving closer to me.

“Are you sure about this?” she asked. “Maybe we don’t have to kill Stuart.”

“It’s the only way,” I said. “It’ll send a message to everyone in the city, including your family. I think it’s the only way they’ll leave us alone.”

She hesitated, and I wondered if she’d try to stop me. Stuart was an abusive piece of shit that deserved to swallow the barrel of my gun, but Ash still knew him and probably thought she’d marry him at one point. It must’ve been hard for her to imagine that I’d snuff him out like a rotten candle.

“I want to come with you,” she said, staring into my eyes.

I hadn’t expected that. I leaned back and studied her, not sure what to think. Her face was serious and hard, all angular lines and gorgeous lips. I leaned forward and kissed her softly before whispering in her ear, “You can pull the trigger, if you want.”

She sucked in a breath. “I don’t think I’m ready for that,” she whispered back.

I stood up and pulled her to her feet. “We’ll see,” I said, and led her back to the truck, and to the end of this.

21

Ash

Gian parked at the curb of a quiet, sleepy house in a dead-end neighborhood in the heart of the Main Line about ten minutes from my parents’ house. The front lights were off, though something was on deep toward the back. Gian killed the engine and stared at the house for a few minutes before looking at me.

“You sure about this?” he asked. “It’s not too late to turn back.”

I looked at the house. I’d never been there before—this was Stuart’s place, and I’d only ever visited the main Plight mansion. This house was smaller, a bit more modest, though it had the columns, big windows and tall peaked roofs that marked it as one of the more expensive dwellings in the area.

Stuart couldn’t help but show off his wealth, even if most of it came from his family.

“You think this is the only way, right?” I asked, leaning my head back against the seat.

“We could come up with another idea,” he said. “Something short of killing him.”

I closed my eyes and thought about Stuart’s grabbing my wrists, about him pushing me against the wall, about the abuse and the fact that I was ready to give in to all that, ready to accept my lonely and broken life if it meant helping my family, and I hated him for it, hated all of them. If I could kill them all, I would.

“Let’s do it,” I said.

Gian nodded once and took a gun from the glovebox. He slipped it into the waistband of his dark pants and stepped out of the truck.

I followed him. The neighborhood was pitch dark and not a single person was outside this late. I scanned the other houses, looking for shifting curtains or any sign that someone was watching, but there was nothing but the night.

Gian skirted around the side of the house. He hesitated near the windows, but jumped the back fence. He helped me over, and we walked up onto a beautiful back patio with a pool sunk down into the earth. A blow-up giraffe floated in the deep end. The furniture was black metal and a massive built-in grill and oven took up the left side of the house.

The back door was locked, but Gian picked it. “I’m not good at this,” he whispered, his face screwed up in concentration, “but I get the job done.”

It took him a few horrible, anxious minutes. I jumped at every sound—at a neighbor’s dog barking in the distance, at the sound of the wind in the trees, at the flutter of owl wings. It felt unreal, that we were here to murder a man.

Gian got the door open. He hesitated inside the small mudroom, waiting for the sound of an alarm, but there was nothing. Typical of people out here—nothing bad ever happened to the rich.

We moved past piles of shoes and a washer and a dryer, and stepped into a large kitchen. Granite countertops, expensive cooktop. It looked like it had been professional staged, and for all I knew, it had been. Stuart probably never actually cooked.

There were no lights on downstairs. Gian checked the living room and I poked my head into an office. Bookshelves loomed, the desk was a modern wood-and-metal contraption that probably converted to stand. There was a home gym in the basement and a built-in bar that looked like a real pub, and the whole place reeked of rich bachelor indulgence.

As I followed Gian up the stairs, I realized that I was so close to making this place my own.

If things had gone differently, I would’ve moved in here. The decorations would’ve changed, the place would’ve softened a bit, but it still would’ve been Stuart’s. I would’ve been Stuart’s, my whole life owned and controlled. It didn’t matter that I was born into money—I was still born to marry for my family’s power.

The door at the far end of the upstairs hall was shut. The wooden floorboards creaked and crackled with every step. Gian took the gun from his pants and held it in both hands. He looked