Falling for the Killer: A Dark Possessive Mafia Romance by B.B Hamel (books to read for beginners .txt) 📗

hadn’t changed a bit. Cleo was always like this, even back in school: catty, chatty, and ready to dish. We’d never been great friends, mostly because Cleo never had any true friends. She gossiped way too much for that and nobody ever trusted her. I realized this meeting was going to make the rounds all over the place, and I tried to guess what she’d say.

Poor Ashleigh seems super pathetic, like doesn’t even drink, no boyfriend, no job, like, all she has is her family name and that’s not even so impressive anymore these days.

It made me want to puke.

“And, ugh, okay, so she got this little dog, and she totally named it Max!” Cleo threw her hands up and stared at me like I should be completely appalled.

“Sorry,” I said. “Max?” I grinned sheepishly.

“That was totally my name,” Cleo said. “Like back in school? I told everyone I wanted to name my first baby Max! Either Maximus or Maxine, depending on the sex, and then that crazy psycho bitch named her dog Max, and now I can’t name my baby after her dog, right?”

“Right,” I said, nodding slightly, and resisted the temptation to touch my belly. I hadn’t even thought about names yet, and I didn’t have all that much more time to figure it out.

In fact, I hadn’t thought about anything, and suddenly it felt very real.

I let Cleo keep talking. She went on about old friends and acquaintances, about who makes a lot of money, who mooches off their family, and who is sleeping around. She finished a beer, ordered a wine, made some sideways comment about me not drinking with her, and kept going on and on about people I hadn’t thought about in years.

It was exhausting. And I used to be like that.

Gian hadn’t changed me. I was already changing before him, slowly drifting away from this vapid, empty obsessing with social standing and what everyone else was doing around me. I’d already started that trend anyway, but he accelerated it and made it so much more intense.

I felt like I had nothing in common with Cleo anymore, and it scared me.

For as long as I could remember, I wanted a life just like hers. She had a boyfriend, they made their own money, and she had a job at some little boutique marketing firm that specialized in dog adoption agencies. She had a life and was going to get married soon, and I was jealous of that.

By contrast, I was pregnant by a mobster and had no clue what was going to happen to me in two hours, let alone by the time the baby came.

And yet the idea of going back to that world scared me even more than staying with Gian. He was a killer, a straight-up murdering monster, but at least he was honest about himself. He never lied to me, never acted like he was better than me, and didn’t care about what the world thought of him.

It was liberating and beautiful.

Cleo was empty and terrible.

And I hated myself for thinking that. I wanted Cleo’s life and I wished I could go back to that, but as she finished her glass of wine and asked me some surface-level questions about my life, which I mostly dodged because I didn’t know how to tell her that I was knocked up by a stranger and he wanted me to live with him so he could help raise the baby, I knew that I had to talk to Gian.

I had to start planning for my future, and he was going to be a part of my life.

“It was so good seeing you,” Cleo said outside after she settled the bill. She kissed my cheek and hugged me. “God, you’re so skinny, you bitch.” She beamed at me, perfect white teeth, and walked off.

I watched her go. It was still relatively early, just a few minutes past nine, and I wondered if I could go somewhere to eat.

But as I turned away from Monk’s and started back toward Gian’s, a van suddenly came screeching around the corner and slammed to a stop next to me.

I stared in surprise. There was nobody else around—the sidewalk was empty. Monk’s was located on a little side street, surrounded by quiet row homes. The back door slid open and some dumb part of me thought maybe I was being filmed in a movie or something, because three guys came out wearing black clothes and black masks.

“Ashleigh Adamson,” one said, coming toward me, big and muscular, and I took a step back and turned, ready to run screaming—

When hands grabbed me by the wrist, then the waist, I thrashed and my elbow caught someone in the mouth. “Fucking bitch,” he growled, and someone punched me in the gut.

I gasped, doubled over, as they dragged me into the van, shoved a bag over my head, and slammed the door shut.

18

Gian

Something was wrong with Ash.

It was obvious the second we got home from that hit. I thought the bath might help calm her down and draw her out, but she only went into her room and never came out again.

I knew better than to push. I’d seen this happen before with other guys in the family. Even the toughest, baddest motherfuckers sometimes broke down at their first kill. Watching someone die wasn’t easy—and watching someone kill was even harder. Ash got thrown into shark-infested waters, and now it was up to her to decide if she wanted to swim or get out.

I wanted her to stay. So I pretended to go about my day like normal, but left Brett to watch my place, just in case.

“You sure you’re up for this?” I asked the young soldier. We stood across the street and down the block, hidden away by a group of trees.

“I’m sure, boss,” he said. “I’m not much use on the street right now.” He patted his wounds. He was still healing from getting put in the hospital.