* * *

She keeps watching me but I’ll just keep her guessing as to my intentions. I know now that there’s no use talking to her about shit, because she doesn’t hear one fuck I say. The girl is wired to kill and that’s all there is to it. My biggest issue now is the fact that my team went behind my back on this one and who knows what else.

I called in Mikey and Tony and the twins from wherever the fuck they were hiding and waited for them to join me and poppy and his new crew. “What did you do with him?”

“Melted.”

‘The drains?”

“Everything’s taken care of. Al’s pretty good at that kinda stuff.” I bet he is.

I didn’t look at any of them and I could feel their anxiety rising. It took two minutes of my cold silence before they all started talking at once. I didn’t say shit. If Mouth thinks I didn’t know her murdering ass wasn’t done then she must think I’m stupid. I know how her mind works. Until she ends Tommy the knife, she thinks everything in between is a free pass. She’s expecting me to rant at her, but I won’t give her the satisfaction.

She hates it when I freeze her ass out, so that’s just what she’s going to get. Then again, that shit doesn’t work either. If she gets it in her head that someone’s a threat to me, they’re good as done. I guess I should feel special that she’s listed me among those she loves enough to protect, but her murdering ass is making me tired.

“Whose idea was it to take him out?” No one said anything until Mouth raised her hand.

“Was this before or after I said not to?” I didn’t relish embarrassing her in front of everyone, but whether I agreed or not, she’d crossed the line this time. It wasn’t the kill so much. Kowalski was a piece of shit that was gonna end up dead sooner or later because of his shady dealings, but I told them no.

“We kinda had it planned before.” I looked up at her and she dropped her eyes. “So, this is your new boss? Is that it? You take orders from my woman now?” You could hear a pin drop. Then they all went back to talking over each other trying to explain. Arianna when she’s in her head is like a willful child. Her old man and uncle are so accustomed to giving her-her way they don’t know any better. But I expect better from my men.

“You let a pregnant girl go on a hit. What’s more I had no clue what was going on and wasn’t even in the room to protect her and my unborn child if something had gone wrong. And you call yourselves men.”

“Ah, that’s low, that’s real low. Look we trained her, we know what she’s capable of; we know she can handle herself.” I looked at her dad with an arched brow. “Listen, I’ma tell you okay. I owe my kid for when I bailed on her and left her believing I was dead. I did it for her own good but still. You know how she can be, damn. She’s almost as bad as you.”

He tried explaining to me that in order to get back into his daughter’s good graces he let her talk him into backing her plays. The deal was to keep me in the dark because obviously they thought they knew better. “Poppy, what’s your excuse?”

“Anything to keep you safe son, you know that.”

“Would you have had grandma, while she was pregnant with your son, go out on a hit?”

“Oh come on Shane, they’re two different people. Your grandma wouldn’t have known a glock from a nine iron. Your woman, this is who she is, this is what she’s been trained for her whole life.”

“It’s not what I fucking want for her.” I slammed my hand down on the table and glared at all of them one after the other. Mouth, I kid you not, was sitting on a stool around the island swinging her legs and eating a banana. What the fuck am I supposed to do with that shit?

“I want an explanation. And if I don’t like what I hear you’ll all do well to ask yourselves if going against me is worth your life. She’s convinced you, that you need to protect me. Did any one of you stop to think what it would do to me if something happens to her or my kid?” I’m sure they were all remembering yesterday and how close that shit came to being a reality.

“You don’t open your mouth to me.” She snapped it shut and went back to chewing. “Where’d she get the poison?” Three grown men cleared their throats and looked around the room like they were searching for something. I held my hand out to her. “Give me the rest of it, or did you feed it all to him?” She reached in her pocket and pulled out the tube of lipstick that was in her bag earlier.

“That was kinda quick, but it’s a little anticlimactic. There was no…” She shut the fuck up when she caught my look. Who am I kidding? The only way to keep the general population safe from her crazy ass is to never let her know that someone is on my shit list.

“Mouth, leave the room.”

“What?” I just pointed towards the bedroom and I guess she figured she was in enough shit already because she didn’t give me any more lip as she hopped down off her perch and headed out of the kitchen.

The room’s remaining occupants grew increasingly nervous at my glaring silence. “Before we go any farther I want each and every one of you to think of something. I can’t hurt her, but I will fuck up your shit so superiorly you’d spend the rest of what’s left of your life trying to figure out what the fuck.

“Now you three wanna tell me what she was talking about, about a hit?” Poppy took point on this one and filled me in on what they’d found out about the unholy alliance between Scarletti, the triads and the former agent. I was listening only for one thing but didn’t hear it so asked outright since I no longer trusted any of them.

“Do they know about her?”

“Which part?”

“Who she is, who her dad is, that she’s mine.”

“Not yet and it’s only a matter of time before someone recognizes Roberto so it looks like you might have to take that trip out of town sooner rather than later.”

I hadn’t told them as yet that we were leaving in a few days. I took my time unlike some people I know and thought over the situation and what my next move should be. I had basically one day to make my move if I was going to before I left. No way was I leaving my mom and sisters, my dad, alone in the city unprotected.

“What do you want to do Shane?” Mikey asked the question on everyone’s mind.

“There’s an active hit ordered on my fucking family, the fuck you think I want to do? Nobody leaves the compound. Call in the others I want this place on lock down starting now.” I turned to poppy as he headed out of the room with his phone already to his ear.

“If you have any sentimental attachments to any of the old guard you better say your goodbyes now. I’m gonna kill every last one of those fucks before the week is out. Who isn’t involved, knew something and they sat across from me and said nothing. Fuck them.” I guess Mouth was right; these fucks need to die. Then maybe I can get some damn peace in this bitch.

I went in search of her and almost got a heart attack when she wasn’t in our room or anywhere else in the house that I could see. I was ready to call out to the others when I caught movement outside and pushed open the French doors leading off the master suite into the garden that surrounded the place.

She was sitting in the grass with magazine cutouts spread out around her. The sun glared off her jet-black hair and kissed her honey toned skin. She’d changed into a tee shirt and shorts and looked about ten. She lifted her hair off her neck and made some kinda knot on top of her head with it.

She didn’t know I was watching her and I took this rare opportunity to study her when her defenses were down. She kept looking from the papers she had spread out on the ground to the garden and making gestures with her hands. I hope she wasn’t planning to bury some fuck in my backyard.

“You plan on standing there all day glowering or are you going to come help me?” She looked over her shoulder with the most beautiful carefree smile on her face. How the fuck did she know I was there? I hadn’t made a sound. I didn’t bother asking, just walked over to her and was happy to see from the pictures that she was looking at birdbaths and other garden ornaments and not burial plots.

“What’s all this, Mouth?” I stooped down beside her and looked at the fucked up ball of hair on top her head. Not bad. Who knew the Mouth knew about that girly shit? She lifted one of the pages and showed me. “You don’t have any birdbaths on this side. I’m trying to decide where’s the best place to put one.”

I cleared my throat and my head. From murder mode to husband! If she can do that shit so can I. “Do you want to see it from the bed, or only from the patio?” I looked back at the house and asked myself what the fuck I was doing. Each time I think I’ve got the bead on her she changes her shit up again.

She seemed to be giving my question some thought as she turned with me to look. Her arm came to rest on my shoulder and something inside me settled. She’d turned me into her little lap dog like the rest of those fucks in there who were well and truly under her thumb. It wasn’t that they didn’t respect me; I see that now. It’s just that no one can withstand her and her mercurial shit.

I can just see her batting her lashes and talking circles around them to get her way. According to Tony all it had taken was her threatening to go off on her own if they didn’t agree to help. I guess the ass didn’t think he should just come to me and let me handle her psychotic ass. Whatever, I’m in charge of this asylum so it’s up to me to keep them all outta trouble. The fuck! I had easier days when I was still in the life.

Maybe that was the plan. Make me nuts enough to stay in. Now she has me seeing conspiracies around every corner.

“Mouth, your ass belongs on a macadamia ranch.”

“What’s that?”

“A damn nut farm.” She snorted and made me laugh. The sound was so foreign coming from my little spitfire.

“I love you Shane.” She put her head on my shoulder and sighed and everything in me melted into a puddle at her feet. Fuck my life. “I love you too baby.” I kissed her temple and wrapped an arm around her while the two of us sat on the grass in the garden and discussed the best flowers to attract birds and butterflies. Yep, straight fucking nuts.