"I'm not on the streets. That would be my house you're talking about. I'm safe in my own house," she argued her point without trying to get loud. Somehow the people in her family saw that as a reason to just yell louder and scream out their point of view. That didn't help anyone, and everyone just got worn out without even hearing the other person's side.
"You could be your own person if there was a security detail on you. There are times I've had you followed, and you had no idea. I've let you do your own thing, but something tells me you are getting snuckered and you don't even know it."
"Snuckered?" She knew her father made up words all the time, and she usually could figure them out, but not this one.
"It means being hoodwinked, taken for a ride, used … capiche?" Her father was getting a bit upset now. When he started throwing in Italian words, it was getting ready to get bad. She needed to explain a few things to him or she would find herself on father-mandated house arrest with no possibility for parole.
"I want to be my own person, Papa, you know that. I don't stand in the way of any of the things you do. I know you have my job bugged and probably my phone too, and I don't put up a fuss, but my home is my domain, and I don't want it infiltrated."
He turned around on the desk and picked up a picture. "Do you know this man?" He asked as he waved the picture around near her face.
The man in the picture had the same black hair she'd just recently run her hands through and big hard body she'd run her hands over following those touches up with her mouth. The man that she cared about couldn't be the man they were talking about. Her father had gone through a lot of trial and error before, and she couldn't remember a man that she liked that he approved of, but this was a bit much even for him.
She just shrugged in answer to his question because she knew how he worked. She'd say something, and he would shoot her down. There were times when it was just better to keep your mouth closed, and she could tell that this was one of those times.
"A shrug isn't going to work little lady. This is the man my people have said is trying to put your cousin into a grave. Do you know this man or not?" Her father stood up from the desk and walked over to her chair. She could almost feel the pain he was getting ready to hand down.
Lorna didn't know what came over her, but she pushed out of her chair and flew at her father knocking him to the floor as she fell beside him. The clicking of the guns told her she'd made a grave mistake. Everyone except her father and Lucca were pointing guns at her face.
The metallic taste in her mouth was bitter, and since she hadn't planned this out, she had no thought of what to do next, so she froze. It seemed like it was hours that she lay there with her hands raised and prayed they didn't kill her. What would her mother think about all this?
"That's enough, guys. What the fuck are you going to do shoot her? Shoot the daughter of the boss right on his office floor?" Lucca said to the men in the room as he pulled her up from the floor into his arms.
She felt so alone right then, so adrift. What in the world had she been thinking? She was the girl who was always by her father's side as a child and the proclaimed daddy's girl throughout her life. He'd hit her once as a teenager, and she'd never forgotten it. Her mother told her that she should have been a better daughter, and it wouldn't have happened. It was probably true, but she'd promised herself no one would hit her again. His hand wasn't raised as he walked toward her, but she felt the aggression and it was like her body took over.
"I don't know what he's done to you, but that ends tonight." Her father said to her sounding like he'd never sounded before. Even with the guns and the chaos of the night, that tone scared the crap out of her.
"What do you mean?" she asked trying to get out of Lucca's arms.
Her father turned to the guys she didn't know. "Let it be done."
"Let what be done, Papa?" She didn't know if he would even give her the information after all that had happened, but she didn't like the ominousness of what her father had told his henchmen.
"Little girl, I've killed people for less than you've done here tonight. Bringing strangers in among our family and helping someone find a relative are things that aren't acceptable. You've embarrassed me in front of my men, and I'm fighting hard not to beat the hell out of you."
She knew that her actions wouldn't go over well, but there she was again getting in trouble for something she didn't do. "Papa, I didn't bring any strangers around."
"Silence. This man you've been with … the one who's looking for Lucca, will be killed tonight. Then we can return his head to the people who sent him, and then I can deal with you and your disrespectful nature." Her father didn't even look like the man she knew. His face was angry and red. It looked like it was going to pop. What she realized was that they were going to kill an innocent man because of her. Her father was going to take her actions out on Aidan, and his death would be on her hands.
She broke away from Lucca and ran to the door, but Lucca was much faster than she was.
"Don't do anything stupid … well anything else." Lucca always had a smile for her and a witty response. They hadn't been able to catch up like they usually did, but she'd make sure they sat down for a nice long chat when she got this thing with Aidan all cleared up. She'd bring him that expensive liquor he loved so much. She gave him a kiss on the cheek.
"I'll try my best." She had to get to Aidan before the men her father sent did. The problem was she thought they knew where he was, and she had no clue. She could have tried harder to get more information about him. She didn't know where he spent his days or much about where he'd come from, but there was no way he was a killer. She'd seen how shocked he was when he found out who she was, so he couldn't have been using her for that.
She ran down the hall and into her old bedroom before she locked the door. Thank goodness she had her phone so she could send off a text message to Aidan.
People are coming to kill you leave wherever you are and get to safety.
She wondered if he would think she was kidding with that kind of doomsday text, but she hoped he knew better. Her bedroom had been wired for sound and not video her, and her brothers had gotten to make that choice so her father wouldn't know that she'd texted him. Hopefully.
There was a knock at the door that didn't sound like your average ‘Can I come in and talk to you,' and she wasn't going to be able to sit down and talk to anyone with the way she was feeling. It had been a long time since she crawled out her window, but that was what she was going to do. This night had turned from bad to worse within minutes, and she felt like she was Alice in Wonderland. Everything was different even though it all looked the same. Heaven help her if she lost the only guy who made her not want to hide who she was.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Aidan had gotten the message from Lorna and had heeded her every word. It wasn't every day a woman he was dating went to a family dinner with her mafia boss father and sent him a text that people were coming to kill him.
He ended up in a cheap hotel on the outskirts of the city, and he waited until he got a call from Lorna. He told her where he was, but he wondered how smart that was. She could be followed or she could just be turning him in. Blood is thicker than water; he grew up knowing that, and since he'd never had any blood to test that theory, he was going to have to just take for granted that it was true.
The knock on the door had him drawing his gun although he shouldn't have. The type of people who were supposed to be looking for him wouldn't be knocking on the door. They'd just bust in, do what they wanted, and then leave, but not before taking some piece of him for proof that he was killed. He knew the procedure. Hell, that was his procedure.
He opened the door and found Lorna looking like a shaking leaf. Pulling her inside, he scanned the parking lot briefly to see if anyone was out there.
"No one followed me because I doubt they know I'm gone. I threw my phone away before I got here because you never know who's tracking my phone." She held on to him so tight that he could feel her shivering like he himself was shivering.
"It's okay, honey. What happened?" He tried to wrap her in a hug to warm her up.
"I'm so sorry," she said as she pulled him down to kiss her. Whatever he'd been expecting it hadn't been this.
"Sorry about what?" he asked as he watched what she was doing to him.
She was pulling his shirt out of his pants and unbuckling his jeans. It didn't appear that she was even trying to answer him and that surprised him. Sex with them was always great, but it felt like she was using it as an apology, and she had nothing to apologize for. He stopped her flurry of hands and kisses and looked into her eyes.