Honored_ An Alpha Mob Romance(28)

“Okay. I’ll make you some.” He got up and walked into the kitchen.

I looked around the room, the confusion and disorientation slowly slipping away. It was the same sparse living room I had fallen asleep in: completely alien, and more than a little disquieting. But, apparently, it was safe.

I heard the sound of pots and pans banging and the refrigerator door opening and closing. I guessed Liam had gone to the store while he was gone. I stood and followed him into the kitchen. He cracked some eggs into a pot, cut off a knob of butter, and dropped it in with the eggs. I sat down on a chair and crossed my legs underneath me.

“I hope you don’t mind scrambled,” he said.

“That’s fine.”

He turned on the stove and placed the pot on a burner and began to gently whisk the eggs with a spatula.

“Where did you go?” I asked.

“Had some things to take care of.”

He took the pot off the heat and kept stirring it, working the eggs together with the butter. After a second of stirring, he put the eggs back on the heat, still stirring.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Making you eggs.”

He continued to cook, moving the eggs on and off the heat, stirring continuously. I watched him and felt awed at how sure of himself he seemed. I was impressed and surprised. I never expected a man like him to know what he was doing in the kitchen, but he clearly did. I stared at his body and his movements as he continued, and I decided to wait to ask him questions. There was something special about the way he handled himself, something I didn’t want to interrupt. In some weird way, it was calming me down.

Finally, he finished with the eggs. He pulled a thick piece of toast from the toaster, put it on a plate, poured the eggs onto the toast, and placed the plate in front of me with a fork and a knife.

He sat down at the table across from me and nodded at the food.

I picked up the fork and gingerly took a small bite of the eggs. The consistency was strange, velvety and creamy, but they were incredibly delicious, rich and thick and perfect. I immediately tucked into them, cutting into the lightly toasted sourdough bread with my knife and scooping up the eggs on top of it. Liam grinned at me, but I didn’t care. I was starving, and having some food in my stomach made my dizzy head begin to stabilize. I realized I needed something in me if I was going to be able to think straight.

Liam stood and walked across the room. He poured himself a mug of coffee from an old drip brewer. He leaned back against the counter and sipped it black as I finished my food.

“I guess we should talk,” he said.

I nodded at him. “What’s going on?”

His expression was pained as he stared at me for half a second.

“That man in your apartment, his name was Max. He works for my boss, or at least my old boss, Colm Brennan. We’re all Right members of the Irish Mob.”

I gaped at him. The rumors about Liam turned out to be true. I had always assumed they were crap, since he was such a good guy to his younger brother, and figured it was just the way he looked that made everyone think he was a mobster. But there he was, confirming everything.

“What did he want with me?” I felt shaky and on the verge of panicking again, but I willed myself to remain in control.

“A few nights ago, did you see some guys dumping something into the river?”

I nodded. “One of them even chased me, trying to get me to stop and talk to him.”

“It’s a good thing you didn’t. Those packages were bodies.”

I shook my head. “That doesn’t make sense. They were square.”

He stared at me for a second and sighed. “They weren’t whole bodies.”

That confirmed my suspicions. I felt bile rise in the back of my throat. I swallowed hard and gripped the edge of my seat, willing myself not to get sick.

“In the last few weeks,” he continued, “the Mob has been going through some chaotic shit. There was a coup, and our long-time leader and boss disappeared. After he was gone, someone had to take control of the Right People, and there was a lot of violence and fighting. Colm Brennan eventually took over, because Colm is one of the most violent pieces of shit I’ve ever come across.

“Chaos plus a violent boss always equals a lot of bodies, and you stumbled on some guys dumping those bodies. It’s not nice, but it’s the truth. It’s usually guys in the game who step out of line, guys who are a little too ambitious or don’t want to play by the rules anymore. But it’s also other people who are unlucky enough to become targets, like junkies or some shit. Usually, we don’t kill people like you, civilians. If you had seen what you saw a year ago, they would have bribed you to keep your mouth shut, and if you talked, they would have bribed the cops to forget about it. Things worked that way for a long time.