Page 43 of Mafia Obsession

“You wanted a complete assessment,” she begins, eyes peering over the rim of her dark glasses. “Including the tattoo.”

“I did.” I take a seat next to her.

She places a tablet between us. Ignoring my need for personal space, she reaches between us to double-tap the dark screen. Documents and photographs fan out of a digital folder.

“It took a lot of digging, but Sinclair’s neck tattoo is the brand of a freelance contract killer,” Daria continues, her tone clinical. “Specifically, for a man named Elias Black. He sells his killers to the highest bidder,” she says and swipes to a different photo. “The wives are branded as well. Like that wrist tattoo of your new assistant.”

Daria zooms into a photo of Lourdes from that night in the bar. A violent shifttightens my spine.

“Designated ownership,” I murmur.

“Yes,” she says with a rare catch in her throat, hinting at some kind of humanity left under her skin. “Property.”

The implications unfold quickly. Marriage binds. Branding claims. If a man defects or dies, the wife becomes…

Someone else’sproperty.

“And David is a hired killer?” I ask for clarification, shuddering that my woman is sleeping next to a murderer every night.

Okay, she’ll be sleeping next to one eventually when I have her, but I would never lay a hand on her. Sinclair blurred those lines, and I want to blur out his existence.

“From what I’m seeing on his phone, Black sent Sinclair with a crew cleaning up problems for some powerful people in Boston,” Daria continues. “Could be a lookout, could be pulling the trigger.”

Now my spine wobbles. “Where does the Bratva fit into this?”

“I think Sinclair was recruited in Chicago,” she replies.

Chicago… I recall Lourdes telling me she was from there.

“Yuri?” I ask, though even as I do, I feel more doom coming my way.

She shakes her head. “Kirill.”

“This isn’t sitting right.” I rise and cross to the windows, watching the slow churn of traffic below.

A second later, I have a flash vision of blood running in the streets and a woman with champagne-blonde hair blowing in the wind being carried off.

It blinds me momentarily until I shake it off.

“Volkov…”

Chicago.

Lourdes’ father.

The lines begin to converge.

I see it with unpleasant, sickening precision. Lourdes is possibly being hunted by Kirill.

Therealreason he’s here in New York.

An image of Lourdes in the Volkov basement dungeon settles into my gut with corrosive fury.

David Sinclair is planning to hand her over to Kirill. Heck, that night at Winterhall could have been a negotiation.

I return to the table, my expression calm despite the shift occurring beneath my skin. “I know who to call about this.”

The only person who can kill an assassin is another assassin.