Page 12 of Rent a Mob Boss

“But Lillie is happy.”

I come to a stop and look at her. At first, that’s all I can do. There’s so much love in her voice. This is more than a job for her—I’ve known that for a while. She wouldn’t still be here if I hadn’t realized how genuinely she cares about my girl.

Still, it’s good to see it firsthand. I should be beyond this kind of admiration. It shouldn’t stop me in my tracks the way it does.

Here I am, downright humbled by this girl. “Thank you,” I tell her.

“It’s part of the job.”

But it isn’t. That’s what I want to tell her. “I employ a lot of people, and I know the difference between someone doing a job and someone who’s good at their job.” I mean it more than she knows. I’ve spent my entire life being able to buy competence. What I watched in that car wasn’t competence. It was a kind of grace that isn’t for sale. I know how rare it is. “So, thank you. And for what it’s worth, I would still like to take you to your sister’s engagement party. Consider it a thank-you for everything you did today, if that makes it easier to say yes.”

I can practically hear her fighting with herself, while I wait patiently—at least on the outside. Inside, I want her to say yes more than anything I’ve wanted in a long time. “Wouldn’t it be weird, though?” she asks. “You’re my boss. People would ask. Especially my mom. Oh, god, she would never stop asking questions.”

“I wouldn’t have to go as your boss.” I blurt that out before I stop to think about it. Now I’m committed. “We can pretend to be a real couple for one night. If your ex is going to be there with a date, you should walk in with one as well.”

Her face is doing something I like much too much. But then, I like everything about her more than I should. She wants to say yes. Why won’t she say it and get it over with?

Then she does. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

I feel it move through me, the thing I have no business feeling: plain, ridiculous gladness. It’s so foreign to me that I barely recognize it. One night with her hand in mine. One night where I can pretend, for a few hours, to be the kind of man who takes a girl to a party and has no other agenda behind it.

“Good,” I tell her with a nod. “We can iron out the details later. I’m sure you have other things to do today, even if it’s nothing more than burning the clothes you’re wearing now, since that’s what I plan to do with mine.” Because I doubt any amount of washing will get rid of the smell of horse and… everything else.

“All right. And thank you,” she adds, then looks up the stairs. “Tell Lillie I’ll see her tomorrow.”

As far as I’m concerned, tomorrow can’t come fast enough. There’s something warm in my chest, something I haven’t felt in as long as I can remember, and I carry the feeling with me until she’s gone, and I have no choice but to continue with the rest of my day. That means finding Tristan.

He’s in the study. The look on his face tells me the day didn’t get any better while I was hauling livestock. “That car,” he says, without bothering to ask how things went. “It was parked on the service road this afternoon, behind the east wall. Two hours, then gone. New plates this time. They trace back through three shell companies to the Castellanos.”

Two hours behind my wall while I was in a barn. It means they’ve stopped asking where I work and started learning where I sleep, which is one short, ugly step from learning where my daughter sleeps.

“Double security again,” I decide, taking a seat at my desk. “The tree line, the east approach, everything. Find out who was driving.”

“Already moving on it,” he reports, busy typing on his phone.

I should stop there. That’s the whole of the conversation that matters. Instead, I add, “I’ll be out next Saturday evening. A few hours. Personal matter.”

Tristan doesn’t look up from the phone. “Where?”

“Engagement party at the Whitmore.” I sound too casual, and I know it. “I told Quinn I would go with her. It’s a family event.”

His thumbs stop moving before he lifts his head. He doesn’t say anything at first, which is how I know he has plenty to say. He’s been reading me for years, and I’ve been reading him. He’s currently thinking about a public room, an open floor, and his boss escorting an innocent girl the same week a rival family started showing up outside the walls of my estate.

“You think that’s a good idea?” he finally settles on asking.

“It’s her family,” I remind him. “Nobody there will know me. It’s a controlled environment, completely safe.”

We have an entire conversation without saying a word, staring at each other across my desk. Then he looks back at his phone. “I’ll put two on the room,” he decides. “You won’t notice them.”

“That’s fine.”

“Dorian.” He says it to the phone, not to me. “She’s a nice girl.”

He doesn’t finish the thought, but then he doesn’t have to. I already know how it ends, because I’ve been ending it for myself for months. She’s a nice girl, and this isn’t a life you get to bring a nice girl into.

“Two on the room,” I remind him, and that ends the conversation.

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