Free MOB BOSS 3: LOVE AND RETRIBUTION by Mallory Monroe

al mapped out like I always map it out. Clean, fast, successful, that’s how I run any operation. And everything went according to plan. Until it didn’t.”
    She swalowed hard, sipped from her drink. “I forgot . . .” She looked down, at her drink. Fought back tears. “I forgot to pul the pin.” She said this and looked up at Tommy, as if he somehow could undo her memories. His heart ached for her.
    “What happened?” he asked her, his voice now soft, soothing.
    “I tossed the grenade,” she said, “but I forgot to pul the pin. Me, the team leader, the experienced hand, forgot to pul the got damn pin! And they came at us, oh how they came at us, with al guns blazing. It was amazing, incredible that only two of us fel.”
    She looked those big browns up at Tommy again. Tommy’s heart pounded against his chest. “But it was my fault,” she said, nodding her head. “Al mine. No way to spin it as anything but my fault.”
    Tommy stared at her. “Was this the first time you took casualties?”
    She nodded her head, sipped more wine. “Where the fault was al mine,” she said, “yep. Very first time. I’ve had moments where we encountered the unexpected enemy and took a casualty here, a casualty there. But never when I was the unexpected enemy. I never took on unwinnable fights, you see. If there wasn’t a clear path to victory, I turned them down. Always. I wasn’t risking my life or the lives of my men if it wasn’t clear cut and possible. Al I had to do was folow the plan. My men folowed it. To the letter they folowed it. But for me to be the one to. . .” She shook her head, drained down more gin.
    Tommy knew her. She would hate him if he coddled her, if he immediately puled her into his arms, although that was exactly what he wanted to do. And that, he also knew, was the last thing he needed to do. Because tomorrow she’d be gone again, back to that life he hated for her. And he’d be left broken, depressed, and angrily fucking every lady in his big black book, wishing it was her.
    “Why are you here?” he decided to ask her. She didn’t want him to coddle her, and he wasn’t about to risk doing it.
    She hesitated. She hated being vulnerable, absolutely hated it, but every time she came to Tommy that was exactly how she was. In a state so vulnerable, in fact, that nobody but Tommy could make her feel better.
    “I’m here,” she said, “because I wanted to see you again.” Then she frowned. “No, that’s not true.” Because it went further than a mere want. “I needed to see you again,” she clarified, her bright brown eyes lifting up and looking him dead into his bright green ones. “Spend the night with you again.”
    Tommy’s heart rammed against his chest. Those devastatingly gorgeous eyes of hers always did him in. Normaly, through the years, he didn’t mix words with her. Just took her to his bed. Gladly took her. A stolen night here and there with her, once a month or so with her, was better than nothing. But he was getting older now. He wasn’t sure if he could continue to handle some drive-by romance with a sweet young thang like ShoShawna Shanks.
    Especialy with ShoShawna.
    “Won’t that set us back?” he asked her, his heart stil hammering.
    She gave Tommy that honesty he loved. “Yes,” she said. “Of course it wil.”
    “And when Reno’s done with your services, you’l answer the next cal and be off to the next dangerous hot spot again.”
    A wariness came over her big eyes. She looked out of the window. “I doubt if there’l be a next cal,” she said.
    Tommy stared at her. “Of course there wil,” he said. “You rescued the victims. Like you always do.”
    “I lost two of my men,” she said, “and al three of the rescue subjects: a woman and her two children. Her very young children.”
    When she looked back at Tommy, and he saw how actual tears were in her eyes, a woman who never cried in his presence before, he hurried from behind the counter.
    She