Free Kissing the Killer: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance (Barone Crime Family) by B. B. Hamel

father. I had to learn what it meant to be a normal person again.
    I heard the door handle turn and then push open. Brooks dragged himself into the apartment, grimacing.
    “What’s wrong?” I asked him, sitting up.
    He grunted. “Nothing. Don’t you worry about it.”
    That surprised me. His tone was short and gruff, and although he’d never exactly been a teddy bear to me, he’d never been short either.
    “What’s the matter with you?” I asked.
    He collapsed onto the couch next to me. “Nothing. Just this damn fucking bruise. And my fucking boss.”
    “Had a bad day at the office, sweetie?”
    That made him grin a bit. “Yeah, I did. Think you could rustle me up a little steak and a blowjob?”
    “Get your own meat,” I said.
    He sighed, kicking his legs out. “Is it too much for a man to expect his woman to cook dinner once in a while?”
    I laughed, shaking my head. “Your woman now, huh?”
    “Just going with the domestic fantasy joke you set up.”
    He lapsed into silence as I studied him again. I looked at the tattoos that curled up along his arms and disappeared into his tight black T-shirt. His eyes glanced at the television but drooped in exhaustion. I could sense a tension rolling off his body, like something had happened.
    “Look, I know something’s up,” I said. “Just spit it out.”
    He glanced at me. “You don’t want to know, Emma.”
    “I’m stuck in this apartment,” I said, annoyed. “The least you can do is talk to me.”
    He sighed. “Fine. Last night we were supposed to protect a shipment of girls.”
    “Girls?”
    “You know, Eastern European girls, addicted to drugs, forced to be hookers.”
    “Human trafficking,” I said, surprised.
    “Yeah, well, it’s not my usual shit. I got roped into it. Anyway, shit went bad obviously, since I got shot. During the mayhem, I let a group of girls escape.”
    “How noble of you.”
    He glared at me. “Look, I didn’t choose this. I didn’t want to get involved with that shit.”
    “And yet you did. You have choices, you know.”
    “I know that. Why do you think you’re alive and those girls are free?”
    I looked at him for a second, surprised by his intensity. “Okay. Fine. So what happened today?”
    He took a breath, relaxing. “My boss is suspicious of me, wants me to find those girls.”
    I blinked. “You have to hunt them down?”
    “And bring them back dead or alive.”
    “Brooks, what are you going to do?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “You can’t kill them,” I said, shocked at my own anger. “You can’t just murder those girls.”
    “I don’t murder girls,” he said, nodding at me. “As you’re aware of.”
    “But you work for men who do, and who keep girls as fucking sex slaves.”
    “Yeah, I fucking do.”
    “You’re okay with that?”
    “Fuck, no, I’m not,” he growled at me. “I’m not fucking okay with it. But then again, the mafia gave me my life. They took me in. I can’t just turn my back because I don’t agree with everything they do.”
    “It’s wrong, Brooks.”
    He grinned at me. “I fucking kill people for a living, sweetheart, and you think some dumb bitches are going to make me turn my back on my people?”
    I stood up, shocked. “I thought you were better than that.”
    He grunted. “Guess not.”
    “What happened to you not hurting girls?”
    “I fucking don’t,” he said, not looking at me, “but I also can’t control everyone else around me.”
    I shook my head, surprised by my own disgust. I walked away without another word, angry at him and angry at myself.
    As I shut the bedroom door behind me, I didn’t know what I had expected. I knew what kind of man he was. Brooks was a killer. Maybe he had saved my life and didn’t hurt women, but he was still a killer. That was the type of man I was dealing with, the type of man I couldn’t stop thinking about.
    I was angry with myself, and afraid.
    I knew the mafia sold drugs, guns, robbed banks, stuff like that.