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

I understood that sort of thing and could be okay with it. But human trafficking was a whole different thing, something dark and horrible. I couldn’t picture Brooks being a part of it, but obviously he wasn’t turning his back on them completely.
    Was that even reasonable to want? He’d already gone so far for me, risked so much. As I sat on the bed, uncertainty rushing through me, I had the urge to look at my mother’s old photo album.
    I rooted through the duffel, searching for it. The album was the last thing I had that connected me to her, and when things got too dark, I always looked through it. Whenever I felt alone and scared, that album calmed me down, at least a little bit.
    But as I rooted through the bag, I couldn’t find it.
    Panic struck me. The album had been the first thing on the list, the one thing I absolutely needed. I remembered him saying that he couldn’t find a few things, but I didn’t think the album was one of them.
    I wanted to storm out there and yell at him, but I stopped myself. He didn’t owe me anything. He had done his best to get me what I needed. He had no way of knowing how important that album was to me.
    I took a deep breath and let it out. Besides, I had to admit that I was a little scared of him at that moment. He was a man who got shot because of a human trafficking attack. I could overlook the murder of my father, because he was a bad man, but they were innocent girls.
    And yet he had let some of them go. That was probably another big risk to take.
    I was so frustrated. I couldn’t decide how I felt. This wasn’t so simple; it wasn’t just an easy decision to make. Brooks was a killer, but he had saved my life. He was involved with human traffickers, but he had let girls escape when he didn’t have to. Brooks was a contradiction, and I didn’t know what to think about him.
    But I did know one thing. I needed my album.
    I pushed open the door and poked my head back out into the living room. Brooks was sitting on the couch, his head tipped back, snoring lightly.
    I blinked. He was asleep.
    There was no time to think about it. This was my chance. I crept across the room, moving silently. As quietly as I could, I opened the apartment door. I slipped out and shut it silently behind me.
    Down the steps I went, my heart beating hard. I stopped down in front of the main door, staring at it. Beyond that door was freedom and danger. It was an unfamiliar, scary world, one without Brooks. If I did this, he couldn’t protect me.
    But that album was my last connection to my past.
    I took a step forward and then another. I felt more and more confident.
    I put my hand on the knob, turned it, and pushed the door open.
    It was a beautiful day as I left the apartment building. It took me a second to figure out where I was, but once I did, I knew which way to go.
    I began walking.
    I’d walked alone in the city hundreds of times before, but this was the first time I was truly alone. Nobody was coming for me; nobody was waiting for me. My father was gone and my house was empty. All I needed to do was walk to the house, grab the album, and head back.
    I felt afraid, but good. I felt like I was finally doing something instead of sitting around and waiting for things to happen to me. I felt like I was going to change my life, like nothing could stop me.
    Cars drove past as I walked down the simple neighborhood. It was a cozy little place with neat row homes. It looked like the sort of place that’d always been a part of Chicago, like the people who lived there had always been there. It surprised me that a killer like Brooks lived in such a quiet neighborhood. I smiled to myself, enjoying the walk.
    And then someone grabbed my arm, yanking me backward.
    Terror lanced through my mind. In that instant before I looked back, I thought I was dead and Brooks was dead and I’d destroyed everything.
    “What are you doing?”
    I stumbled back into his body. He held me there, his strong hands on my