Underboss (With Me in Seattle Mafia 1)

“I’ve been telling him for weeks that I wanted to go see you or invite you here, and he kept telling me no. No way. He’s systematically cut me off from my parents, from everyone I love—except for Ivie because we work together.”

“Just let him try to cut me off from you,” Ivie says with fire in her voice. “I’ll cut his fucking balls off first.”

“Down, girl.” I smile at an irate Ivie. “Clearly, Rich can’t get rid of us. We’re here to stay. This all started after the wedding?”

“On the wedding night,” she confirms. “We went to the honeymoon suite, and I took a bite of some cake—we had so much wedding cake left—and he took it away from me and tossed it in the trash. Said I’d never eat that garbage again. That I was too fat.”

I’ve never experienced rage so swift and all-encompassing. I wish he was here right now so I could bloody his damn face.

“Since then, he’s counted every calorie. I have to keep a log of what I eat and give it to him at the end of the day. If he thinks I’m lying, well…”

She stops talking, and Ivie and I share a look.

“He what, Annika?”

She simply points to her eye.

“He’s been hitting you this whole time?” Ivie demands.

“Not often, but more than once is too many times.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” I ask. “Why didn’t you say something?”

“If I tell, the family will kill him.”

“So?”

Annika shakes her head. “I don’t want him dead. I just don’t want him. But I’m married to him now. I’m just…stuck.”

“Bullshit.”

“No way.”

Ivie and I speak in unison.

“Divorce is an option,” I say. “My father will absolutely approve of that, especially when I tell him about the abuse.”

“You can’t.” Annika grabs onto me, her movements desperate. “You can’t tell. You have to promise me that you won’t tell anyone.”

“Annika—”

“Promise,” she continues. “I don’t want them to hurt him.”

“And why not?” I stand and pace the room, so frustrated that I don’t know what to do with myself. “Annika, he’s hurting you. Daily. Why shouldn’t the family take care of it? Even if it’s not death, he should be ostracized. He can go fend for himself. There’s no place for him here.”

“I agree,” Ivie says. “You’re not this woman. You’re not a punching bag. No one is, and you have the resources to get out of this.”

Annika sighs and rests her face in her hands.

“I can’t leave him. Not yet.”

“What else is happening that you’re not telling us?”

“I think he’s involved in something bad. I don’t know what, but I have to keep an eye on him for a little while longer.”

“To what end? I refuse to let you get killed over this, Annika.” Ivie stands and leans over toward her friend. “You don’t have anything to prove.”

“I just need a little time,” Annika insists.

I want to rail at her, and I can see that Ivie feels the same. But my cousin has dug her heels in.

“If he hits you again, you fucking call me.” My voice is ice. “You call me, and I’ll come get you.”

“Okay.”

I want to ask about Rafe. I want to convince her to leave that pitiful excuse for a man today.

But she’s had enough.

Ivie and I share a long look. The silent message is clear.

We’ll watch, and we’ll protect her.

* * *

Two hours later, I can’t get to Carmine fast enough. But on my way to the Marinelli office, I call my brother.

“Thought you didn’t want my help,” he says, and I roll my eyes.

“Don’t be a baby. I have a question. When Annika started dating Rich, and when he proposed, did the family do a standard background check on him?”

“Yeah, I ran it myself. He’s so clean; he’s boring. And his family is the same. Why?”

“I just left Annika.”

I hesitate. I don’t trust Alex with much, but he and Annika were close when we were younger. I think he’d want to know about this.

“Let’s just say that Rich isn’t the happy-go-lucky guy we all thought he was.”

“What does that mean? Is he hurting her?”

I sigh. “I was at their house for dinner last night, and he was a major ass. The way he spoke to her, the way he looked at her, it was not good. And today, she had a black eye.”

“What the fuck?”

“It just doesn’t make any sense, so I wanted to reach out and ask if you’d run the background. I should have known that it was done, but I needed to double-check.”

“If he’s a con man, it slipped past me.”

That wouldn’t surprise me. Alex is lazy, and if Papa gave him the task of running the check, it wouldn’t shock me if he just looked at the surface and then let it go.

Except this is Annika. And Alex has always had a soft spot for our cousin.