Mr. Dark 3 (Tamed #3)(17)

"Owen, this is the Snowman," I said over the burner phone Sophie had found in one of the Russians' pockets. "Your little delivery to Sophie White was not quite what I expected, but I must say it was quite a surprising welcome back to town gift. Unfortunately, your delivery men seem to have had problems, and found they needed to leave the country rather suddenly. Now, you don't have to worry about your Capital City Delivery truck, I've had that parked in the parking lot of the University Hospital. Maybe you can get Glen Green to check it out for you. It's been wiped down, by the way.

"Owen, you did a very annoying thing. Now, my current business partners are not the type to engage in petty feuds, so they'll let this one slide. They knew you and I had history before they hired me. But Owen, I'm telling you now. Sophie White, Tabby Williams, and everyone and everything associated with Marcus Smiley are all, as of now, under my protection. Unless you want my employers to take a much more vested interest in this town, I suggest you keep that in mind. Take care Owen."

I hung up the phone, pulled the battery and crunched the phone under the heel of my left boot. My right leg still hurt too much two days later. I'd been asleep most of the time, waking up just enough to be amazed as Sophie had taken care of almost everything even without me instructing her, disposing of the bodies in the bay. The floors and walls of the building she'd first scrubbed down with bleach and water before digging out the slugs and patching them with cement. Once the workers came in next week and painted, you'd never be able to tell any patches had been applied at all.

"You think he'll buy it?" Sophie asked beside me as I picked up the pieces of smashed cell phone and threw them into the bay. They disappeared under the water, and I turned to look at her. My right shoulder burned like hell, and I kept the hand tucked into the pocket of the hoodie I was wearing to try and support it somewhat.

"I'm pretty sure. Lynch and the Confederation were always worried about an outside party making a play in town. This city is too rich and too important for it to be just a two game town. The biggest worry they had was someone internal going into business with someone out of town like me. So Lynch is going to have to take time and try and verify if I really am as connected as that call makes it seem. He won't understand where I'm getting the money from, nor just how it all is working. He's a very cautious man, it's how he's gotten to where he is."

Sophie nodded. "What outside players would he be checking out?"

"The Korean gangs, the Triads, some of the operators in Italy. The Confederation has Sal Giordano from the Mafia, but his family isn't the only Mafia organization in the world. All of them have tried from time to time to make inroads here. We're going to have to watch for them too as we take Lynch and the Confederation down at the same time."

We turned and walked back to our vehicle, a lightly used Nissan Frontier that felt like an old friend. Not quite as good as my old pickup, but it still felt a lot better than a rental car. Sophie helped me into the passenger seat before going around to the driver's seat. "So where now?"

I chuckled and looked over. "Now? Let's go home. I think Tabby can bring the paperwork to us at home for once."

* * *

Sophie

Mark's prediction was spot on. Lynch didn't move against us at all, although we both stayed hyper vigilant. It took a little over a week for Mark's wounds to heal, and he grimaced as I snipped the sutures and pulled them out in our bedroom. "Next time let's use dissolving sutures," he hissed in between snips. "Jesus, this hurts about as much as when you put them in."

I chuckled in reply. "Now, how's that feel?"

"Stiff," he replied, working his arm in tight circles. "I hope I don't need to exert the muscles for a while."

"Well, you'll be doing that this afternoon," I said as I put away the scissors and packed away my kit. "You need to start rehabilitating that shoulder."

Mark groaned and leaned back in the chair he was sitting in, sticking out his lip and pouting. I'm sure he knew how cute and adorable he was when he did that, but I wasn't going to let it deter me. Now, let's get you into the shower to wash up and relax. We've got no business appointments today, just the workout and then some much needed private time together."

Mark smiled and went into our brand new bathroom. While Mount Zion originally didn't have very good water pipes, the workers we'd had on the property ever since we moved back had worked updating the utilities to modern standards. The scars across the turf around the building were still raw and fresh, but our new home was now fully equipped with all the amenities.

The bathroom was our biggest work, with an in ground deep tub that could go all the way to your neck without a problem. It was even environmentally friendly, using filtered and re-circulated water from the shower and the bath to do the laundry and toilets before finally doing some sort of whoopty-dos and irrigating the vegetable garden we'd had put in. It was another public relations coup for Marcus Smiley, and was getting us a write up in the local paper the next week.

Right then though, Mark needed a shower, and I listened at the door as he got into the stall and the dual overhead sprays turned on. I gave him about two or three minutes to let himself get acclimated before slipping quietly into the bathroom and stripping, getting into the stall behind him while he shampoo'd his hair. "Mmmm, now that's something that will motivate any woman to work out," I said, running my hands over his chest. The muscles were slick with water and the runoff from his shampoo, and I relished the feeling of his skin under my fingertips. "Very sexy."