Sniping Her Mafia King
Chapter 62

Addy watched Arwen walk away carrying their lunch dishes and sat back in the chair, her words echoing on his ears. He had disrespected her. He had entered the casino with the most beautiful woman in the universe on his arm and he had started the evening by

trying to hide her as if she should be ashamed, simply because he didn't like others looking at her.

She had been stunning and even with all eyes on her, her eyes had been on him only. She had been everything he could have asked for and more. Even when he had told Enrique to get her away from the hockey player, she had been nothing short of elegance and grace. He had watched her walk purposefully through the casino but only he could have told by the stride she was angry. To any other observer she was a gorgeous woman with a goal.

When she had him alone, she had spoken to him eloquently and passionately and she'd made sense to him. He knew he would have to cut her slack no matter how hard it was for him. It wasn't her fault he had too many bad experiences with other women. He had let her go to the VIP room and had watched over her from his office and not once in all the time did, she even begin to do anything to have caused him disrespect.

He had been so proud to announce her as his fiancée when he'd stepped into the VIP room and the way she had slid to him on those stilettos proved he was the luckiest man in the world. Her eyes had only been for him, and he'd immediately puffed up at it. He had wanted to show her off, wine her and dine her and then take her dancing. Even in the dress, he wanted to dance with her. Then his security team had screwed up by letting the crazy b***h in. Video surveillance confirmed she had watched from the lobby when he and Arwen had crossed to the restaurant and as soon as everyone had gotten comfortable, she had barged in like a maniac.

He'd been so concerned with appearances and getting her out before Bea made an even bigger scene, he'd put his pride and ego ahead of Arwen. His vanity had put their relationship at risk. So concerned about the disrespect he was being shown by Bea he had disrespected Arwen.

He should have let Arwen come with him. She was a hundred percent correct had the roles been reversed and a man did this to Arwen, he'd be incensed. He would have taken over the situation and the man would be dead. The fact she had simply gotten into a car and driven away instead of punching her way out of the restaurant and beating the s**t out of his team told him she had been far better at controlling her emotions than he had given her credit for.

She had every right to call him on his s**t and she should have been comfortable doing it when he'd told her stay like he had. She had compared herself to the chickens and hadn't been far wrong. At least the chickens could use the facilities.

In all the times they had discussed his rules, she had always said so long as he hadn't disrespected her, she wouldn't disrespect him, but he'd insisted. They had promised each other not to disrespect one another in the public eye and while she had kept her vow, he had betrayed his word to her.

He had to make it right. The thought of Arwen pulling away from him, made his chest ache in pain. She felt she couldn't trust him to not humiliate her again. In her shoes, he would be equally distrustful. He'd ended many relationships for less than he'd done to her in his restaurant.

This was the woman sent to him to love and protect and to adore. He had not fulfilled his part of the bargain and they were only one day into an engagement. His mother would be furious at him. He was furious at himself.

Her words echoed in his ear. "We are back at the beginning, or at the end." Neither was an acceptable choice. He owed her so much more than he'd given her in the last twenty-four hours. He had to do whatever it took to make certain she knew he would never do this to her again.

"f**k," he groaned as he pushed up from the seat and made his way into the house. He found her loading the dishwasher. He watched as her hair, slipping from its ponytail, curled around her temples. Her cheeks still flushed slightly with anger and some exertion as she cleaned up. She was working silently but he knew she was waiting for him to speak. He moved to stand behind her as she closed the appliance.

He placed his hands on her hips and rested his head against the back of hers. "I am sorry."

"I am sure you are," she patted his hand condescendingly.

"I love you, Arwen. What happened last night won't happen again."

"Damn right it won't." her words were terse.

"You are my equal Arwen. I should never have behaved as I did last night." He breathed against her nape with his eyes closed holding her stiff body against him.

"We have already established this." She leaned backwards into him as his hands slid all the way around her abdomen tightly.

He kissed the side of her neck. "New rule?"

"I hate the rules." He knew she was making a face even though he couldn't see hers.

"You might like this one." He nuzzled her ear playfully. "Want to hear it?"

"Sure, lay it on me." She giggled when he nipped her ear at her flippant words.

"From now on you call me out on my bullshit. I don't care who is around. If what I'm doing makes you feel I've disrespected you, made you feel a burden or I've put another person ahead of you, you tell me. I would prefer if it were in my ear but if it takes a kick to the balls in front of the entire world to make you feel heard, then set me straight. I love you Arwen and I can't be without you. All the respect in the world means nothing if I don't have yours. I feel I lost your respect last night with my behavior. Without your love, without your trust, without you, I have nothing."

She turned in his arms and he moved his hand up her arm and to cup her cheek. He would never tire of looking into her eyes. Her eyes brimmed with unshed tears at her words. "Are you sure? I might end up taking you up on the ball-kicking thing."

"If I ever make you feel your only recourse is to get into a car, drive away from me and never be seen with me again in public, I will take the kick to the balls willingly. You are more important to me than any appearances. You kept your word last night, but I broke my vow to you. I will never treat you so callously again."

"I love you, Addy." She smiled at him.

"Tell me you can forgive me for last night?"

She nodded and wound her hands around his neck. "I forgive you."

"I also," he swallowed against the lump in his throat which threatened to choke him, "will not argue with you over clothing. You looked incredible and I had no right to be a raging jealous a*****e. You will wear what you want, and I will have you on my arm with pride. My past experiences with other gold-digging women who wanted to have me, and other men are not your fault, and I should not make you pay for the crimes of other women. I trust you to be faithful to me. I also agree to not order you back to me when you stop to talk to a man." "Wow." She leaned backwards, touching their pelvises but putting space between their torsos to look him in the eyes. "Did saying this actually cause you physical pain?"

He noted the laughter in her eyes, "it did. Felt it all the way to my balls. I may need them kissed better."

She threw her head back and laughed loudly. "Is that so?"

"It is," he nodded putting on his saddest expression he could. "Its very painful. The thought anyone else gets to see those legs fills me with great discomfort but I acknowledge it is my problem and not yours and I will see to it I remember you are always coming home on my arm."

She reached behind her and lifted the empty wine bottle and sniffed it

"What are you doing?"

"Wondering if it's spiked. Is this what drunk Addy is like?"

He laughed when she shrieked as he tickled her sides and rubbed his nose in her neck. "I can take it all back!"

"Don't you dare," she laughed as she hugged him tight.

He held her close in his arms and smiled happily as he rested his cheek against her hair. This was how he had hoped the morning after their evening out had been. Standing in the kitchen, holding each other and being at peace.

"Arwen, may I ask something of you?" he hated to disturb her happiness, but he too needed reassurances only she could give him. In this moment, after all they'd been through, he needed to hear them. "What is it?" she asked tilting her head to look at him.

"I know last night was bad. I understand why you left." He swallowed hard, "Arwen, hearing you say our relationship was possibly ending, hurt. I am not saying I didn't deserve it and I'm not saying you weren't within your rights to contemplate whether a relationship where you could potentially be treated as poorly as you were last night on an infinite basis was something you wanted. Amore, I need to know you are with me, in this relationship for better or worse. I would rather you snipe your mafia king from a hilltop than leave me. I cannot lose you, Arwen. I would rather be dead. I need you to promise you won't threaten to leave me again."

She closed her eyes tightly at his words, as if unable to face him and his honesty. His chest hurt as he waited for her to speak and then she shook her head as if refusing his request, still not looking up. "I'm sorry, Addy."

They weren't the words he was expecting. Could she not see he needed the reassurances? Yet she would stand here and be unable to promise him not to threaten to leave him again? Had he misread her love for him? He started to step back.

She grabbed his wrists and opened her eyes and let out a shaky breath, her blue eyes glimmering, "I'm sorry I said I was thinking of ending us. I could never walk away from you. I would sooner cut my own heart out. I would rather live a private life and never go in public with you again than lose you altogether. I was standing here putting the dishes in the dishwasher and all I could think of was, I would rather spend a thousand evenings home alone with you and never be seen with you in public than never to be with you again. Leaving you isn't an option for me either. I love you too much."

"Oh, thank f**k," he groaned and wrapped his arms tight around her and lifted her off the floor completely in his arms, burying his face in her neck. "Don't leave me, Arwen."

"I'll never leave you," she promised, her voice raspy.

He lifted her into his arms and carried her out of the kitchen into the living room and settled them onto the sofa. He stretched out lengthwise and lay her beside him, tucking her against his bicep and throwing his leg over her hip, holding her captive to him. They lay cuddled peacefully and Addy considered, the feeling he had right now, just laying on a sofa, holding this woman in his arms, was bar none the best one he'd ever had. Everything in his world felt right in the moment and he closed his eyes as he rested his cheek to the top of her head.

"Where were you this morning?" she asked suddenly, breaking the silence. "I had half expected you on the deck with a firing squad when I got here."

He chuckled, "It's Sunday. I went to mass. I promised my mother and so I make a point to go once a week. I don't feel God in church but somehow, I feel connected to her when I'm there. This morning I felt deeply I needed my mom. It's weird, no?" "No, I think it's beautiful and special."

"I don't pray to any God. I don't know if one even exists. Perhaps it's my own hubris because I like to think I'm the one in control of my own life and not an obscure omniscient power who controls my fate, but it seems silly to me. However, my mother, I speak to her every day as I would pray to a God. I believe she hears me. I believe she answers me. She believed in God and so I go where I know she would be if she were alive, and I try to replace her in the lights of the church."

Arwen snuggled closer to him, "my aunt believed in God. She would drag us to church kicking and screaming. My dad often said one day she would bring him in there and the church would collapse on him for all the sin he was bringing into it as a sniper. You go to church to be with your mom, but I replace my daddy in every mission I take. Each breath I take before I take a shot is his whisper telling me to aim true. I can feel him holding my hand and squeezing the trigger. While my aunt would probably be horrified at all the lives I've taken, my dad would salute me with a beer, and I know it deep in my soul."

He smiled at her words, "what you do, Arwen, is incredible to me. Like your father, I am very proud to know you and what you do."

"I was at HQ last night," she admitted with her face resting on his chest. "I stayed up all night working and then did a training session for new recruits."

"What kind of training session?"

"The kind where I get to beat people up in the name of learning."

He chuckled at her words. "You had aggression to take out, did you?"

"A lot of it. Cat showed up near the end of training and said Jesse had called her to check on me. It seems the girl Deidre is replacing, called Naomi, and said I was being a bit tough on the girls and wasn't sure if she should interfere or just let me potentially hurt one of them." She chuckled, "Naomi called Jesse, who called Cat."

"What did Cat say?"

She smirked, "she told the girls to stop whining and complaining and gave them fifty laps around the track before they were allowed to hit the showers. Then she told Lolita the people we face in the field are going to be far more ruthless than what I was doing and every fight, every spar, every single strike is in preparation for it. The more we have as trainers to let loose on the girls, is better for them in the long run because it means they're better prepared for whatever a*****e is out there."

"Did you ever have a trainer do this to you?"

"Naomi," she grinned at him. "She beat me into the f*****g ground and broke my wrist." "Why?" he was stunned.

"I have no idea. She and Bliss were newlyweds back then so maybe they had a fight? I don't know. All I know is I learned I could still fight with a broken wrist."

"You ladies are ruthless." Addy listened to her story with a smile.

"Yes, but I can take a beating unlike anyone," she wriggled suggestively against him.

Addy immediately responded to her words and her hip action and pressed her hips tight to his. "I agree. You certainly can. Would you like to go upstairs and show me what you can take?" he lowered his lips to kiss hers as she wound her arms around his neck. Addy pressed his body hard against hers on the sofa, slipping his tongue deep into her mouth and sliding his hand up her t-shirt, squeezing her breasts tightly. He would never get tired of how fast she responded to him. Already her breath was quick and her body on the edge.

He gave a low chuckle as he rolled away from her, and she grimaced at him.

"Why are you stopping? At the very least you should be pulling me off this sofa and up the stairs," she chastised him with a frown.

"Did you not hear the car?"

"What car?"

"The one which just pulled in the driveway. I think Deidre is home. We're about to get caught necking on the sofa like a pair of teenagers."

Arwen giggled and buried her face in his neck, "oh god. I didn't even hear her."

"And you think you're a superhero," he teased her tickling her sides.

As predicted, Deidre's voice called into the foyer as she stepped in. "Hello, anyone home?"

"We're in here, Dee."

Deidre peered into the room and grimaced, "god, you have a room upstairs."

"Right, as if you and Mathis didn't make out on this sofa when he was here last week," Arwen tossed back.

"No, we didn't, Arwen," she hissed furiously at her cousin.

Addy chuckled knowing exactly why she was denying her actions. He'd questioned her boyfriend's intentions yesterday and had teased her mercilessly about the young man. She was blushing furiously now as she glowered at Arwen.

Arwen laughed, "don't worry about it. I erased it from the cameras in the house."

"What cameras?" Deidre looked around in horror. "You watched us?"

"I'm just kidding but now we have our answer as to whether she did or didn't," Arwen roared with laughter.

"I'm moving out."

"Not until you're thirty." Addy commented with a smirk and Deidre grinned back.

Arwen closed her eyes as she nestled back against Addy. "I'm going to take a nap right here if anyone is looking for me. Also, Deidre, you should get some good rest tonight. Your first day of work is tomorrow. I ran into Artemis this morning and she mentioned wanting you to watch a couple of missions with her tomorrow. I recommend not eating before."

"How bad can it be?"

"Almost every mission ends with at least one pervert losing his dick."

"Define losing it?" Deidre asked.

"I mean either one of us shoots it off or cuts it off. I remember one of my first missions with Naomi, she cut it off and shoved it in the guy's mouth after slapping him in the face with it. It was f*****g hilarious."

Addy sat up and stared at her in horror, "you're lying." He resisted when she complained about him moving and tried to tug him back down. The way her eyebrows mocked him, told him she wasn't kidding.

Deidre shrugged, "if they use their d***s to hurt someone, it should come off. I'm going to shower. Portia's kid puked on me at least three times last night. Keep it clean down here. I watch television on the sofa." Addy lay back down and wrapped his arms around Arwen, "are you really going to nap?"

"Yes, and you're going to hold me, unless you have more pressing matters to attend to?"

As he felt Arwen relaxing in his embrace, Addy decided if the world were to end right here and now, this was how he would want to go. At home, with his woman in his arms, with Deidre upstairs and the chickens in the backyard. It was paradise. There was no other place for the Mafia King to be than with his Queen.