Unshackled by Cara Dee
Series: Standalone
Genre: MM Mafia Romance
Tags: #MMmafiaromance, #BestFriendsFather #MafiaRomance #Standalone #SecretMeetings #Family #AgeDifference #AgePlay #HurtComfort #Angst #Grief
Available in Kindle Unlimited: https://readerlinks.com/l/2169333
Synopsis:
Standalone | MM Mafia Romance | Best Friend’s Father | Age Play | Hurt/Comfort
Unshackled spares no one, and along the way, you’ll get everything from high-speed car chases, secret meetings in the dark, and the rawest hours of grief, to strong family ties, humor, and unconditional love.
In the wake of the bloodiest war the Sons of Munster had seen in a long time, we were supposed to celebrate our victory and move on with our lives. I wanted to see my brothers-in-arms dance and drink way too much. I wanted to hear laughter and Irish music. Instead, we were a syndicate crushed by grief.
Shannon O’Shea had lost more than most, and every fiber of my being screamed at me to pull him from the depths of his despair. As the father of my best friend, he’d been there for me when my parents kicked me out for being gay. Now it was my turn. I had to find the answers. I had to rescue him.
The day he asked for a favor and demanded discretion, the plan unfolded before my eyes, and I couldn’t resist the temptation. No names, no faces. He wouldn’t know it was me in the darkness. At the same time, the shackles around my wrists tightened as old enemies slithered back out of the gutters of my city, and my brothers and I were once again on the warpath.
Excerpt 1
Seventeen minutes later, I returned to my own place a changed man. A deaf man.
I rubbed my ear and tossed my keys on the hallway table.
Shan was sitting on the couch, sipping a drink. Vodka, judging by the bottle on the coffee table.
“What’s the occasion?” I asked.
He glanced over at me, and the languidness of his movements told me everything I needed to know. He’d been at it for a while.
I removed the bottle and returned it to the cabinet.
“I need a favor,” he muttered. “I…I can’t ask sober.”
I frowned and sat down next to him. How bad could it be? Our guys in the syndicate turned to me for favors all the time. With my position, I was more connected than the boss himself, ’cause Finn had to stay clean. He couldn’t get his hands dirty for nothing.
“Whatever you need, sir. You know that.”
He nodded with a dip of his chin, then finished his drink and set the glass on the table. “You’ve set men up with mistresses and girlfriends before.”
Shite.
I’d been waiting for this, yet I hadn’t expected it so soon.
“Aye.” I eyed him carefully. His pain was as evident as usual.
But maybe it wasn’t so soon after all. It’d been over a year since Grace had died.
“Do you want me to arrange something for you?” I asked. “I can get it done in a couple of hours.”
He swallowed hard. “I miss human touch, but I don’t wanna see anyone.”
I felt my forehead crease. I could relate to the yearning, but I wasn’t sure if he was talking literally about the last part. “You mean you don’t want a relationship, or you want it anonymous?”
“Both,” he rasped. Then he cleared his throat. “I’m not looking for intimacy. Just physical. No faces, no names, no talking, no off-the-books apartment, nothing social.”
I nodded slowly, the alternatives appearing in my head—or disappearing, one by one. I wanted to say intimacy was exactly what he needed, but it was his choice. There were still options.
“That leaves you with massage parlors and fetish clubs,” I answered.
“It has to be dark,” he insisted. “Pitch black.”
Okay. He really didn’t wanna risk seeing a face. Fine, I could work with that. A certain underground club came to mind, and it was run by a friend of Colm’s. Aside from the main club being an essential location for our drug trade, it had an upstairs area with a VIP section, a hallway full of private booths, and a couple rooms with viewing windows for live porn.
“Any other preferences?” I asked. “I reckon you don’t care if she’s a blonde or a redhead in the dark, but body type? Age? You want her screened and on birth control so you can go without rubbers? You care about safewords? You want a subservient little thing or a bossy—”
“Jesus,” he muttered and rubbed his temples. “It suddenly feels too complicated. And at the risk of making it worse, I’d prefer a man.”
Fuck my life. Fuck my life hard.
Excerpt 2
“I’d rather take a bet on the return of the Italians,” I replied, changing the topic. “Got any news on that front?”
It’d unnerved me when the last car we’d been tracking had ended up at the airport too. It had happened a couple months ago. As far as we knew, there were no Italians left. Which didn’t add up. They didn’t just surrender silently like that. Something was wrong.
“Not a damn word.” It bugged Eric too. “I got a lead, though. That friend of yours—Ghost?—yeah, she found a connection between—”
“Oi!”
I looked over my shoulder and spotted Colm stepping out of his car. The look of concentration and the furrow between his brows told me something was up.
“Don’t look across the street from the parking lot, but we’ve got company,” he said, walking closer.
I stiffened.
“They were parked outside Finn’s office earlier.” Colm reached us and lit up a smoke, acting calm and oblivious. “Brown Chevy, two wop-lookin’ gobshites our age.”
Jesus fucking Christ, they weren’t even supposed to be stateside.
“This is last time all over again,” I responded irritably. “By the time we noticed they were in our city, they were already causing mayhem.” Get Finn to safety, alert the crew bosses, Eric had to be safe too, move the shipment to a better location. My mind started racing, and I was ready to act without Finn’s approval. I did have the power to do so in some cases; I just wasn’t sure he would classify this situation as one of them. “I hope we agree that there’s no way we can let them leave.”
“Definitely,” Colm replied firmly.
Eric positioned himself so he had a better view of the Chevy somewhere behind me. “Only one reason they’d get a rusty old car like that.”
To blend in. Especially in a place like this. Shipyards and warehouses went hand in hand with rust.
So they were here to gather information and remain discreet.
Unless…
Fuck. Fuck!
“Colm, you and I will pick up the chase,” I ordered. “They’ve ambushed us before. We can’t be certain they haven’t planted anything in the warehouse, and right now, Finn is in there.” Because we didn’t have people here all the time.
Colm was in, and he turned to Eric. “Text Connor, black alert.” He spoke of Finn’s driver, and I assumed he was inside. “He knows to get Finn to a safe place instantly. Ye should go with them, mate.” He addressed me next. “Let’s see if we can box ’em in.”
I nodded.
Adrenaline started pumping through my veins as I headed back to my car, where I hurriedly turned on the engine and called Colm from my dashboard. Noticing that Eric wanted to say something, I rolled down the window. Colm accepted the call at the same time with a short, “Standing by.”
“They started the engine,” Eric said. “Connor received the text. We’re good to go.”
Then there was no use in acting like we didn’t know they were there. I revved the engine, backed out quickly, and spun the car around.
I wasn’t gonna stop until they talked this time. The last bastards we’d tracked down, we’d disposed of way too fast.
I flashed the Chevy with my headlights and offered a two-finger salute, and that covered it. They peeled their rusty bag of shit away from the curb, and I tore out of the parking lot to follow.
About Cara
I’m often awkwardly silent or, if the topic interests me, a chronic rambler. In other words, I can discuss writing forever and ever. Fiction, in particular. The love story—while a huge draw and constantly present—is secondary for me, because there’s so much more to writing romance fiction than just making two (or more) people fall in love and have hot sex.
There’s a world to build, characters to develop, interests to create, and a topic or two to research thoroughly.
Every book is a challenge for me, an opportunity to learn something new, and a puzzle to piece together. I want my characters to come to life, and the only way I know to do that is to give them substance—passions, history, goals, quirks, and strong opinions—and to let them evolve.
I want my men and women to be relatable. That means allowing room for everyday problems and, for lack of a better word, flaws. My characters will never be perfect.
Wait…this was supposed to be about me, not my writing.
I’m a writey person who loves to write. Always wanderlusting, twitterpating, kinking, cooking, baking, and geeking. There’s time for hockey and family, too. But mostly, I just love to write.
Find Cara on social media here:https://www.caradeewrites.com/cdwlandingpage
CC Belle 