Tangled Web: A Small Town Romance (The Cortell Brothers Book 6)

by Giulia Lagomarsino

  I winced. “Yeah.”

  “Don’t do it.”

  “What?” I asked, my eyebrows shooting up.

  “Seriously, do you really want to be the guy that tells the woman he loves—“

  “I never said I loved her,” I cut in.

  He rolled his eyes at me. “Right, the woman you’re fucking and insisting isn’t a serial killer…Better?” I nodded. “So, do you want to be the guy that thought she was a serial killer?”

  “Not really,” I grumbled. “But it’s so dishonest. It’s eating away at me. The closer we get, the more it gnaws at me.”

  “So, what exactly do you think is going to happen? You’ll admit to investigating her and she’ll understand?”

  “Well, no.”

  “You have to ask yourself, do you want this woman, or do you want a clear conscience?”

  I groaned, rubbing my hand down my face. “There has to be another way. I mean, this can’t be the only way to deal with this.”

  “Okay, then let’s look back at your relationship with her. Who knows that you were investigating her?”

  “Just the guy that hired me.”

  “The step-son.”

  I nodded.

  “And you didn’t tell anyone else?”

  I shook my head, but then paused. There was someone else I had told. I grimaced, closing my eyes.

  “Shit, who did you tell?”

  “Kat.”

  He burst out laughing. “Man, you’re so fucking screwed.”

  “You don’t think she would say anything, do you?”

  “Kat? No, why would she say anything? I mean, unless she feels that you’re being used, in which case, she’s gonna get in her face and tell her exactly what she thinks of her.”

  “Kat would never do that to me.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me? You shared your pizza with her. You’re the one she’s closest to. You bet your ass she’ll say shit to her. Serial killer or not, Kat will get Carly on her side and then they’ll go take your little serial killer out. And probably Sofia too because she’s got that fighting spirit now that she spends so much time with Carly. Anna will stand there and watch for fun, and Charlie will be on standby in case someone gets hurt, but I’m not so sure she’d be willing to help Lorelei.”

  “So, you’re saying I’m fucked.”

  “I’m saying that they’re the least of your problems. If this step-son finds out that you’re screwing his step-mother, the one that he’s paying you to investigate, he’s going to take this to her and shove it in her face. This guy has an axe to grind and he’s not going to stop until he has his revenge. And what better way to get that than to shove it in her face that the man she loves has been lying to her?”

  I dropped my forehead to the table, banging my head on it several times. This was such a mess.

  “So, then I have to tell her. If I don’t, someone else will beat me to the punch and then there’s no way she’ll forgive me.”

  “Do you really want forgiveness from a serial killer?”

  “Dude, I just told you, she’s not a serial killer!”

  “Maybe not, but when you tell her, I’m guessing you’ll be her first victim.”

  ✯✯✯✯✯

  Joe had been pacing the apartment ever since our serial killer conversation. I was certain that she wasn’t a serial killer. Well, let’s say I was ninety-nine percent sure. There had to be room for the odd possibility that I was missing something. That being said, I would have to hear it from her lips that she was guilty.

  The apartment door swung open and Carly walked in with Josh. Joe sighed in relief. “Thank God you’re here.”

  “Why are they here?” I asked Joe.

  “Because you invited a serial killer into our lives.”

  “Hey,” Carly snapped. “I’m not a serial killer.”

  “I’m not talking about you,” Joe said. “But I may need you to be.”

  “How about we not try and convince the mother of my child to become a murderer,” Josh said, wrapping an arm around Carly’s shoulder.

  She shrugged. “I have no problem with it, if the target deserves it.”

  Josh chuckled slightly. “Babe, I thought we talked about this, you know, blending in with a small town.”

  She sighed heavily, nodding. “Yeah, I know. I just miss it every once in a while.”

  “Miss what?” I asked curiously.

  “The adrenaline of it all. It’s not the actual killing. It’s knowing that danger is around every corner.”

  “Well, thanks to Andrew, danger is living with us.”

  “Sofia?” Josh asked. “I thought we were all past thinking Sofia was bad.”

  “Not Sofia. He found himself a woman. A black widow.”

  “You did what?” Josh asked at the same time Carly’s eyes lit up.

  “So, you told Joe? This is interesting.”

  “Not interesting,” Joe corrected. “Especially not when she’s out with our women.”

  “Your women,” Josh said. “My woman is right here.”

  “And she’s not a serial killer,” I said irritatedly.

  “Wait,” Joe frowned, turning to Carly. “You knew?”

  “Well, he had to talk to someone,” Carly said, crossing her arms over her chest. “He just told you and look what happened.”

  “Right,” Joe huffed. “And did you tell Carly how you met this woman?”

  “At the hardware store,” I said snottily.

  He stared at me and then turned to Josh. “He was hired to investigate her by her step-son.”

  “Ouch, that’s harsh.”

  “Sounds like my family,” Carly shrugged.

  “So, what did you find?” Josh asked.

  “Nothing! There is absolutely nothing to suggest that she’s ever killed anyone. Have people around her died suspiciously? Yes, but that could happen to anyone.”

  “But it didn’t happen to anyone. It happened to a woman that is currently with my wife!”

  “Girlfriend,” I corrected.

  “It doesn’t matter. What do you think Eric’s going to say when he finds out about this?”

  “Whoa,” Josh chuckled. “Eric’s overprotective enough. Let’s not fill his head with thoughts of serial killers.”

  “I agree. Just leave her alone in the room with me for five minutes and I’ll tell you if she’s a serial killer,” Carly shrugged.

  Josh and I nodded. Joe looked absolutely stunned. “And you’re okay with leaving your woman in the room with a serial killer?”

  Josh scoffed. “I think you’re forgetting who Carly is. Serial killer or not, Carly’s got this.”

  “Look,” Carly stepped in. “Chances are she’s not a serial killer. Look at all the shit that happened to me. Did I kill people? Absolutely, but there was a reason behind it. I didn’t just go around pulling the trigger on anyone that looked at me wrong.”

  “I don’t know,” Josh shook his head. “There was that one time…”

  Carly rolled her eyes at him. “Whatever has happened in her past, you owe her enough to let her tell you her side of things.”

  “Yeah…” Joe stuttered, grasping at straws to come up with something. “But what about the name?”

  “The name?” I asked.

  “Yeah, Lorelei. It screams killer.”

  I threw my hands in the air and walked away. There was no reasoning with him when he was like this. There was laughter out in the hallway and the door swung open, and there stood my woman. My sexy little vixen was laughing with Kat, Sophia, and Anna, and all of them were in once piece.

  Lorelei

  The laughter died in my throat when we entered the apartment. Joe was staring at me like he was terrified, angry, and ready to beat me. Instead, he strode around me and pulled Sofia to him, kissing her hard.

  “Are you okay, sweetheart?”

  She pulled back and looked at him funny. “Of course, I am,” she laughed. “Seriously, you worry too much. Why do you thin
k we staged the whole hostage negotiation thing?”

  “Yeah, and if it weren’t for Lorelei, we never would have gotten away from you.”

  “Yeah,” Joe nodded. “She seems to be very…capable.”

  I flinched, wondering how I was getting the edge of his wrath. “Hey, I was just buying oranges.”

  “Yeah, Joe. Lay off,” Kat said, shoving her way through. “I have to pee.”

  She hurried off to the bathroom while Sofia got to work making something to eat. I heard Andrew lean in and whisper to Joe, “You want to talk about a serial killer, your woman is making us something to eat.”

  Joe glared at him, but that seemed to be the end of whatever that was. I wondered if serial killer was code for something.

  “Hey,” a woman smiled, hooking her arm with mine. What was with all these women just picking me up and carrying me with them? It was weird. Then again, I’d never had any girlfriends before. Maybe this was normal.

  “So, you’re Lorelei,” she said as she led me into the living room.

  “Yeah, that’s me.”

  “Famous hostage negotiator,” she laughed. “I would have loved to have seen it.”

  “From what I hear, it’s on the town Facebook page.”

  “Everything ends up there,” she said with a wave. “That’s why I’m not liked around town.”

  “Did you post something mean?”

  “No, I came from a family of murderers,” she said nonchalantly.

  I frowned. “I’m sorry, you what?”

  “Yeah, my family was mafia. I escaped and came here, picked up Josh along the way. We were on the road for seven years, killing off anyone that came after us and running for our lives…” She smiled slightly. “Those were good times.”

  My frown deepened. “Good times?”

  “Well, I mean, life was never dull. I like a little action in my life. What about you?”

  “I could do with just sitting at my house and enjoying the quiet, personally, but to each his own.”

  “So, not really into shooting?” I shook my head. “What about throwing knives?”

  “Um…”

  “Ever played with bombs?”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t understand the question.”

  “Oh,” she laughed. “It just gets so boring, you know, not having anyone to go to the shooting range with. And every once in a while, I’d like to have a knife throwing contest or dismantle a bomb, but none of the girls are into that stuff.”

  “That…must be terrible for you.”

  “So, what kind of stuff do you do?”

  “Well, it’s pretty boring in comparison…”

  “That’s okay. I’m sure you can teach me something.”

  I chewed my lip in thought. “Well, I like to fix cars.”

  “Like, fix them with a bomb?”

  I shook my head slowly. “Sorry, I fix them to make them work. You know…so you can drive them.”

  She grimaced. “Well, that kind of knocks bombs out of the running.”

  “I would say so.”

  “Anything else?”

  I sighed, wondering why this was so damn important. “Well, I can chop wood, if going for deadly weapons is something you’re looking for.”

  Her eyes lit up. “Ooh, that sounds fun. Gets the adrenaline pumping…I like it.”

  “Well, you’re welcome to chop wood behind my house at any time.”

  “Cool. Thanks!” She stood and walked back over to Josh. “Ready to go, babe?”

  “Yep. You got this?” he asked Joe.

  “Yeah,” he grumbled. I didn’t understand what the problem was. He seemed angry with me. Was this all because I got between him and Sofia? I mean, hell, it was my first time meeting all of them and I was already failing miserably.

  “Hey,” I said, walking up to him. “Sorry about the whole grocery cart thing. And the hostage thing. It kind of got out of hand,” I laughed. “You know, one minute I was shopping and the next I was racing through the store. It was quite exhilarating.”

  “And it was dangerous as hell. My girlfriend is pregnant.”

  I flinched back. Okay, obviously this was all about his girlfriend and me putting her in danger. “Well, I’m sorry. I was just trying to help.”

  “You can help by staying the hell away from her.”

  “Hey,” Andrew snapped. “How about I remind you of how I treated Sofia when she came here?”

  Joe’s eyes shuttered and he walked away. Obviously there was some unspoken tension going on there, but I wasn’t about to pursue that right now.

  “You know, I think I should get home.”

  Andrew nodded and headed for the door. I said goodbye to the girls, ignoring the glaring looks from Robert and Joe. Apparently, I was a dangerous person to be around because I had aided their girlfriends. Lesson learned. We headed downstairs and got in the truck. I stared out the window, wondering how this day had turned so shitty.

  “Sorry about my brother.”

  “What was that about up there? Was that all because I helped his girlfriend out?”

  He sighed, tightening his hands on the steering wheel. “Kat, Eric’s wife, she lost her baby almost two years ago.”

  I nodded. “She mentioned that. How did it happen?”

  “Not sure. She was eight months pregnant and she just didn’t feel the baby moving anymore. The baby was stillborn. It devastated both of them, and it was hard to watch them fall apart as a couple.”

  “So, now everyone’s worried that it’ll happen again,” I concluded.

  He nodded. “It’s why they’re all so protective of them.”

  “You included.”

  He didn’t say anything for a minute, but then he glanced over at me. “My family is very close. None of those women are married to my brothers, but the minute my brothers said they fell in love, they all became my sisters. I would do anything for any one of them, and that includes protecting them from any threats.”

  The way he said that last part almost made me feel like I was a threat. “I would never hurt them.”

  “I know,” he nodded. “But my brothers have just met you. All they saw was that you put them in harm’s way.”

  I snorted. “That was hardly harm’s way.”

  He grinned slightly. “Well, maybe not to you and the girls. But to us, anything could be considered harm’s way.”

  “So, if I were walking with them and we crossed the street…”

  “Is this another scenario where a car is coming at us?” he grinned.

  “I’m just saying, those women are going to lose their shit if everyone keeps treating them like glass.”

  “You may have a point,” he said as we drove out of town. “It’s hard to let go of that control though.”

  We fell into a comfortable silence until we were almost to my house, but there was something that I had to ask. “What did you mean about the serial killer?”

  He frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  “When we first came back, you said something about serial killers and Sofia cooking.”

  He looked panicked for a moment and then laughed uncomfortably. “Oh, that was nothing. It’s just a joke in our family.”

  “Because of Carly?”

  He frowned and then laughed. “Right, because of Carly.”

  “I have to say, she’s a little psycho. I mean, I’m all for having cool interests, but dismantling a bomb is a little outside my area of interest.”

  He nodded, like this made him happy, and I wasn’t sure what else he was expecting of me. We got out after he parked and unloaded all the groceries in the kitchen. It was still freezing in the house, and the fire had died out while we were gone.

  I didn’t even have to ask Andrew to build the fire. He just got to work on it. I could do it myself, but it was nice to have a man do it so willingly. I put away the food, sticking the cold food on the back porch in a cooler. It wasn’t the most ideal solution, but it would work for now. Darkness was starti
ng to settle in the house, so I grabbed a few candles that Andrew had picked up and brought them into the living room, along with a bottle of wine.

  Andrew looked over his shoulder at me and grinned. “No food, just wine tonight?”

  I shrugged. “Who needs food?”

  “Me, but I can get it myself.”

  I hurried over in front of the fire and held my hands up to warm them. “You could have stayed at your apartment, you know. You didn’t have to come babysit me.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest, looking pointedly at me. “Is that what this is?”

  I grinned and rubbed my hands together. They were finally starting to warm up. The house was chilled to the bone, and even if the power did come back on, it wouldn’t warm up fast enough.

  “I’m gonna grab some food. You want something?” he asked over his shoulder as he headed for the door.

  “Maybe just some beef jerky.”

  “Coming up.”

  I gazed into the fire and laughed to myself over the day’s events. I never would have imagined something so crazy would happen, but it had. But Joe…something about him…he didn’t like me and I couldn’t understand why. It was like he thought he knew me, but that was impossible. I didn’t recognize him from anywhere and I was great with names. He definitely didn’t know me. So why was he looking at me with so much hate?

  “Here you go,” Andrew said, handing me over some jerky as he sat down with a sandwich. “Jesus, it’s freaking cold in here.”

  “It’s going to take a while to warm up. Are you sure you don’t want to go home? I really won’t be upset.”

  He gave me a funny look. “No, I’m fine. Besides, I’m not the sort of man that would leave you out here by yourself.”

  “I’m very resourceful. I don’t need you to take care of me.” It sounded harsh, but my tone didn’t reflect that. “I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time.”

  “You know, there’s this thing that people do when they’re in a relationship.”

  “Have sex?” I grinned.

  He didn’t smile back. “They share things about themselves.” His eyes dropped for a second and then he looked back up at me. “There are things that we should talk about…things that people generally know about each other when they’re dating.”