Explosive Engagement Read Free

during your brother’s wedding, maybe it had something to do with him or his bride,” she said. “Why do you automatically assume it had anything to do with me or my family?”
    “Because it did,” he said with total certainty.
    She shook her head. “We can’t be the only enemies you’ve ever made.”
    Probably not, but he wasn’t about to admit that to her. “Usually people appreciate what I do for them.”
    “You expect us to appreciate you keeping our father in prison?” she asked, her gray eyes widening with shock and outrage.
    “Let me kill him,” one of the brothers pleaded with her.
    She was younger than them, but she was definitely the one calling the shots, literally, in the Kozminski family. She stared at her father’s body lying in the bronze casket and shook her head. “Not here, Garek.”
    Not “no,” just “not here.”
    “And you wonder why I think it’s you behind the attempts on my life...”
    “Attempts?” she repeated.
    The one she’d called Garek laughed. “And there’s your proof that it’s not us,” he said. “We wouldn’t have had to try more than once to kill you.”
    “I own a security firm,” he reminded them. “I will not be easy to kill.”
    “I don’t know...” the other brother, Milek, mused as he walked around Logan. “You showed up here alone.”
    “He’s not alone,” a deep voice very much like his own announced from the back of the church.
    Of course Parker would have figured out where he’d gone. But he hadn’t come alone, either. Their little sister had tagged along like she always had when they were kids. She hadn’t outgrown that annoying habit yet. Fortunately, one of Payne Protection Agency’s most loyal employees had come along, too. Candace Baker stood next to Parker, her hand beneath her jacket, probably on her holster.
    Instead of being grateful for the backup, Logan was incredibly annoyed with the interference. And the doubt. He could take care of himself and them, and he had proven that again and again.
    “What the hell are all of you doing here?” he demanded to know.
    “Mom sent us,” his twin replied.
    “Of course she did.” Their mother had a problem remembering that he ran Payne Protection—not her. Logan had overlooked her interference when it had involved her matchmaking his brother with his new bride. But he didn’t want her interfering in his life. “She had no right...”
    “That didn’t stop you, ” Stacy bitterly remarked.
    “I had no right to what, dear?” Penny Payne asked as she joined them in the church. Unlike him and Parker who wore the wedding tuxedos, she’d changed from her bronze-colored mother-of-the-bride gown into a black dress. She hadn’t been on the steps to see off Cooper and Tanya. She must have been changing then—as if she’d always intended to attend the funeral of the man who’d murdered her husband.
    “Why are you here, Mom?” he asked. He doubted he would ever understand her, but neither had his father. It hadn’t stopped Nicholas Payne from loving her, though. And it wouldn’t stop Logan, either, unless he wound up like his father: dead at the hands of a Kozminski.
    Out of respect for Mrs. Payne, Stacy motioned her brothers back, but they were already stepping away from Logan. They wouldn’t touch him now—not in front of his mother. She couldn’t promise they wouldn’t exact some revenge later.
    Even now she wondered...
    Could one of them have fired those shots at the wedding? Her heart pounded heavily with dread and fear. She couldn’t lose one of them like she’d lost her father—to prison. They had both already spent too much time behind bars.
    And she couldn’t lose Logan Payne, either. Not for herself. She didn’t care about him. But his mother loved him. And it would kill her to lose a child like she’d lost her husband.
    Mrs. Payne swung her hand toward that child’s face. His reflexes weren’t fast enough to stop her palm from connecting with his cheek. It