Tempting The Mafia Twins (Genesis and Kiefer) novel Chapter 1

A Chance Encounter

A chance encounter.

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It was all it took really. Like a flock of birds flying into a jet engine, all it took was a chance encounter to devastate an entire life.

Genesis Jones knew all about chance encounters.

Eight years ago, she’d been victim to a chance encounter which changed her life in ways she never dreamed possible. She’d been plucked from obscurity by the handsomest man she’d met in her twenty–one years, when she’d tripped over

a broken cobblestone on a pathway when she and her friend got lost on a trip to Ireland. 1

Kiefer O’Reilly, thirty at the time, took one look at her and for

reasons to this day Genesis didn’t comprehend, decided in a

split second she was meant to be his for all of eternity.

When she returned to the US to finish her last semester at

university, he’d followed her.

They’d been married before the ink was dry on her college diploma three months later.

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For a full year, she’d endured the hell which came with being

the wife of the notorious leader of the Iron Force Gang, a

group known to the FBI as being an Irish American mob. The

first three months she’d known Kiefer not once was she even

remotely aware of him in this regard.

She’d understood him to be the heir to his father’s

pharmaceutical company.

It turned out, as she learned the day of their wedding, the

billion–dollar enterprise was a front for organized crime. In

her lovestruck state though, she didn’t care. All she cared

about was how he loved her and with her rose–colored glasses, she went ahead with the wedding, like a naïve fool.

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After that, she has paid dearly for it.

Now, standing on the corner of the street in downtown Burbank California, she was once again feeling every bit

the naïve fool. Another chance encounter and she was once

again going to suffer for her folly.

She shouldn’t have come on a business trip.

Kiefer’s twin brother, Tadgh, stood across the four lanes of

Praffic, his eyes locked with hers. Slowly as if not wanting 18:41

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scare her away, he lifted his phone to his ear. She didn’t need to read the lips of the man to know who he was calling and what he was saying.

He was calling it in. Tadgh was calling his brother to tell him he’d found his snitch of a wife who got him arrested seven years ago just so she could escape the O’Reilly family.

Her heart thundered as she lifted her own phone to her ear.

She called her best friend.

“Astra. They found me. Take him and run.”

In this nightmare of a marriage, her only precious gift must

not be found by those two men.

“Shit, where are you?”

“I’m still in Burbank. Tadgh is across the street from me. The light is about to turn green. I’m going to run but if he’s here, Kiefer is here. My luck has run out.”

“Ditch your phone. Get rid of the sim card now. Get a burner

when you can.”

Will do.”

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She didn’t look away from Tadgh who lifted an eyebrow at her when she stepped backwards while pulling her sim card from the phone and putting it under her foot, stomping it, before she kicked it down the manhole cover near where

she stood. For good measure, she threw the phone down the grates of storm drain. Then she turned and fought against the crowd of people waiting to cross and began to run.

The honking of horns and the yells of people told her Tadgh was racing after her, ignoring the do–not–cross signal.

She wanted to stop and remove the heels she’d worn to her meeting today, but it was seconds she didn’t have

time to spare. She needed to find an alternate way to the hotel where she was staying, grab her shit and get out of California.

She wondered if there was a guardian angel looking out for her when just a few feet ahead of her, a person was exiting a taxicab. The door still open and she jumped in, grimacing when the person hadn’t seen her and started to slam the door, and it caught her shin.

“I’ll give you five hundred bucks if you take me to the Hilton and you go now!” she yelled at the male driver.

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“You got it lady,” the man stepped on the gas, pulled away

from the curb and she was gasping for air and rubbing her legs as she looked out the back window in time to see Tadgh throwing his hands up in the air as he reached the spot they’d just left.

But she knew that she hadn’t quite escaped.

She must not be caught.

They hate her.

Quite sure they want she dead. 1

She wasn’t exaggerating. From what she’d seen of the Iron Force Gang, a name apparently given to them from Kiefer’s great–great grandfather in the eighteen hundreds, and in her opinion was lame as fuck, they did not hesitate in pulling

triggers.

What did she do to make them hate her?

Got her husband arrested.

She’d given the FBI agent who’d cornered her just enough information to tie Kiefer up long enough for her to escape. 5/8

Then she’d disappeared, leaving Boston behind her.

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When the cab drew up to the hotel, she knew she only had minutes to spare before the team which followed Keifer and Tadgh everywhere descended on her. She shoved the five bills at the cabbie and then raced through the lobby.

In her room she didn’t spare a second thought to her clothing, computer, or even the USB drives which held her

presentations for the meetings here in the city.

She kicked her shoes off, shrugged out of the dress pants she was wearing and frantically hopped into a pair of jeans.

She threw her blouse off in lieu of a t–shirt and a hoodie. She

donned socks and sneakers. Grabbing her ballcap from her bag, she shoved bare necessities into a backpack she always used for carryon when she was forced to fly for work.

Grabbing her identification, she patted the stitched–up bottom of her backpack and ensured it wasn’t tampered with. Her alternate passport and driver’s license were there, and it would get her back into Canada long enough to get to her best friend at their predetermined meeting place. There was also five grand in cash and another five in prepaid credit cards.

She cautiously pulled the door open and noted the

housekeeper at the end of the hall. She walked towards her 6/8

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