Tangled Web: A Small Town Romance (The Cortell Brothers Book 6) by Giulia Lagomarsino (an ebook reader txt) 📕

“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 think 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