Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 74214 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74214 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
“Have a key and the code.”
“Still doesn’t mean you let yourself into someone else’s house unannounced.”
Dom’s gaze cut to mine, dark, keen, seeing everything.
“What? Afraid I might interrupt a morning fuck?”
“Dom…” I warned, slapping the lid of the coffee machine shut and pressing the button.
“Saw you,” he said, shrugging.
“What?”
“House was quiet.”
“Because it was early and we were sleeping.”
“Had to check,” he said, shrugging.
“You came into my room?”
“Stood in the doorway. You didn’t close it.” I wasn’t even aware a growl was building, let alone escaping, until Dom’s lips curved up. “Relax, didn’t see much. Just some of her back. Your body was doing a good job keeping all her secrets.”
“Dom, I swear to fucking God, I’m not above hitting you.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, nodding. “And you’re really gonna wanna in a minute.”
“What did you do?”
“I had to look.”
“Look,” I repeated. Then it dawned on me. “You broke into her place? Dom, I fucking told you not to.”
“And you’re thinking with your dick and not your mind. You don’t like it, tough shit. You’re not my capo, Dante. You don’t give me orders. Sometimes you forget that.”
He wasn’t wrong.
Yes, he worked for me… at the garden center. As a cover for his parole officer. But we were equals in the Family. Hell, he might even have more brownie points than me, given that he’d gone away for the organization.
“Maybe not,” I agreed, digging in my heels. “But this is my situation that we’re dealing with.”
“Yeah, funny, that. We’ll circle back. But back to the pretty thing upstairs.”
“You didn’t find shit.” Maybe that was stubbornness, but I refused to accept that she was involved.
“Well, I found stuff.”
“What?” I asked, my heart sinking.
“She took a trip to Phallus-ophy,” he said, meaning the local sex toy store. “Got herself something that gives all the good vibrations. Wanna guess when she got that?”
“Dom, that’s none of our fucking business.”
“Couple days after she met you.”
That wasn’t exactly some sort of revelation. There’d been heat almost from the jump.
“I only care about anything you found to link her to this. Everything else is her business to tell me. Or not.”
“I didn’t find shit,” he admitted.
“I knew you wouldn’t.”
“You hoped I wouldn’t,” he clarified.
“Someday, Dom, I’m gonna rub this in your face. When you’ve got a woman and she comes with her own complications.”
“The only complicated thing I want from a woman is to figure out which position she wants to get fucked in. But keep dreaming.”
I sighed, making my way over toward the fridge to start gathering up ingredients to make breakfast.
“Back to things that are actually relevant,” I said.
“Right. Big Ed’s place.”
“Are the dramatic pauses necessary?” I asked, shooting him a look.
It went against everything I knew was important, but I wanted Family business over with so I could get back to some alone time with Hazel.
“Moody as fuck for someone who got his life force squeezed out last night,” Dom said with a smirk.
“Fucking mystery why no woman wants to lock you down with a charming mouth like that.”
Dom ignored the jab.
“Big Ed’s place was cleaned out.”
My head snapped up.
“Cleaned out?”
“Just the curtains on the walls and a half-full trash can left.”
“Did he move and we just didn’t know?”
“Same question I asked myself. So I dragged the super out of bed. Big, angry guy. From what he knows, the apartment was still supposed to be occupied. Rent’s paid up. Even had a request to get the spare bathroom shower drain snaked.”
“Huh. Does it look like it was professionally cleaned out?”
“I dunno. It’s possible. It felt more careful than that. Why would a pro clean out furniture? Ain’t like there’s gonna be evidence on the coffee table or in the lamps.”
“True,” I agreed. “So, we’re assuming he moved. But he didn’t say shit about moving. Again, possible. But unlikely. Ed was a talker.”
“Yeah. I got word out to have everyone ask their crews if they heard anything about him moving up in the world. He’d have bragged about that. If he didn’t, figure we can assume he did this shit silently for a reason.”
“Fuck,” I sighed. “Sounds shitty, but I was hoping he was killed to make a point, not because he was involved in some shady plot against us.”
“Yeah. Think we were all hoping that. So, we need to figure out where he moved. And what his moves have been lately. Who was he working with recently, what jobs did he do, that kind of shit.”
“Heading to work on that after this,” he agreed, scraping his plate.
“Where’s my ma?”
“She’s over at Massimo’s house. Valley’s gonna head there after work too. Trying to consolidate the guards even more, since this shit ain’t looking good.”
“Good idea.”
“You need more guards here.”
“Yeah. I was trying to leave more at the garden center, but I’ll ask one of the capos with a bigger crew to loan me some over there so my guys can be here.”