Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 98583 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98583 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Until he growls and holds me still, pumping himself deep between my legs.
“That’s my girl,” he says, groaning as he spills himself and finishes.
I lay there in a puddle of sweat and drool. My limbs keep twitching from aftershocks. He takes off my blindfold first, and the sudden rush of sensory input almost makes me come again. I blink rapidly, and he kisses my shoulders and back as he unties my wrists.
Then I’m in his arms. I’m a puddle of bliss and nothing more.
“Good girl,” he says, stroking my hair. “Such a good girl.”
Then he carries me into the bathroom directly into the tub. He draws a hot bath for us and climbs in, talking to me the whole time. It takes a while before my brain slowly begins to work again, like it needed to reboot after being turned off for years.
“What the heck just happened?” I ask, looking lovingly into my husband’s eyes.
He smiles gently. “We had sex.”
“That wasn’t sex. That was—” I reach for a word. “That was communion.”
He kisses me. “And you were beautiful. God, I wish you could’ve seen it from my point of view. How incredible you were. Communion is the perfect way to describe it. You were like a goddess, and I was drinking you down and eating your every inch. I’m filled with you now.”
“You’re such a fucking freak,” I say, grinning like an absolute maniac because he’s my freak, and I absolutely love it.
Chapter 41
Adriano
I’ve never felt this content before in my life.
I didn’t know people could walk around the world feeling like this.
Like nothing is wrong. Everything is settled. All my problems, stresses, anxieties, all of those are just temporary things. They’ll get figured out eventually.
The weight’s gone. I didn’t even know it had been there. But after my conversation with Lucy in my dad’s old suite—and the mind-blowing sex that followed—I finally feel like I don’t have to hold on to that baggage anymore.
I can let go of my mourning. I can stop obsessing over what might happen and be happy I’m here right now with her.
But I’m still Don Marino, and that means I have to shove this Zen shit away and focus.
“I’ve been studying his movements,” Luca says, turning his laptop around on my desk to face me. He leans forward in the chair and points at a big map of the city covered in overlapping red lines. Richard’s car over the last few days. “There are lots of repeat visits. I’ve got guys confirming the clients he’s seeing. But there’s one place that we can’t figure out.” He zooms in closer and shows me.
It’s the Main Line. That’s a section outside of Philly extending northwest into the suburbs. All the richest folks in the region live in the Main Line, especially the old money families. The railroad used to go that way, and when the city got too crowded, the millionaires built their mansions far away from the working man.
Luca shows me a particular house. It’s in a neighborhood in Wynnewood. On street view, it looks like a bunch of stone-facade colonials. A quiet place, lots of space, lots of green. There’s a porch with big windows and a gable with ivy growing up the side.
“Doesn’t look like much,” I comment.
“This house is probably worth over a million.” He shakes his head, disgusted. “The fucking market’s a racket.”
“You think Demir’s there?”
“Based on property records, that place is owned by a corporation called Meadows Investments. Vittorio and I followed the leads, and I’m reasonably sure Meadows Investments is a shell company owned by Gray Wolf.”
“Reasonably sure isn’t sure enough. We need absolute certainty.”
“Then you’re in luck because Richard’s scheduled to be out there tonight.”
“He’s making evening house calls?”
“More like midnight house calls.” Luca grins at me and snaps his laptop shut. “Told you, it’s fucking him.”
I lean back, blood-covered wheels in my brain spinning along.
It’s like a whole different world. These suburbs are old and affluent. They’re totally different from the close-packed South Philly streets I call my home. This place is fucking quiet. I hear goddamn crickets chirping. There are stars in the damn sky.
I hate it.
“He’s been in there an hour,” Luca says, glowering through the windshield. “What the fuck are they talking about?”
“Probably discussing the millions of dollars’ worth of art we’ve destroyed.”
“Well, he needs to hurry up.”
“What are you so impatient about?”
Luca smirks slightly and glances at his phone. “I’ve got a girl waiting back at my place.”
My eyebrows raise. “A woman lets you touch her?”
“You’d be surprised how often that happens.”
“I’d rather not know.”
“But if this fucker doesn’t hurry up, she’ll be asleep when I get back.” He sighs, shaking his head. “She’s no good when you wake her up, either.”
“Sounds like a problem you should keep to yourself.”
“Probably.”
I try not to smile. Ever since I made Luca one of my Capos, he’s been opening up more and more. When I first took him on, he was just one of my cousins, Carmie’s older brother, strong and clever, but still untested. Now, though, he’s coming into his own. I’m almost proud of him.