Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 82847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
The smile stayed, and he showed no sign of dropping it. “Why is that, baby?”
I gave an irritated sigh.
“Why is that?” He lost the smile, his voice lower.
My eyes dropped.
“Look at me.”
My eyes immediately flicked up to meet his, and I swallowed, reminded that the man I was sleeping with was extremely dangerous. Not to me. But in general.
“I don’t play games,” he said. “Whatever I think, I say. I want the same from you.”
“I don’t express myself that way—”
“Then learn,” he snapped. “Now tell me why I need to take my life seriously.”
I sucked the inside of my cheek while I met his stare, unsure how we went from strangers to two people in a very serious relationship in a matter of weeks. In some ways, he was still a stranger to me, but he didn’t feel like one. “Because I’d be devastated if I lost you…” Tears welled in my eyes out of nowhere, coming from a place in my heart I didn’t even know was there. A man had never made me feel more alive than he did. Had never made me smile and laugh and then come, in that order, in the span of ten minutes. I hadn’t been looking for a man, but then the man of my dreams walked into my life and took me in a way I didn’t even know I wanted to be taken.
His eyes peered into mine with an unblinking stare, watching me with such potent intensity, he seemed more like a statue than a person. He seemed to relish my emotion, to hold on to this moment.
“Because—because I’m kinda obsessed with you.”
It was a testament to how serious the moment was that he didn’t flash his signature playful grin. He just met my stare with his own, absorbed the moment like he was taking a mental picture of it, recording it to keep forever. “Good—because I would kill anyone and everyone in this fucked-up world just because you asked me to.”
I got to work in the morning before everyone else.
Leo didn’t come in until shortly before noon. He didn’t knock on the open door before he stepped into my office. “Is dinner still on tonight?”
“As far as I know.”
“Dad’s not around.” He approached the desk, the bruising still visible on one side of his face, like he’d been kicked by a horse. “Know where he is?”
“I think he’s at lunch with Antonio.”
He nodded.
“How’s your face?”
He touched it absent-mindedly like he’d forgotten about it, even though he must have seen it in the mirror when he got ready this morning. “Oh, it’s fine.”
“What happened?”
He shrugged. “Some asshole slammed my face into the table. It’s fine, though, because I slammed a door in his face a couple of times. We’re even.”
“You didn’t kill him?”
“Nah, we need the labor.” He looked down at my desk to see what I was working on.
“So, what exactly happened last night?”
“We killed Luigi and his cronies and absorbed his business,” he said. “You know that.”
“But I want to know how it happened.”
“Oh…you want those details.” He took a seat in the armchair and crossed one ankle on the opposite knee, slouched in the chair with one of his shoelaces untied. “Shit was crazy. We expected an apology from Lombardi, some groveling, maybe some reconciliation, but the strunzo decided to backstab us again. We were supposed to meet without guns, all of us, but it ended up just being us who were unarmed. And basically, Luigi said we were to surrender our business. Otherwise, he would kill us all, starting with me. Said Dad was soft.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Seemed pretty bleak. And then Wolfe stepped up, and that’s when shit got crazy.”
I tried not to look too interested, but I wanted to know every single detail of Wolfe’s involvement. Wanted to know the version of him that I hadn’t seen. Wanted to know all of it, to understand every nuance of the man I bedded. “Crazy, how?”
“Well, Wolfe had a guy on the inside who owed him a favor and somehow managed to give them faulty guns. All of them, even Lombardi. Wolfe told Lombardi’s guys to shoot, and nothing happened…and then he started to laugh. And then he kinda lost it.” Leo’s eyes widened for a second, like Wolfe was crazy. “Told Luigi to give his son a call…and then his phone started to ring from a crate.”
“Oh my god.”
“Wolfe pulled him out with an oxygen tank. He was knocked out with meds. Luigi begged for his son’s life, et cetera, et cetera.”
I swallowed.
“Wolfe cleaned house.” He made a gesture with his hands like he was dusting off his palms. “I didn’t like the guy at first, but you know what, he gets it done. He’s not someone I’d ever want to piss off.”