Chapter 13
Chapter thirteen
Sapphire
Reiko expected chaos when they stepped out of the office.
Or a lot of carnage. Something to explain why the secretary hadn’t had security swarming her father’s office when too many suspicious noises started slipping through the walls, or after Santino had whistled for Armando. A detail she still had questions about.
She had a lot of questions, really. Except many of them weren’t what she suspected they should have been.
Many of her feelings weren’t what she thought they should have been.
She’d just watched her father and younger brother—the men she’d been raised to revere—be rather brutally murdered.
For her. Because of her. Most anyone would have told her to be upset, emotional, angry, or to some degree devastated by such an experience.
But those same men had also that very day plotted to have her assassinated, after a lifetime of abuse and neglect, and she couldn’t work herself up to those feelings.
She was sad. Sad it had had to come to that at all. Sad for herself, for having let them break her so thoroughly for so long.
Beyond that, she was confused. Because Armando was alone in the lobby outside the office and there was no sign of disturbance. In fact, there was no sign of the secretary at all. The personal belongings Reiko had glimpsed on the desk were also gone.
“All good, Boss?”
“Time to go,” Santino replied. “We handled here?”
“Yes, sir. Cleaners are waiting downstairs. The private elevator’s on emergency lockdown. She gave me the key.” Armando held up a small elevator key as he spoke.
Reiko couldn’t contain herself. “She? What’s been handled? Where did the secretary go?”
Santino tucked her up against his side, his hand low on her hip. “Remember when I signaled Armando earlier?”
She nodded.
“That was a code for Armando to get to work cleaning house, so to speak. The employees who saw us enter were given one opportunity to take a very nice lump sum, what you might call hush money, and disappear. They do this with the knowledge that we know the exact short list of people who know shit about today, and who their loved ones are, so it’s in their interest to keep quiet.
Nothing says they can’t take those loved ones with them, we just need ‘em far enough away not to be easily accessible. Most people take the payout.”
Reiko floated along as they moved into the elevator and Armando hit more buttons, her brain processing. “So, minimal bloodshed?” The question seemed ridiculous.
Santino laughed. “Exactly.” He gave her a squeeze. “And the cleaners downstairs will come back up, with this handy key, and square up the office. Nothing will trace back to any of us.”
Reiko exhaled. “What about cameras?”
“We’ve got digital cleaners for those.” Santino grinned down at her, pride gleaming in his eyes. He liked her questions. He liked that she was asking questions.
She liked that look in his eyes. She took another, steadier breath. “So, we were never here?”
His fingers flexed over her side. “We were never here.”
Nothing more was said before the private elevator—smaller and cleaner than the one they’d ridden up in—reached the garage level.
Santino kept her tight at his side as they followed Armando out, and kept walking while Armando detoured to speak with an unfamiliar group of men in actual hazmat-like suits.
They went straight to the Rolls-Royce, which Dario started up as soon as he saw them approaching.
Santino bent his head and pressed a kiss to her covered shoulder, murmuring softly as Armando clambered into the passenger seat.
“I know I promised to take you phone shopping this afternoon, beautiful, but I need to clean up a little better. Would you be devastated if we go tomorrow? Or order online for delivery? I’ll still get you whatever you want. ”
She’d forgotten all about phone shopping. And if she were honest with herself, the notion ranked somewhere between unappealing and overwhelming on the psychological scale. “I’m not really enthusiastic about going,” she admitted, “so I don’t mind putting it off.”
He offered her a smile. “Home, Dario.” Then, with the hand not attached to her, he pulled his phone from his pants pocket and in seconds was scrolling through what looked from her angle like an online storefront. “You had an Android, right?”
Reiko blinked. He’s not. “I did. It was an older model Galaxy.” She hadn’t been looking forward to replacing it, so she’d been ignoring the small quirks that popped up over time.
He met her curious gaze with a sexy smirk. “Choose a color.” He turned his phone around to show her a partial product display, focused on the section with the color options. But it revealed enough. He was phone shopping.
“Santino, really, you don’t have to—”
“I’ll choose for you if it’s overwhelming.”
She clamped her lips shut and pouted at him thoughtlessly.
“Purple it is.” He tapped maybe three more times before shoving his phone back into his pocket.
“It’ll be delivered tomorrow. I added a few accessories to get you started.
Now”—he twisted his entire torso, leaning into her personal space—“we have about five minutes to just make out like horny teenagers. Come here.”
She laughed even as the flush lit beneath her skin, and then he was there, swallowing her laughter with his kiss as his tongue swept into her mouth. The warming flush burst into a raging fire and Reiko latched onto him, kissing him back with a fervor she barely recognized in herself.
If the rush that consumed her then was how teenagers were supposed to feel, she’d been more deprived than she had realized.
But she couldn’t be mad about it, because she also hadn’t known Santino when she’d been younger.
They were just far enough apart in age that they would have missed each other in high school even if they’d gone to the same one.
And what she felt in that moment, as he kissed her hard enough her lips would surely bruise and dragged his hands up and down the sides of her dress, she never wanted to share with anyone else.
Her fingers were tangled in his hair, one of his arms fully around her and one of her knees wedged between his thighs by the time the sound of distinctly throat clearing cut through her haze.
Santino broke from her lips, a tell-tale smack popping between them, and his chest heaved against hers. He cut a narrow-eyed glare over her shoulder. “What?”
“We’re home, Boss,” Armando replied, his tone impassive.
The words crashed like thunder in her ears.
She knew Santino intended to take her inside with him.
Expected her to stay. Were they about to have sex?
It felt like they were. She didn’t think she was opposed to it, even, so much as nervous.
She wanted him—more of the way he kissed her, touched her, and made her feel so …
beautiful. But she hadn’t had sex in years.
And Santino struck her as a lights-on, see-everything kind of guy.
Technically, he’d already seen her biggest insecurity.
She’d just never been intimate with the lights on. Or even fully naked.
Reiko startled when Santino lifted her from the car. She didn’t think she’d zoned out that badly! “What are you—”
“A man’s supposed to carry his woman over the threshold the day he brings her home, right?
” Santino flashed her a sizzling smile, teeth damn near blinding in the late morning sun.
“We’re speeding up the timeline. I can’t handle you in that vulnerable apartment, and I don’t see the sense in it.
Besides”—the pitch of his voice lowered to a thrilling timbre—“I like the way you feel in my arms.”
Her entire body clenched and Reiko leaned her head on his shoulder just to make sure it stayed upright. “You’re kind of possessive, you know that?”
He barked out a laugh as they crossed through the foyer, the rich sound bouncing off the walls. “If you think that now, wait ‘til you have my ring on your finger and my baby in your womb.”
I am not going to squirm while he’s carrying me through a hallway.
I. Am. Not. It was a hard-won fight. She curled her arms around his neck and spoke in a whisper meant only for him, ignoring the sensation of other eyes on them as he surely made a spectacle with the staff she knew he had.
“About that,” she said, “I can’t remember if I said …
but I missed. I didn’t get anywhere near …
anything, that day. The doctors I’ve seen since have all said I should be able to conceive, and carry, without complications. Predictable ones, at least.”
These were not words she’d ever thought she would speak. She hadn’t ever thought she would have children. She hadn’t ever thought she would have a partner to share her future with, period.
Santino’s grip tightened. “You didn’t say,” he replied, voice quieter. “But that’s good to hear. I just figured if it turned out we couldn’t conceive, then we’d adopt.”
She smiled against his neck. “You really want kids, don’t you?”
“Five.”
A moment passed. “I beg your pardon?”
“I want five.”
Reiko reared back, gaping up at him, and only then did she realize they were ascending a wide staircase. “You want five?”
The heat in his smirk could have roasted an entrée.
“My pain-in-the-ass cousin has four. Current speculations aside, I can’t let him beat me.
Fortunately, that dumbass went and got a vasectomy a couple years ago, since he can’t keep it in his pants.
So, he’s locked in at four, which means five is what I need. ”
It was a competition. The number of children he wanted was a competition. She frowned at him. “But you’ll love them all equally, of course. All the boys. All the girls.”