Chapter 15
PRIEST
By the time I get back to Luna, she’s curled up on the couch, fast asleep while a crime documentary rolls across the screen. Something about some piece of shit who murdered his wife and tried to stage it as a suicide.
Jesus, this is what she watches?
Hardly a chick flick.
I think about her telling me that phrase is sexist earlier and can’t suppress a grin as I gently take the remote from her still fingers and hit the power button.
I wonder what she would prefer I call the movies that women always seem to drool over, the kinds with happily-ever-afters and a Hollywood heartthrob effortlessly charming the female lead out of her panties.
And then I wonder at this newfound urge to change myself. To want to please her.
I’ve been with women before, but never like this. And I’ve never known anyone quite like her. She’s special. Different. Not just because she’s my wife. But because she’s her .
I don’t know what to do with the terrifying feelings boiling up inside me.
Men like me aren’t made for emotions or tenderness.
We’re made for brutality and death and power, for doing whatever the fuck we need to do to get what we want.
For retaliating when someone dares to challenge or betray us.
For going toe-to-toe with the most dangerous, ruthless men there are.
That’s what I have to do tonight.
I don’t want to think about that now, in this quiet moment where the only sound is Luna’s deep and even sleep breathing.
For a second, I have the illusion of happiness, of serenity.
I can pretend that all the fucked-up shit I’ve done, all the fucked-up shit I’ve seen, doesn’t exist. There’s nothing but the two of us.
Until there isn’t.
The air in the living room shifts. Rocco’s at the door, looking hesitant.
“Sorry to interrupt, boss. The car is waiting.”
I nod. “I’ll be there in a few minutes, Roc.”
He disappears, but the spell has been broken and Luna is shifting on the couch, stretching as alertness returns to her honey-brown eyes.
“I must have fallen asleep.”
She looks tired and adorable and infinitely fuckable, and all I want to do is carry her off to the bedroom and make her come all night long. But I can’t have that.
“Understandable. It’s been one hell of a week for you. You must be exhausted.”
And I know she hasn’t been sleeping well, her dreams filled with nightmares. Nightmares I helped put there by being partly responsible for bringing her back to the world she’d fought so hard to flee. A sharp pang of something foreign, something that feels a whole lot like guilt stabs through me.
“I am tired,” she agrees, still half asleep, her voice low and sultry.
I remember what it sounded like earlier, throaty and sexy as fuck, when she was moaning my name while I licked her pussy. My dick twitches, but I tamp down the arousal. I don’t have time for anything more than a quick goodbye.
“Listen.” I scrub a hand over the scruff on my jaw. “I have some work I need to do. I’ll be gone for a bit.”
She sits up, the throw falling around her lap, and I’m momentarily distracted by how amazing her tits look in that top. “For how long?”
“A few hours, if everything goes well. Saint is going to be here if you need anything, and Zia sent more of her famous lasagna to keep you two fed. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Luna stands, frowning. “What kind of work?”
I’m not going to tell her that. For one, she’ll worry. For another, if things don’t go according to plan, I don’t want her to know anything the authorities can use against her.
I kiss her cheek. “The less you know, the better. I won’t lock you in the bedroom. You can have your run of the place.”
“What else is here?”
“A gym, a game room, a pool, a kitchen, and a few other bedrooms.” There’s also a surveillance room, but she doesn’t need to worry about that.
“There’s a pool down here?”
“Yeah.” I rub the back of my neck as I think about her floating in the water in nothing but a tiny bikini.
If I don’t get out of here now, I’ll never want to leave.
“I can’t believe you’ve been keeping me locked in that room when there’s a pool.” She glares at me, giving me the sass I can’t help but find irresistible.
“I needed to know I could trust you before I let you roam freely.”
That gives her pause. “And you trust me now?”
“Like I would a feral cat.” I grin at her. “But I’ve had my men remove anything that could be used as a weapon.”
“I have hardback books,” she points out.
A tendril of dark hair has fallen across her cheek. I sweep it back and tuck it behind her ear.
“Those books are too precious to you. You don’t want gangster blood on them.”
Her eyes narrow even more.
We both know I’m right.
But I don’t say so. Instead, I dip my head and kiss her again. Fuck, her lips are soft—and responsive even when the rest of her is all prickly and defiant. I like this woman.
Like her way too much.
I end the kiss reluctantly. “Behave, topolina . I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
With that, I turn away from her, stalking toward the door.
“Gangster?”
Her voice stops me. I pause and throw a look over my shoulder. Luna is standing where I left her, looking like a dark-haired, kick-ass fairy.
“Yeah?”
“Be safe.”
My gut clenches. There’s no way she knows the danger I’m about to walk straight into, but she’s smart. She senses it. I’ve never had a woman to come home to before, not like this. Warmth rushes inside all the cold, dead places where my heart used to be.
I hold her stare. “Always.”
As I turn and walk away from Luna, I can only hope that my promise to her is true.
“You sure you want to go in there alone?”
Through the darkness of the night, I stare at the flickering neon sign outside the Diamond Club.
It’s a run-down, rambling building on the outskirts of the city in an area that’s more known for the size of its rats and the quality of its sex workers and drugs—highly dubious, to be clear—than anything else.
Flexing my fingers, I look back at Scorpion. “He won’t touch me.”
“I don’t trust Amedeo Revello as far as I can throw the asshole. And with all the cannoli he eats, that isn’t too damn far.”
Fair point. I don’t trust Revello either. But we need to come to an understanding. Namely, that I’m don of the joined families or he’s a fucking dead man.
“Squeaky will be there,” I remind him.
Tomasso’s right-hand man is the one who arranged this meeting. Given the war we may be about to head into with the Bratva, we need a united presence. A solidified family without any revolting factions.
Scorpion makes a low sound that I think he may have learned from his dog. “I don’t trust fucking Squeaky either.”
“Squeaky knows we’ll clip him if he lifts so much as a pinkie to help Amedeo. His loyalty was to Tomasso.”
“Yeah, but Tomasso’s dead.”
“Tomasso’s daughter isn’t.”
And that’s why I’ve secreted Luna away at our safe house. Because I can’t trust Amedeo not to try to take her out. She’s the last impediment from the Revello family with Tomasso gone and her brother Leo long dead.
“You going to use the wifey as a bargaining chip?” Scorpion wants to know.
“Fuck no,” I bite out, irritated with my brother at the mere question. “Luna’s off the table. Off-limits. I don’t do deals that have anything to do with her. And what’s with this wifey shit? You and Saint trading notes?”
“He may have mentioned it pissed you off.”
My brothers are dicks. All of them. They’re lucky I love them.
“It’s stupid,” I grumble. “Just like this conversation. I’m going in now. If I don’t come out in half an hour, you and the boys know what to do.”
Scorpion’s on edge again, all the amusement fading from his face. “You know I don’t fucking like this, Priest. This could be an ambush.”
I’m more than aware of that.
I crack my knuckles. “Or it could be the beginning of our ability to assert dominance over the Bratva, the Irish, and the other families. Just think of what we’ll be able to do with the families unified again. How strong we’ll be.”
“Or fucking Revello takes the opportunity to do his biggest rival, and Squeaky sticks the knife in your back.”
I feel a pang deep inside at the thought of being wiped out. Gone. I wouldn’t be the first. The streets of this city are bathed in Mafia blood. They have been forever. But now that I have someone depending on me—now that I have Luna—it feels different. I feel like there’s so much more at stake.
“If they kill me, I want you to kill them,” I tell my brother. “I want you to mercilessly, ruthlessly torture them, and then I want you to put a bullet in their brains and dump what’s left of them in the Atlantic attached to a fucking cement block. You got me?”
Scorpion nods. “I got you.”
“I know you do, brother.”
We shake hands.
I strip off my cell, my burner, and my gun and leave them on the console.
I’m going in bareback. It’s what Amedeo agreed to, and I’m honoring it.
If someone isn’t upholding his end of the bargain, it’s not going to be me. Outside the G-Wagon, lightning flashes, followed by a crack of thunder. It’s about to start raining, and I hope that’s not an omen.
“Be safe,” Scorpion tells me.
I think of Luna, defiant and intelligent and beautiful, waiting for me at the safe house.
I nod. “I will.”
And then I’m slipping out of the G-Wagon and into the night. As I reach the door of the Diamond Club, big fat drops of rain start to fall. In seconds, it becomes a deluge. Lightning arcs across the sky and thunder rakes the clouds.
But I don’t give a shit about the rain.
I’m ready.