Chapter Twenty-Two
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Soren
My mind had been pulled in a thousand different directions: the mafia, money laundering, sleeping with a capo, Teresa’s familial connections, Alen; the list went on and on.
But my heart?
That had one direction.
And it pointed right to Saff.
Was I stunned by the developments after I walked into the club?
Absolutely.
But my feelings for Saff never wavered.
It probably helped that I’d been suspecting Saff’s lies since the beginning, so it didn’t exactly feel like a betrayal the way it might have if it had come out of the blue.
I was unexpectedly excited to get a bigger look at her real world. Especially since I knew how much Saff loved her home, how much work she’d put into it, how she never wanted to leave it.
“You can’t judge the contents of my fridge,” she warned as she unlocked the door.
“What contents?” I shot back, getting a wobbly smile from her over her shoulder.
She was nervous, I realized.
I’d seen a lot of moods from her over the past few weeks.
But nervous had never been one of them.
She clearly thought, despite my defending her to her angry boss, and tending to her face in the backseat of the car, that I was going to be pissed.
“I do have coffee, at least,” she said as she pushed open the door and moved inside, making a beeline for the kitchen, anxious for something to do.
While I took my time taking it all in.
She was right.
She’d put a lot of work into the place.
It was in the bookshelves lining the walls, most of them already overflowing with books. The giant round chair that had a small stack of books, a bunch of pillows and blankets, and the end table beside it that held sticky notes, pens, highlighters, an empty bag of chips, and the mug I’d gotten her.
The whole area smelled like her signature strawberry sweet cream scent. I figured she had been endlessly burning that same candle in her house that she had been in her office to make everything smell like that.
There was a sweatshirt thrown over the back of the couch with Morally gray is my favorite color embroidered on the front.
On the kitchen island was a pile of various bookmarks and an unopened package from what seemed like a subscription book box.
Seeing me looking at it, Saff said, “Opening it was supposed to be the only plan I had today. Then, well, everything else happened. Now I don’t feel like I’m in the right mood.”
“I’m sorry Alen did that to you,” I said, looking at the bruise on her cheek that seemed to be getting darker by the minute. “If I had any idea he would lay a hand on you—”
“I think you can guess that this is not the first time I’ve been hit. Trust me, this is nothing.”
“That may be true. But this is the only time you got hit because of me. That’s not nothing.”
“Even if I knew about Alen, there’s a good chance he could have gotten his hands on me.”
“Saff…”
“Soren…”
“It’s okay to be pissed at me.”
“Oh, I know,” she said, giving me a tilted smile. “Believe me, if there is anything I do well, it’s being pissed off. Most of the time without even just cause. I have a PhD in rage-outs. But just this once, I feel like I would be a major hypocrite to be mad at you. Hey, at least you suspected me. I was completely blindsided by your little criminal connections,” she teased, holding out a mug to me.
“I don’t have a lot to defend myself with other than I was all but assured he was going to jail. For a while. I didn’t think I’d be bringing that mess into a new club.”
“I get that. We all have shady shit in our pasts. And, believe me, no one knows better than I do what moral hoops you’re willing to jump through just to get a leg up in the world. You were young; there was no way you could have known how it would follow you around for years.”
“He also wasn’t always the dick he is now. He’s been on a downward spiral for years.”
“If it makes you feel better, Primo will handle it.”
“Is he… a friend of your organization?”
“Something like that. There are five families in the city. Each has a different territory. Primo runs The Bronx. And until very recently, our two families were allied against the other three families.”
“What happened to stop the rivalry?”
“Two forced marriages.”
“I’m sorry. Did you say forced marriages?”
“Antiquated, right? Primo kidnapped one of the Costa women and gave her an ultimatum. Marry him to end the war. Or he kills her family.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah. I mean, they totally fell in love and are this power couple now. But it was a big deal back then.”
“You said two forced marriages.”
“Renzo wanted a truce with the Costas as well. The Costas are like the ‘top’ family. Lorenzo Costa is the capo-dei-capi .”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“The boss of all bosses. Each family controls their own area. But he controls all the families.”
“Okay. So Renzo got a truce with the Costas by forcing one of their women to marry him?”
“Well, Lore actually volunteered. She had a lifelong crush on Renzo.”
“Let me guess. They fell in love too.”
“It made me stop seeing the plots in the books I read as completely absurd,” she admitted. “Soren, I’m so—”
“You had a job to do,” I cut her off.
“Which I wouldn’t be feeling guilty about at all. If…”
“Yeah, that if …”
“I never should have let it happen,” she said, speaking mostly to herself, likely thinking about how pissed off her boss had been, how much she clearly respected him and wanted that respect in turn.
“Do you regret it?” I asked, my chest constricting at the idea of what was between us being one-sided.
Saff took a long sip of her coffee then exhaled hard.
“No. I know I should. For so many reasons. But no. But…”
I put my cup down, then reached to set hers next to it.
“Come here,” I said, reaching for her hand and pulling her with me across the apartment to that giant chair of hers. I kicked out of my shoes. Saff, brows pinched, followed my lead. Then let me pull her onto the chair, situating her on my chest. “Today was a lot.”
“Yeah,” she agreed, letting herself snuggle in.
“I can see how much Renzo’s opinion matters to you.”
“He gave me a chance.”
“Did he give you a chance , or did you prove to him your worth?” I asked, fingers drifting through her silky blue strands.
“Oh,” she said.
“I know I don’t know you as well as he does—”
“That’s not true,” she said, voice soft. “You know me better than him. Better than anyone.”
I ignored the way her words made my heart feel like it had grown too large to stay within the confines of my ribcage. “He’s known you longer. Has been around you more.”
“That’s true.”
“But I feel like I know you well enough to say that no one has ever handed anything to you in this life. You’ve worked for it. Fought tooth and nail for it. He didn’t give you anything. He rewarded your hard work. Wording matters.”
“I guess that’s true.”
“If you stop looking at his respect like a gift you have to earn and instead see it as something that is owed to you, it might make it sting less that he’s upset about this.” My hand rubbed down her arm, then my fingers laced between hers.
“Renzo genuinely sees us all as family. But in the way that he’s the father and we’re all his pain-in-the -ass kids. Who sometimes break the rules and need to be punished.”
“What kind of punishment?” I asked, trying to keep my tone casual. But if that man had any thoughts about hurting Saff, he’d have to go through me first.
“Well, when Cinna and Dav fucked up, they got a dock in pay for a while. And they couldn’t run any new jobs during that period either.”
“If you have any issues paying bills during that time, I got you.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Darlin’, I’m half at fault here. More, really.”
“I’ll be fine if my pay is docked. I live a smaller life here because it’s all I need. But I have more than enough money to set myself up for a while. It’s not the money…”
“It’s that he’s… family.”
“Yes.”
“As someone who doesn’t have anyone, believe me, I get that.”
“You have Teresa,” she reminded me. “And I still can’t get over her having mob connections.”
“That woman never ceases to surprise me with her connections. She has a niece who is a famous children’s book writer. And an aunt who invented the pillow that you love.”
“The AirNest?” she asked, tone lighter.
“Yep.”
“Wow. I’m impressed.”
“It was a Christmas gift one year. I’ve never slept better. I have to get an extra one so we aren’t fighting over it.”
“If by ‘fighting over it’ you mean giving it to me every night, then sure.” She was quiet for a moment, her fingers tracing across my chest in a pattern I couldn’t quite make out. “Hey, Soren?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s not just Teresa.”
“What’s not just Teresa?”
“It’s not just Teresa that you have. You have me too.”
Fuck, that was good to hear.
“You got me too,” I told her. “Though, what does that mean for our deal? And your boss?”
“Well, the deal is airtight. I, uh, made sure my lawyer closed any possible loopholes. The part that is more murky is that… we chose me for the deal because I’m not as known in the family. And I was meant to be a silent partner. But…”
“But if you and I are involved, and someone does some digging…”
“Yeah. The problem is, there’s a new AUSA. And she’s gunning for us. We need the money clean, but we wanted it to be as discreet as possible.”
“Hmm. I guess you have a few options then.”
“Oh, yeah? I can’t come up with any.”
“First off, we go through with the original plan. But get extra careful about the books.”
“Okay. What else?”
“Well, there’s always the… going straight option. You have money. You’ll be making a lot more once the club opens. Get out.”
“I worked my ass off to get in and you want me to quit?”
“I’m not saying quit. But maybe more… become a contractor.”
“A mob contractor?” she scoffed.
“No, hear me out. If you get out and go—as far as anyone can tell—legit and build a nightclub empire… no one would have any reason to look twice at you. And you could continue to wash the family’s money. For a small fee.”
“But… they’re my family , Soren.”
“And I’m not saying you need to give them up. You can still see them. Do book club. Everything like that. But if you’re not actively running a crew and whatever jobs that entails, what could the cops say? That you have shady friends? So what?”
“Even if I did go that route, there would be speculation on the clubs as businesses that are cash-heavy.”
“And that’s when very careful computer programming comes into play.”
“Why are you talking about that like you know all about it?”
“I know a thing or two about busting my ass to get where I am too. And how fiercely I want to protect that. While at the beginning, I’d been willing to play it fast and loose with Alen and his dirty money, the more successful I became, the more careful I wanted to be about that.”
“So you, what, hired someone to design a computer system that slips in the dirty money?”
“Technically, I hired someone to create a ‘training’ program of a legit program.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I didn’t want anyone knowing what I was into. Not even the programmer. So I had him code a ‘training’ program for new servers and bartenders to use when they are learning to use the computer to put in orders. It has a ‘trainer’ button to hit with each order.”
“I still don’t get it.”
“The button spits out a receipt that looks normal, but the one for the business has that ‘trainer’ button printout on it.”
“You’re not making any sense.”
“Well, if you’d let me finish,” I said, tugging some of her hair playfully. “Once I got the program from him, I went over the code with a fine-tooth comb and found the trainer button. Then changed it on the business end to add on a shot. To every single order.”
“But—”
“To the servers and bartenders, the button supposedly just confirms that they checked for ID.”
“Wouldn’t it look suspicious, though, that every order has a shot?”
“I mean, it is a club. But no. Because if you’ve ever seen how busy bartenders are at a club, you’d know that some of the time, they are forgetting to hit that button. It is probably sixty-forty.”
“How much money could that clean, though?”
“If the club is reasonably busy, a hundred grand. Per club.”
“That’s not bad.”
“You need to clean more than that?” I asked, wondering how much money organized crime made. At the Italian mafia level. Because that limit was more than enough for Alen and his little drug empire.
“Maybe. I never talked abut the math with Renzo. We had time.”
“There’s also the cover charge,” I said. “Which is always cash-only. It’s very easy to manipulate that amount.”
“You’d be willing to do all of this?”
“For you? Yeah, darlin’, I’d be willing to do it.”
“What if, six weeks, months, years from now, we decide we hate each other?”
“Not possible.”
“Be rational. I’m not an easy woman to love. I’m hardly an easy woman to like .”
“Says who?”
“Oh, just about every man I’ve ever known.”
I raised our clasped hands, looking at our fingers.
“I’m thankful that you slipped through the hands of everyone who had no idea how to hold you,” I told her, turning our hands so I could bring hers to my lips. “Because now I get that honor. And, Saff, there’s not a damn thing about you that is hard to love, let alone like.”
“Nothing?” she asked, turning to shoot a smirk up at me. “Not even my hatred of paprika?”
“Well, if we’re going to nitpick,” I said, getting a little laugh out of her.
I leaned down, pressing my lips softly to hers.
“I can learn to live without paprika if I get to have you,” I told her.
“I also despise nutmeg,” she said, making me pull back a bit.
“That might be a dealbreaker,” I said.
Her laugh was muffled by my lips.
“I’m willing to substitute nutmeg for more cinnamon,” she said, nipping my lower lip.
“I might be able to work with that.”