21. Reproduction
TWENTY-ONE
Imade a personal wager with myself about how long it would take for Vin to bring up the events of my birthday dinner. Knowing him, he’s been wrestling with loyalty to me, to the Family because we lost one, and guilt since none of that would’ve happened if he hadn’t left Savannah at the table by herself because he had to take a shit.
I don’t blame him. Looking back on it, I think I would’ve rather had a public display so that all of the Dragonflies know that Savannah is off-limits—especially since it ended with the two of us finally consummating our marriage.
Still, I know Vin so I gave him upwards of a week.
By day five, he walks into my office in the Dragonfly building, closes the door, and gives me a look that says it’s time.
He couldn’t have picked a worse moment to go through this, but because it is Vin, I don’t snap at him to get out.
Instead, I cut him off at the pass.
“Ricky Ferris was an average soldier with a reputation of taking things from women that didn’t want to give it. I looked the other way because he made sure to offer them protection and make them his property first. He didn’t do that with my wife. He tried to take what he wanted from her, and back-slapped her when she tried to protect herself. Then he had the nerve to deny it as if I hadn’t seen it all happen.”
Seen it happen, and been too late to prevent it…
And there’s the truth. Ricky Ferris was dead for all of those reasons, but he was assassinated in front of the Family because I lost my cool and became judge, jury, and executioner the second I heard the slap, my wife fell, and I saw the red mark standing out against her cheek.
Vin can’t deny I had the right to do it. She’s my wife—but he’s also not wrong when he points out that, apart from a handful of Dragonflies (and anyone that big mouth Callahan told), no one else is aware of that.
“You can’t blame Ricky for not knowing she was your property.”
But that’s the thing. Savannah isn’t my property. Not the way that Vin means… and that’s all my fucking fault.
I let that happen.
See, I always wanted the Dragonflies to be a family. Despite being a full-blooded Italian American, when I created my syndicate, I had no ties to the actual mob. It became a crime Family—an organized crew of criminals, but with a level of dedication and loyalty that I insisted on—and, though it wasn’t my intent for it to be so misogynistic, it happened.
I wanted to protect my sister. In a way, I thought the other men would do the same for the women in their lives. It’s an old-fashioned mindset, but one I grew up with after seeing the way my dad tortured himself after losing my mom.
I wouldn’t let anything happen to Genevieve, and if I had to call her my property to get my rivals to understand that I’d go scorched fucking earth if anyone targeted her, that’s what I did. She was too young to understand, anyway, and it worked.
It also birthed a culture where my men just had to mark the women they wanted to claim to give them protection… unless you were a bad seed like Kieran Alfieri.
Women in our Family have to consent to being property. They have to choose. That’s why what Ricky did was so messed-up.
And that’s also why Savannah isn’t my property…
“She’s my wife,” is all I say after a moment’s pause. “And even if she doesn’t have my mark, the necklace should’ve been enough of a warning.”
“So you have her a dragonfly necklace. You get her a ring yet?” Vin jerks his chin at me. “Where’s yours?”
Okay. Ci sta. Fair point. “Women are protected in our Family. It shouldn’t take a ring for my men to know to keep their hands to themselves.”
“Right, boss. The ones who wear the dragonfly are protected.”
And Savannah doesn’t have it yet.
“I know. But, luckily, she doesn’t need my mark on her to be safe. You know why?”
The way Vin rubs the top of his buzz cut tells me that he has a pretty good idea. “Don’t tell me you want me back on guard duty. I… I mean, I can’t be the only one who hasn’t forgot she tried to kill you.”
He’s not. But considering he’s spent nearly his whole life in crime, I’m surprised it still bothers him. I mean, if I got over it… “She stopped,” I say helpfully.
Vin snorts.
I smile. “Doesn’t matter anyway since you’re right. You’re my most trusted enforcer, Vincent. My family. I want you watching her when I can’t.”
All I keep thinking about is how easy it was to get to Ava Crewes. I don’t think Lincoln would pay me back by going for Savannah; if I did, I never would’ve handed him her birth name to check out. But we still have Jimmy Winter trying to muscle his way onto our turf, and though that nobody is the hardest push we’ve had to deal with in a while, he’s not the only upstart who thinks he can take a slice of the Springfield pie.
“The Family knows she’s mine now. How much longer before my other enemies do?”
Vin sighs. “Yeah. Of course. You know I’ll do anything for you, boss.”
I knew he’d say that.
“Good.” Rising up from my desk, I grab my suit jacket from the back of my chair. Even if I’m going to get my dick worked on, I’m going in style. “Because I’m going to be out of commission for most of today.”
He takes a few steps back, obviously stunned. “What? A day off and you’re not spending it with her? What’s going on? Where are you going?”
“I actually have a doctor’s appointment.”
“Going to visit Dr. Lizzie? You sure I can’t come? I can come. One of the other guys can watch your wife.”
Poor guy. Can he make it anymore obvious?
It’s a shame, too. Elizabeth Harper is married to her job. After escaping her junkie ex, she basically swore off cock to the disappointment of more than one of my guys. Half of the Dragonflies who stop in at the clinic could be patched up with a little iodine and a gauze pad, but they go to Liz because they’re sure, this time, she might bandage them up, then go home with them.
It hasn’t happened in the seven years I’ve known the woman. I’ve even had to step in a time or two when one of the soldiers got a little handsy with our doc. She’s happy to do her job and go home to an empty bed, just like I was before I had Savannah in it.
Vin, on the other hand, would be more than happy to fill Elizabeth’s.
My cousin’s last fling ended around Halloween. I didn’t think he even had Liz on his radar, but since the fateful night Vin, Savannah, and I went to the clinic together, he’s been circling around the doc.
With that puppy-dog eager expression suddenly on his face, you’d be hard-pressed to recognize him as a thirty-eight-year-old bruiser with eleven leaves on the back of his bicep. He’s got a crush, and I only hope it doesn’t end up crushing him.
“Sorry, Vin. I’m not going to see Elizabeth. But you know what?” Savannah is safe for now. It might only illustrate just how obsessed with my wife I am, but I check her location constantly. Same with my cousin. Gen, on the other hand… my sister warned me that, if I ever put a tracker in her, she’d jump in front of a train—and my highly emotional sister doesn’t bluff. She’d do it, too, so that’s the one element of protection I never insisted on… yet.
Like she constantly throws in my face, Genevieve rarely leaves the house. She’s home; most likely rehearsing for her next performance. Savannah’s dot puts her firmly at the manor.
And since she doesn’t need someone watching her back right now, maybe I should take Vin with me to watch mine.
I nod at him. “My pre-surgery check-in is in about half an hour. You want to come with?”
“Of course, Dame. Yeah.” Suddenly, he stops, then blink. “Wait. Your what?”
Who would have thought that,between a vasectomy, the reversal, or being stabbed with my own knife, the reversal would be the one that hurt the fucking most.
What goes on with my cock is my business. I made sure Christopher knew that I was unreachable for the day, that if it’s an emergency he could either handle it on his own or rely on some of my most loyal lieutenants, like Bruiser, Sly, or Cameron; more brains than the muscle my enforcers are, they have proven themselves over the last decade to act in the best interests of the Family.
Vin was with me.
I was having surgery on my genitals. I chose local anesthesia because no way in hell was I letting a doc that didn’t work for me put me completely under, but I find that if those not in the life don’t find my lean form intimidating, they pay attention when Vin is standing at my back.
Just in case they decided to pull a Savannah and try to take advantage of me in a rare vulnerable state, my cousin won’t let them. I doubted that would be the case—and I vetted this outpatient surgery center outside of Springfield years ago when I decided to go with the vasectomy in the first place—but I didn’t get to where I am by not being a suspicious bastard.
They gave me all the run-down. How I should expect to be sore and swollen and achy for a few days after the hours-long outpatient procedure, that I needed to ice my junk and off for the next forty-eight hours, and how I can’t do anything strenuous for the next two weeks.
The idea that I can’t fuck Savannah again for that long after I finally did for the first time hurts me almost as much as my achy scrotum.
But I did this for her. As a gesture to show my wife that I consider this marriage both binding and lasting, I got the vasovasostomy. That way, if it’s kids she needs to stick around, I’ll breed her as soon as my pipes are in working order again.
I’ll do anything to make it so that woman can never, ever leave me.
The doc made it clear that I shouldn’t expect miracles. I’m older, it’s been years since I first got the snip, and odds of my reversal not quite taking is in the twenty percent range, give or take. But it’s better than zero—and until I can recover enough to get tested and see how the procedure fared, I decide not to say anything to Savannah.
I don’t want to get her hopes up. I also don’t want to push her away with how serious I am about her. Up until the dinner, I thought I’d been doing a good job—and then I showed her just how ruthless you need to be to lead a syndicate.
Ricky touched what was mine. He hurt her. Savannah tried to fight back, and maybe if I hadn’t confiscated her weapons, she might not have needed me to step in… but I did.
I promised her. When I first climbed into her bed after I noticed she refused to fall asleep first while I was in the room with her, I promised that—as her husband—I would protect her. Lord knows I had no idea what I was protecting her from then. How I inadvertently triggered the trauma she experiences from her time in prison, and how I didn’t know that my Family and I was the cause behind all of it.
And then I tore through the folder of gathered intel Lincoln got for me and I fucking knew.
Portia Daniels. Forty-eight. Worth two million dollars before she went into Club Fed; somehow worth three million after nine years in. Doing twelve to fifteen for an embezzlement charge, she was scheduled for a parole hearing in October.
Was.
I’ll own my part in breaking Georgia and turning her into Savannah. If my guys hadn’t poured too many fake hundreds into her small store, if my hold on the SPFD wasn’t as iron-tight back then… if the bank hadn’t pretended not to notice all the bad bills like they do now… she never would’ve been an innocent woman caught in the crosshairs on my business.
But this bitch? She’s the reason my wife flinches when I stroke her neck from behind in the dark. She’s the reason Savannah took weeks before she allowed herself to fall asleep before I did. She’s the reason an innocent twenty-five-year-old woman—the same age as Gen is now—went into a minimum security prison only to come out, feeling like murdering a mafia leader more than a decade her senior seemed like the only way to quiet the noise inside her head.
Savannah was and is murderous. And maybe I’m just as broken as she is, but I like that about her. So long as she’s not spilling Dragonfly blood—unless they’ve done enough to earn death—I can give her the outlet for this dark side of her.
Even better, I can teach her how to do it. To protect herself when I can’t, and to make sure that no one will ever, ever hurt her again.
And though I’m sure she’d have rather make Portia Daniels a victim of her own, she’s my wife—and I wanted that kill.
So I sent Oliver to Madison with enough money to buy a crooked correctional officer, plus a syringe full of so much dirty Eclipse, Daniels would die of an OD in minutes. My newest enforcer—Kieran’s replacement—was eager to earn his first leaf, and since I’ve always been the type to delegate, I let him do this for me while I had a very firm alibi of having my vas deferens put back together.
Once the surgery was done and I got the okay to be released, I grit my fucking teeth and walking out of the surgery center as if my sac wasn’t screaming. The local anesthesia had worn off enough for it to be noticeable, and the instruction told me if it got too bad to take an ibuprofen.
Fuck that. I’ll be fine.
To prove it, I not only drove myself home, I dropped Vin back off at the manor before I headed to the office. Oliver had express instructions to return there after he finished up in Madison, and I wanted to talk to my enforcer in person to hear how the job went.
It went. It was actually pretty impressive. He’d made contact with a few ‘maybe’ guards last week, testing out who’d be interested in doing a favor for a hefty sum of cash. Madison is near enough to Springfield that our distribution operation already had a foot in the door there. Even in a min sec prison like Madison, drugs are rampant, and the Dragonflies supply.
Portia Daniels’s nasty death would be unexpected, but not impossible, and when I meet with Oliver in my office, he shows me the pictures the guard sent him after the deed was done.
As I smile in satisfaction at a job well-done, I think about how Savannah will react to hearing I had her biggest nightmare murdered. Not that I’m going to tell her. Not yet, at least.
Not until I’m sure she can handle it.
It’s one thing for her to see Ricky get killed in the heat of the moment. She understood that. But for the death to be so cold-blooded, so meticulously planned… I see the darkness inside of my beautiful, deadly spider, but is she as dark as I am?
I’m used to being in charge. In control. It’s part of the reason I never really sought a partner other than for an occasional release. I didn’t arrange for Daniels’s death as a way to manipulate Savannah any further.
I did it because, after how that woman treated my wife, she didn’t deserve to live—and I’ll kill anyone who thinks they can do the same until I’ve taught Savannah how to protect herself.
Even then, I will do it.
I am her husband. It’s my job.
And I’ll do it happily.
At that point, the ache in my cock was becoming more annoying than anything, so I pat Oliver on the shoulder, gave him the okay to head down to the Coyote Den to get his first leaf on my order, and went the hell home.
I can’t fuck Savannah. Not yet. But that doesn’t mean I can’t share a meal with my wife, proud that she trusts me enough that she’ll finally eat off her plate before seeing me do the same—or taste-testing her food—and, if I’m lucky, hold her close while I sleep.
But then, when I ease my way up the spiral stairs to the second floor, inwardly cursing myself for not thinking to put in an elevator during construction all those years ago, I hear laughter coming from the television room and head in that direction.
I move carefully but purposefully so that, except for Vin, no one in this room would have any idea I’ve just gone through surgery.
Because Vin is in here. His big body thrown in one chair, his face twisted in an ‘oh shit’ expression as I eyeball him as he sings along to ‘Grease Lightning’ from the old 70s movie, Grease.
He finishes the line, cutting himself off before he can say ‘pussy wagon’, before sinking back in his seat. “What can I say? They suckered me in, boss.”
He’s not the only one watching the musical on my big screen television. On the large couch, Savannah is curled up on one side, a bowl of popcorn in her lap. And if I wonder why it’s the popcorn she’s holding and not her cat, that’s because Genevieve is sitting cross-legged on the next cushion, snuggling with Orion.
My sister snorts. “Boss, schmoss, Vinnie. In this house, Damien’s my brother, your cousin, and Savannah’s husband, and Orion’s bitch.” She leans over, running her fingers through the cat’s scruff. “Isn’t that right, Orion? And don’t knock musicals, Damien.”
Clearing my throat, I say, “I didn’t know Vin could sing that well. That’s all.”
The heights of Vin’s cheeks burn red. “Ah, jeez, Dame. Really?”
“Really.”
Genevieve gestures at a young John Travolta as he bounces around the car on the screen. “Come on. You didn’t miss much.”
Savannah tosses a handful of popcorn into the air, catching maybe… one kernel?
It’s fucking adorable.
“Gen said we can watch ‘Grease 2’ when we’re done,” my wife tells me. “I’ve never heard of it, but supposedly it’s about bowling and there’s a song called?—”
Geneveieve looks dead at me, a smug expression on her face. “‘Reproduction’. It’s hysterical.”
My head shoots toward Vin. His shoulders go tight, but he gives a tiny shake of his head.
So he didn’t tell my sister about my surgery. But does she know? Or is this somehow one hell of a coincidence?
It doesn’t matter. Because you know what else? My sister’s right. And I don’t just mean how, as soon as I find room on the couch to sit down right next to Savannah, Orion leaves Gen’s lap to bump against my thigh as though he can sense my nuts can’t handle his weight right now… Genevieve was right about all of that.
I’m here with my sister. My cousin. My wife. My adopted cat. And, if everything works out the way it’s supposed to, one day I might have a kid of my own to watch a movie with…
I’ve spent so many years building my Family.
But this?
This is my family—and I will do anything… kill anyone… to keep it.