Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 77579 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77579 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
It wasn’t until I saw a stroller that I realized he’d been out with Giana.
“We aren’t going to force one of our women to marry him, for fuck’s sake,” Gav said.
“Renzo Lombardi?” another voice asked, making both Gav and I turn to find Lore standing there.
Lore was the youngest of her family and the only daughter. Her older brothers included both Cesare and Gavino himself.
“Christ,” Gav hissed. “You’re not supposed to be listening to this,” he said.
“I was just walking in,” she said, gaze skittering away. “Renzo Lombardi wants to marry one of us?” she asked.
Lore looked a lot like her late mom. Short and slight, with long, shiny black hair, and a round face with big dark blue eyes like Gav had.
I couldn’t remember shit like everyone’s age, not in a family this big, but I would say she was maybe twenty? Twenty-one, tops. A baby still. Her style was still that of a girl, too. Baggy jeans and an oversized hoodie. Almost like she was hiding herself away. Come to think of it, anytime I’d been around Lore, she’d been hiding away, trying to hold up the walls.
“It’s not going to happen,” Gav said, shaking his head.
“Why?” Lore asked.
“Because we aren’t going to force one of our women to marry a fucking Lombardi,” Gavino said, rolling his eyes at his baby sister.
“Not force, no,” she said, shaking her head.
“No one would willingly marry one of those fucks,” Gav said.
None of us knew the Lombardis well. Since Lorenzo had taken over for his father, their Family and ours hadn’t been exactly enemies, but we sure as fuck hadn’t gotten along. Even at the best of times, we’d been close to all-out war with them.
But what we did know was that they were less, I don’t know, refined than the rest of us. Closer to a street crew than an organized crime Family. Not the kind of men our women would want to be with.
“I will,” Lore said, making everyone’s head whip in her direction.
“You will what?” Giana asked, thinking she’d misheard her.
“I’ll, ah, I’ll marry Renzo,” she said, gaze on her feet as she tucked her hair behind her ear.
“The fuck you will,” Gav exploded, popping up out of his chair.
“We’re not going to let you do that, Lore,” Lorenzo said, seeming as thrown off as the rest of us were.
“I’m an adult,” she said, voice smaller, but her head had lifted, chin jerked up stubbornly.
Of all the things to dig her feet in about, marrying a fucking Lombardi was weird as fuck.
“Alright, well, this seems like… I don’t want to be a fucking part of it,” I said, getting out of my chair, and moving toward the hall. “Have fun with your dysfunction,” I added, making my way out the front door as everyone’s voices seemed to raise.
I wasn’t surprised that by the time Miko brought the car around, Cesare and his other three brothers were rushing inside the townhouse.
I almost felt bad for the kid.
But I had my own shit to deal with.
I’d decided not to fully put Leon on the shelf, but I had punished him by absorbing a third of his crew back into the rest of my crew. Which, of course, came with its own headaches.
It didn’t help that I couldn’t fucking keep my head on work as I was trying to sort out all this shit.
All I could think about was Halle rushing around my place, trying to get everything she might need to hide away with and avoid me.
“You alright, Boss?” Miko asked when we left a meeting later that evening.”
“Need some sleep,” I said, leaning my head back against the rest.
Admittedly, I hadn’t been sleeping well.
And when I did sleep, my dreams were full of having Halle under and over me, her moans in my ear as I was buried deep inside her.
“Yeah, you’ve been looking rough,” he said. “Is Halle nocturnal or something?” he asked.
“No. She… goes to bed early,” I said.
“Surprised she hasn’t been to visit her grandfather. Or bitched about getting back to work.”
“She calls about her grandfather,” I said.
I’d noticed the phone box in the trash the day she’d taken it.
And then I got to think about her in my room when I wasn’t around. Impractical as it was, I kept picturing her sneaking into my tub, the bubbles playing peekaboo with her tits, her knees lifting up out of the water, resting on each side of the tub as her hand slid down between her thighs…
“Need anything else from me tonight?” Miko asked as he idled out front of my building.
“No. Go home. Take the night off,” I said.
As I rode up, I found myself hoping that the standoff was over, that she would just be in the apartment, waiting to have dinner, maybe even pissed at me for coming home so late and making her wait to eat.