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My internal clock wakes me a few hours after I slept. On any other morning, I would get up and go jogging, but my body can’t respond like it normally does because there’s a hole in the flesh above my hip. Pain pulses at the spot, and I groan as I slide my feet over the edge of the bed and wobble to the bathroom. There, I search the medicine cabinet behind the mirror for pain medication.
Since this is Drago’s safe house, I find all kinds of pain meds and consider swallowing whatever is strongest at maximum dose. Instead, I close the cabinet and lie back in bed with my wife. Her body is soft and inviting. I bury my nose in her hair, smelling her orchid shampoo. It arouses me, and I grow hard against her ass.
Still sleeping, yet sensing me there, she wiggles her bottom. I hold her hip, hoping that’ll stop her from moving.
It doesn’t.
Michela turns and starts mumbling in her sleep. She’s shaking her head and beginning to perspire, clearly having a nightmare. I scoop her up, press her head to my chest, and shush her so she’ll feel safe and as content as I am with her in my bed.
Michela was right when she accused me of controlling the people around me.
Last night, when the situation with Dom escalated, I did what I had to do in order to prevent him from taking off with my wife and using her as a bargaining chip against me. If he held my wife, he could control my decisions, and he knew it. Or at least believed it, which in itself prompted him to run with her.
Her captivity would force my hand in his favor, and my family would have to cover the cartel’s expenses, now and quite possibly for the foreseeable future as well. Once the other Order found we’re laundering the cartel’s money, they’d consider it a breach of an unspoken agreement between our two societies. They’d think I stole their bird, and then I’d have problems not only with the cartel, but with the other organization that is similar to ours.
Global violence would ensue. Wars cost money. Unless they’re for dominance and power, both of which we already possess, they’re unnecessary.
Franko’s family is seeking the next don.
The Benvenutis will too.
Except I can’t allow them to find one. If they want to stay in the order, I must appoint the next head of their family. It must be someone loyal and willing to pay for his predecessors’ mistakes.
Mentally, I list the possible candidates both in the US and abroad and find two, maybe even three men. Severio can choose between them. Any one of those men will do.
When I arrived in New York, I intended to sever ties with four Order members who are no longer serving the organization. Domenico Benvenuti wasn’t one of them, but now that he is, I’ll block the entire family from accessing funds for at least a decade. A decade from now, they can reapply.
They’re lucky they’re all still breathing after what Dom pulled with my wife.
I kiss the top of Michela’s hair. “You are mine.”
Another thing she was right about? When she said she was terrified of her attraction to me. Apparently, it goes both ways.
A soft knock on the bedroom door has me reaching for my piece. I point at the entrance as I sit up. When nobody comes in and the knock repeats itself in a way I recognize, I pick up our bloody clothes from last night and leave the room.
Drago waits in the hallway.
“Morning,” he says.
I grunt. “How long have you been here?” Drago is as silent as any predator.
“Awhile. I resecured the house.”
“And I slept through it.” Fuck. We emerge into the kitchen, and I turn on the lights, then squint and dim the lighting. There. That’s better.
Dressed in black jeans and a deep green shirt, Drago covers his bald head under a baseball cap. At six foot three and with brown eyes, he appears to be any average-looking man you might find working in retail, someone you’d walk past and hardly notice. That’s on purpose.
I offer him my hand, and he shakes it.
“You wouldn’t have heard me even if you were awake,” he says with a wink.
“Is that so?” I open the fridge and grab a bottle of water, then chug it. Damn, I’m thirsty. “What did you do with Dom’s car?”
“It’s in the garage.”
I toss the plastic bottle in the recycling bin. “What will you do with it?”
“I did what I did. It’s done. Hand me the clothes.”
