Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 80471 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80471 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
It was more than that, though.
Cinna had been a capo for nearly as long as I had. I got to watch her grow from a young, angry girl, hungry to prove herself just as capable as—if not more than—her male counterparts, into the fearless capo she had become.
I’d seen her kick the asses of men twice her size. Intimidate bosses with decades of seniority on her. Out-strategize the best criminals in the area.
She was a fucking marvel.
And, me? Yeah, I’d been doing some marveling at her.
But I had to respect her steadfast determination not to sleep with any of us. I couldn’t pretend to understand what it was like to be a woman in a male-dominated field, how much rampant sexism she’d had to deal with to finally get the respect she had now.
Even now, though, there was shit she had to deal with that none of us men ever would.
My mind flashed back to the rolled waistband of her pants. Because someone tried to, after already beating the shit out of her, make her suffer one final indignity.
My phone rang on the coffee table, making me knife up and reach to silence it, wincing, waiting to hear Cinna stirring.
“Yeah?” I answered, sliding the answer button blindly.
“That’s how you answer the phone?” Renzo, the boss of the Lombardi crime family, my and Cinna’s boss, asked.
“When I got something warm and pretty in my bed waiting for me, yeah,” I said, forcing a lightness into my tone that I didn’t feel.
“It’s two in the fucking afternoon,” Renzo scoffed, but there was a chuckle in his voice.
“Right. Like you don’t want to be curled up under the sheets with Lore right now,” I shot back.
“That’s fair,” he agreed. “You heard from Cinna?” he asked.
“Cinna?” I asked as I caught motion at the corner of my vision.
And there she was, her body popping with stiffness as she leaned to the side to favor her screaming ribs.
“Yeah, you know, tall, pretty, two tons of attitude in a one-ton bucket,” Renzo said, making my lips curve up.
“You left out her killer rack,” I said, getting Cinna’s attempt at an eye roll at that.
“Not all of us think solely with our dicks, Dav.”
“No, man. Haven’t seen her. You expecting her for something?” I asked.
“Not in particular. She’s been working on something she’s been evasive as fuck about. Just wanted to make sure she’s good.”
“I’m sure you know Cinna. She can take care of herself,” I said, patting the couch next to me.
There was a short pause, but she eventually moved across the floor to lower down, trying her best to hold in a hiss of pain as she did so.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Just got a feeling about something going down,” he admitted.
Renzo had killer instincts. It was likely how he managed to stand on his own against all four of the other crime families in the city when they saw us as enemies before he finally united us all through his marriage to his wife, Lore Costa.
“There’s always something going down,” I reasoned, getting off the couch to grab a few of the ice packs out of the freezer. Bringing them back, I handed them to Cinna, who started pressing them against her ribs and face.
“Yeah. Would feel better if she’d at least return a text,” he said.
“She was probably working late. Might be the only person who outworks you,” I reminded him. “Probably trying to get some sleep.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Well, let me know if you hear from her.”
“See Cinna, tell her to contact Daddy. Got it,” I said, getting another eye roll out of Cinna.
“Go on back to your warm and pretty,” Renzo said, ending the call.
There was a beat, Cinna likely choking on the words a few times before she finally forced them out.
“Thank you.”
“No big,” I said, shrugging it off. “But we gotta find your phone,” I added. “You need to at least text to check in with him.”
“Yeah,” she agreed, but gave me nothing else.
“Is there a reason you’re not telling me where your shit might be?”
“In an empty warehouse a few blocks away,” she admitted. “But what are the chances that they would have left my phone if they found it?”
“I’ll go check it out. If it’s not there, we can call, get it bricked, and get you a new one.”
“I can—“
“Keep your perfect ass planted on the couch while I go and find your phone? Yes, you can do that. And maybe, while you’re at it, you can try to get some food down too. All those meds on an empty stomach are just asking for your stomach to cramp up.”
“I think my jaw hurts too much to chew on anything.”
“Exactly why I got ice cream, mashed potatoes, and yogurt,” I said. “Pick one and choke it down.”
“Your bedside manner needs work,” she said as I made my way toward the fridge.