Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 75683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
If you were a Grassi that was hurt, under the weather, or just had a baby, you would be swarmed with love and food. Someone was around to clean your house, to cook for you, to bring you meds, to check your temperature.
You were never alone in your misery.
But Savannah didn’t have that.
She just had her mom. And, yeah, her mom seemed to be all over taking care of her. She was just one woman, though. Someone who also needed to sleep and do daily tasks.
It was a lot for one person to take on.
I distracted myself with doing some work at the docks the Family owned with Luca and a couple of my brothers, checking out some containers that were coming in for particular clients of ours.
See, we all made our money in various ways.
But the bulk of it came from our imports business. The legal one, sure, but also the black market shit other organizations paid us to bring in for them.
We had rules, though. Shit we didn’t want to be involved in. So we occasionally did checks to make sure no one was trying to pull the wool over our eyes.
It wasn’t ass-breaking work, but it filled the day, kept me busy, helped me not be a complete fucking creep who drove past an injured woman’s house.
“What’s going on with you?” Dante, my brother, the third oldest, asked.
I glanced over, letting out a sigh.
“That obvious, huh?” I asked.
“I’d say it’s a sibling ESP thing, but it’s all over your fucking face, man.”
The family resemblance was strong with all of us. But Dante was a little more solidly built than the rest of us, spending a lot more time in the gym than any of us were willing to dedicate to fitness. He had the same black hair, and his eyes were blue-gray like mine, whereas Santo had honey-brown, and Massimo lucked out with two different eyes—one gray-blue and the other the light brown that Santo had.
Valley was the true anomaly of the family, having light green eyes somehow.
She’s the mailman’s kid, Santo used to claim.
“You gonna make me talk to you like Valley does? Asking you what kind of ‘big feelings’ you’re having?” he asked.
Valley did do that.
But she claimed she had to since we had the emotional intelligence of children.
“I dunno man. Guilt, mostly,” I admitted.
“But she’s alright, right?”
“Yeah. But that doesn’t make it better. This is the life for us. Shootings happen. Near-death experiences. All that shit. That’s not the kind of life she has led. It’s all sunshine in her world. And I fucked that over.”
“To be fair, you didn’t do dick. Whoever came up on you with guns fucked that over for her. You’ll make them pay for it once we find them.”
Though with each passing day, it seemed less and less likely that we were going to figure that out. There hadn’t been any developments or sightings. No one else had been shot at.
But I would find them.
Somehow, someday, I was going to track them down and put a bullet in each of their heads for hurting her.
“Besides, the moms and cousins are doing their part to make it right today.”
“What? Did the meal train start?” I asked.
“Well, yeah, I’m sure they’re working on that, but they’ve all been hitting up the restaurant all day.”
“Wait… what?” I asked, stiffening. “The restaurant is open again?”
“Yeah. You didn’t know?”
“She shouldn’t be working yet,” I insisted.
“Figure maybe it wasn’t much of a choice.”
That was probably true.
They clearly weren’t rolling in it.
Even being closed a few days while she was in a hospital bed was likely hurting their bottom line.
Still, her ass was supposed to be resting, not waiting fucking tables.
“Where you going?” Dante asked as I turned and started walking away. I didn’t answer, but this was my brother. He knew me too well. “Say hi to Savannah for me,” he called as I climbed in my car.
It was insane of me to be as angry as I was as I drove across town. Not at her, of course. At the situation. And at the fucking assholes who put her in it in the first place.
I guess, to an extent, myself included.
Because I was acutely aware of the fact that none of this would have happened if I hadn’t walked my ass through the doors of The Brunch Bar.
It comforted me to know the women had been in and out all day, though that also meant that Savannah was likely working a lot harder than she should have been with two barely-healed holes in her.
I was still riding high on that anger when I yanked open the door. And, yeah, maybe the words out of my mouth weren’t the kindest or gentlest I could have chosen.
“What?” she asked, brows pinching in her too-pale face.
She was seated on a stool behind the counter, looking completely spent, her body arched toward one side, trying to ease the ache in her stomach from overdoing it.