Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
“Alright. Well, this is yours,” Luca said, shaving off some bills and handing them back to me. “Anything else you need to talk about? Any new jobs going on?”
“Nope, that’s it,” I said. “Why are you here?” I asked Dante.
“Pitching a new job,” he admitted.
“You? Leading a job?” I asked.
“I’ve led jobs before,” Dante said, shrugging it off.
And, yeah, he had. We all had. But the brother I knew didn’t go out of his way to find new ones. He liked hitting the gym, then using all that bulk of his to walk the docks looking all intimidating.
I couldn’t help but wonder why he was taking on more responsibility now.
“Well, if that’s all, I have some work to get back to,” Luca said, rising from the desk.
Dante and I walked out of Famiglia together.
“Hey,” Dante called, standing beside his SUV.
“Yeah?”
“Don’t fuck the Dasha chick. No matter how hot she is.”
“Really? You’re giving me advice on decorum?” I shot back. “Didn’t you once fuck the girlfriend of a rival Family?”
“To be fair, I didn’t know who she belonged to. And she was hot,” he added with a devilish smile as he slid into his truck.
I had no intentions of getting myself into the world of trouble like Dante had after that whole fiasco.
I was going to be smart and keep shit professional. Even if my cock started to get hard each time I thought of Dasha.
Save for the next meeting where we had to discuss the arrangement, I’d probably only be seeing her once a month for two minutes as she handed me an envelope of cash.
Or that was what I thought as I got in my car and started to head in the direction of a furniture store.
Only to find Dasha’s shitty little hatchback sitting on the side of the highway with its hood open.
Dasha herself was leaning back against the trunk in a yellow and white floral sundress, her head lowered, looking defeated.
She was probably waiting for one of the guys from her garage or AAA. There was no reason for me to pull over and offer assistance.
But, you know, what would my mother think? She raised me better than that.
Or, at least, that was what I was telling myself as I pulled up behind her and put my flashers on before climbing out of the car.
“Mr. Grassi,” Dasha said, brows raising as she looked at me.
“Santo,” I corrected. “Car crap out on you?” I asked.
To that, she exhaled hard.
“Yes. Started making a weird sound, then got really shaky. And when I pulled over and shut it off, it wouldn’t turn back on.”
“You waiting for the tow?”
“Yeah,” she said. “It’s been almost an hour.”
“You’d think being the boss would get you preferential treatment.”
“Oh, uh, I didn’t call my shop,” she admitted, gaze sliding away, uncomfortable.
“Giving you a hard time, huh?” I asked, leaning against the trunk with her.
“They hated me the second they saw me,” she admitted. “I’m assuming it’s a… woman thing. And maybe a young thing. But it just felt easier to call another shop. I don’t really want people who don’t like me working on my car.”
That was darker than I’d expected.
Did she really think her own crew would fuck with her car?
“I’m half-tempted to go to school for mechanics just to prove that I can be their boss,” she admitted as I really tried not to notice the way her perfect breasts were doing a small amount of spilling out of the square-cut bodice of her dress.
“Don’t think assholes like them will care how qualified you are,” I said.
I knew a thing or two about difficult men. Our Family had dealt with all sorts of dickheads over the years. Some just wanted to keep pushing that line to see if it moved. And if it did, even an inch, you were fucked. They would never stop.
I imagined that it was doubly difficult for women as a whole and even more so for a woman in a male-centered field.
“You’re probably right,” she agreed.
Her light was a little dimmer than it had been the day before. It pissed me off that those guys at her shop might be the reason for it.
“Oh, finally,” she said, seeing a tow truck slowing alongside us. “Hey!” she said, turning to give the guy who climbed out of the truck another of her megawatt smiles.
I waited as she talked to the guy while he fiddled under the hood of her car for a minute before slamming it and seeming to declare he had to take it.
“You want a ride, sweetheart?” I asked as she reached in her open window to grab her purse.
“Oh, well, he offered to bring me to the shop,” she said, waving to the tow truck guy.
“To the shop. Where that car is gonna sit until sometime tomorrow, since no shops around in town are open right now.”