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)
But that almost felt like too much of a risk.
No matter how fucking angry she might be at me for keeping her on lockdown.
“Did you call your sister?” I asked, tucking my phone away. I wasn’t usually as glued to it as I had been recently. But shit had gone to hell while I’d been no-contact with everyone. That meant that people got stupid, lazy, or cocky. Sometimes all three. Which required me to be a goddamn helicopter with everything until everyone remembered their places, and what was expected of them.
“Yeah. She gave me the name of a place all the wives go to,” he said, referencing an all-inclusive spa. But a special type of one. One that would allow my men to tour the place, secure the exits, then stand guard wherever they needed to. I didn’t give a fuck if that meant that no other women could be getting facials and massages and shit. So long as Halle was safe while she was there.
Miko clearly thought this was just more distraction for her. More ways for me to keep her busy and distracted from the shop.
And, sure, that was part of it. Since she seemed not to like hanging out in the penthouse all day.
But, admittedly, there was another part to it.
A part that started the second I walked into that fucking apartment of hers and saw how she’d been living for God knew how long.
In a room that was probably the same size as my closet and served as her kitchen, dining, living, and bedroom. We weren’t even going to talk about the size of the bathroom. I wasn’t even sure how she could towel off in there.
It wasn’t just that it was small.
It was fucking depressing.
Old, dated, worn down.
We’d been there to repair the window and get some better security measures in place, but I found myself looking through her clothes. All of which seemed thin and threadbare. Like they’d all been worn and washed so often that they were barely holding on.
I knew she’d been a perpetual student, and likely on a budget. But still. It was fucking sad.
And for reasons I didn’t understand, and wasn’t letting myself think about, I wanted her to get a taste of something else.
Clothes that felt good, that fit well, that would last.
Shoes that wouldn’t hurt her feet.
A day of people rubbing, scrubbing, polishing her, and whatever the fuck else happened in a spa.
With the spa shit partially squared away, I found myself starting to wonder what else I could expose her to.
A nice night out to eat?
A play? Ballet? Something else?
I’d have to research it more.
Right about now, Halle should have been back at the penthouse, getting lunch delivered. Along with some groceries. I never kept much in the place, since I wasn’t home that often. But with her being there full time, I figured she might want to make herself something to eat.
I also had some books delivered.
Her own copies of the library books that had been at her apartment. Along with some other shit that went with her previous college majors that I figured she might be into.
It should keep her busy until I finished with work.
Which included yet another trip to Lorenzo’s place. I swear I’d never seen his Brownstone as much in the past three years as I had in the previous few days.
We were family, sure, but not as close as he was with, say, Emilio and Brio. Even Cesare and his brothers. Then again, I had to admit that was my doing. I had dinners with my ma. That was about as familial as I got.
“No one is gonna toss a kid at me, are they?” I asked as I walked in.
“Giana and Avery took the kids to go do some sort of indoor playground thing,” Lorenzo said. “Miko,” he greeted him as he followed me in. “How’s Venezio doing?”
“Ornery,” Miko said.
“From what I hear, that tracks,” Lorenzo agreed. “So, we had some guys on these brothers…” he said.
“And?” I asked, hearing an edge in my voice, but only I could know it was dread. Like Lorenzo and his crew had suddenly fixed the problem, and Halle would be going back to her life just as quickly as she’d blown into mine.
I wouldn’t even pretend to expect that anything could continue to progress with us physically—since physical relationships were all I wanted from women—without the tension that came from close quarters.
If she went back to her life, I knew I would never get to feel her under me, to watch her above me, to bend her over my island, to fuck her up against the windows to the city, daring anyone to look out and see us.
“And they aren’t exactly just average guys,” Emilio said. “They’re low-level drug dealers with a connection to the Serbian mafia.”