Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 80572 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80572 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
“Food?” Gino continues. “Flo brought her meatballs, and they’re fuckin’ awesome.”
“Thanks, Gino,” she says, giving him a salacious wink. “They’re my best, but for the love of God keep an eye out for one of my lashes, okay?”
“Your what?” Timeo, my younger brother, asks, coming in from the stockroom with a heavy box of liquor.
“My false eyelashes. Good God, they charge an arm and a leg at the salon so I decided to do my own, but boys, I fucked it up somehow because one of them fell off and damn if I can’t find it anywhere.”
I suddenly have no interest in eating any of her meatballs.
Flo talks with a thick Boston accent and the kind of confidence born of decades of sleeping around. She’s brash, she’s bold, and she’s an Italian boy’s wet dream. With a particular fondness for bold prints and V-necks that show cleavage all the way to her navel, she turns heads with effortless confidence and undeniable sex appeal.
“I thought we had a caterer coming in?” I ask Timeo. He winces as if in pain.
Maybe he will be if he doesn’t tell me what I wanna hear.
“We did,” he says on a groan. “The new chef was supposed to show up, but guess who came down with the flu right before opening night?”
I blow out a breath, trying to draw on the tiny reservoir of patience I have. “We got a backup plan?”
Flo grins. “I provided the appetizers, Boss, but don’t worry, we’ve called in reinforcements.”
I stifle a groan. Flo’s “reinforcements” could be anything from the ladies at her church to the bingo crew she gets drunk with during Monday Night Football, and I don’t trust she didn’t just raid a damn food pantry before she got here.
“You don’t call me Boss, Flo,” I remind her.
She only smacks her gum and taps my chest as she walks by, reeking of drugstore perfume and luxury leather. “Oh, honey. We all call you ‘Boss.’ You were born to be the boss, don’t you know? You were ready to command an army when you first exited the womb.”
“What’s this furry thing in the meatballs?” someone yells from the other end of the bar.
“Don’t eat it!” Flo screams, leaving me in her dust.
I look to Timeo. “Tell me you really have a backup plan.”
He shakes his head and throws his hands up. “Who do you take me for?” he asks.
I blow out a breath. “You don’t want me to answer that question.”
When the door to the back opens, a parade of my cousins, Boston’s notorious Rossi family, saunters in.
“Behold the backup plan,” Timeo says with a grin and a flourish.
Jesus fucking Christ.
My cousin Orlando enters first, followed by Tavi, then their eldest brother and Don, Romeo. Each of them carries heavy trays of food.
When the Rossis and Montavios party, there’s always food involved. The Rossis handle the food and the Montavios the booze. Call it a match made in hell.
Most “high interest clubs,” as the paperwork euphemistically calls them, don’t serve full meals, but I’m a Montavio, and we know all good things begin with a good meal and a cold one.
“Don’t eat the meatballs, man,” I whisper to Romeo.
“Flo?” he asks with a grimace.
I give him a silent nod.
Within an hour, our new place is teeming with guests, their plates laden with food.
“Sergio, eat,” my cousin Orlando says. “Everything’s going fine.”
It isn’t every day someone opens up a new establishment, and this one means the world to me. I spent months with our friends the Gerards in Corsica, taking notes about how they run their exclusive kink club, and dreamed of one of my own here in Boston. Up until recently, puritanical laws prohibited an establishment just like this one, and we’re one of the first to take advantage of the new law that allows us to be here.
But a lot had to happen. We’ve vetted every damn member that’s come. We’ve run background checks and profile checks and everyone who works for us has been ruthlessly investigated. I keep my staff small and well paid, for good reason.
Romeo, the head of the Rossi family mob and my cousin, sits down with a plate heaped with food.
“You did well, brother,” he says with an approving smile.
“Thank you.”
I won’t lie, it’s good to hear his praise. I miss my brother Niccolo, who’s gone now. My father’s dead, and my brother Ricco’s occupied with his chronically ill wife. In other words, there’s a shortage of guys who will approve of what I do in my life, so Romeo’s praise hits me fucking hard.
“I knew you assholes were genetically kinky.” I look up to see Mario Rossi, the youngest Rossi brother and my best friend, holding a tray of pastries in each hand.
“Fuckin’ clairvoyant,” I mutter with a snort. “Had literally shit to do with the fact that the two of us traveled to Corsica together.” Corsica is home of the Gerard family’s exclusive club, Le Luxe.