Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75337 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75337 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
“Yeah, you can buy a lot of shit for the future place,” Salvatore said, drawing my attention away from where Silvano was shaking open the black garbage bag. To, you know, slip the body into. “But no knife blocks.”
“Future place?” I asked, hearing how tight my voice sounded, the hope and shock mingled together.
“Yeah. My place is a little tight. Your place is in a shitty area. Time to move up in the world, I’d say.”
“You… you still want… after all of this trouble?” I asked, looking around.
“Trouble? What trouble?” Salvatore asked, coming up behind me to press a kiss to the top of my head. “This is your average weekday evening in this Family.”
“The sad fucking part is he isn’t joking,” Silvano said, voice straining a bit as he pushed Josh’s body into the bag, leaving his whole lower half out still. Coming back to the counter, he grabbed another black bag out of his kit. “This isn’t even my first body this week,” he added, shaking his head.
“Babe, think tonight only cemented my beliefs that you’re the one,” Salvatore said, reaching to help me slip out of my shirt as I finished my first round of hand washing. “My only concern I had was that some of the shit with this life, with the Family, would freak you out. But I think you proved you can handle just about anything that might come our way,” he added.
It was the wrong freaking time for my body to be reacting the way it was to him undressing me.
But that didn’t stop the desire from blooming through my core even as Silvano started rolling Josh’s black-bag-covered body toward the other side of the room.
“Hey, Salvatore?” I said, turning in his arms, pressing my forehead to his chest.
“Yeah?”
“I know this is a really, really weird time and place to say this, but I love you.”
“Oh, great story for the grandkids, yeah?” Silvano asked as he started squirting some solution that was so strong, my nose burned, all over the floor. “‘Yeah, Gran and Gramp first admitted they loved each other in the kitchen of the police commissioner’s house where Gran just murdered her son.’ Shit for the storybooks,” Silvano kept rambling.
“He’s not wrong,” I said, shaking my head at myself. “I mean, I don’t… I don’t know about you, but I never planned on having…”
“I’d be fucking ancient by the time the kids graduated high school if I had ‘em now. Nah. I’m happy with the kids around. You know, so they go back to their own homes at night and I can get some sleep?” he said, smirking. “You’re more than enough of a future for me,” he added.
“You guys want me to croon some love song now?” Silvano asked. “Or can I fucking focus on work without the running romance-novel monologue?”
“He’s positively charming,” I declared as I turned to scrub my hands and arms once more. “I can’t wait to see what woman knocks him on his ass.”
“Never gonna fucking happen,” Silvano said. “Give her the tee from the bag. That’s all I got for her for now.”
With that, I put on the oversized tee, feeling a little less exposed.
“What now?” Salvatore asked.
“Now you get me that sister’s clothes too. Shouldn’t have let her go out but your woman was so pushy,” Silvano said. “I need all of that. She can wash up back in the city. But you’re gonna need to get your car detailed,” Silvano told Salvatore.
“I can do that. Anything else?”
“Just the peace and fucking quiet of you all leaving, so I can focus,” Silvano said, shrugging.
“Come on, babe. Let’s get the hell out of here,” Salvatore said, wrapping a protective arm around me and pulling me toward the hallway.
“I, ah, thank you, Silvano,” I said, figuring I owed him at least that, even if he was an asshole.
“Yeah, yeah. Repay me by not killing anyone else in the future.”
With that, we made our way outside.
Salvatore found a blanket in his trunk that I held up for Wren, so she could get out of her clothes, then wrap it around herself like a towel.
“Are you okay?” I asked as Salvatore walked the clothes back to the house.
“I… I feel like I shouldn’t be, but I think I am,” Wren said, nodding. “I mean, I know it makes me a terrible person, but I feel like I can breathe now, knowing he can never bother me again.”
“That doesn’t make you a terrible person,” I assured her.
“And you’re not a terrible person either,” she told me, giving me a firm look. “In case you were doubting yourself.”
“Honestly? I wasn’t,” I told her truthfully. “There was no other way to handle that situation, I don’t think. We are just really lucky that Salvatore and Silvano could help us get out of this without getting in trouble. I mean, I think I’d do okay in prison. Lots of reading time,” I said, smiling. “But I’d rather be free to, you know, build a future with Salvatore.”