She managed to roll her eyes at him, but a twitch of her lips betrayed her before she obligingly opened her mouth.
They polished off most of the fruit, he ate his sandwich, and Reiko ate half of hers all before she seemed to finally remember the subject that had initially brought them there. Much to his dismay.
“About what happened at the zoo earlier,” she said, her voice thankfully steadier.
Santino barely kept the wince off his face. He had no desire to talk about what had happened at the fucking zoo. Not until he was face-to-face with Danilo, at least.
Reiko set her refilled and re-emptied glass of raspberry tea onto the table, then sat back, taking advantage of the fact that he’d eventually allowed her off of his lap. Though their thighs were still touching. “You know my most private, most humiliating story now. And then I sobbed all over you like a child, which is almost worse.” She gave her head a small shake. “You insist you see a future for us—the kind I never imagined for myself.”
Santino frowned. Her words didn’t surprise him, but that didn’t mean they pleased him, either.
She kept talking. “I’m still working on wrapping my mind around that,” she admitted, “but I believe … I believe that you mean what you’ve said.” She drew a breath and rolled her lips between her teeth, staring into his eyes again. Searching for something. “And if we’re going to have that kind of future, that kind of trust, then I need to know. I need to understand. What happened today, Santino? That wasn’t some crazed gunman, or some disgruntled ex-employee. And even if it had been, I’mfairly certain people aren’t supposed to walk away from those types of scenes.”
She was too smart for her own good, his woman.
Santino blew out a breath, gulped down the rest of his tea, and set the glass beside hers on the table so he could sit back on the sofa. “You’re right, you do need to know. I just wasn’t sure you were ready.”
Her brow pinched.
He reached out and rubbed his thumb over the crinkle above her nose. “Nico and his brother worked for me. Not the way you did. About a week ago, a situation came up, and I needed some men to go on a dangerous assignment that was a little outside the norm. Nico’s brother was one the few who volunteered when I put out the call—most I had to hand-pick.” Only four had volunteered for the Chicago job. Something about rushing out of state to help another family, let alone to help straighten out some Russian mess, hadn’t been overly motivating apparently. He left those details unsaid. “Unfortunately, two of those men came home in boxes. Nico’s brother was one of them. That was what he was referring to when he accused me of killing his brother.”
Reiko gasped softly. She pulled his arm into her lap, his hand between both of hers, as if he needed comforting.
He supposed it wasn’t an irrational response. Nor was he numb to the loss of his men. He was just … used to locking it down. The boss could never be weak, and showing emotion—real emotion—was weakness. He played at emotion. He laughed, he teased and taunted, he flirted, he even showed anger, but he was always careful about it. Always.
He let himself curl his fingers around her hand and left his hand in her lap. “I wasn’t expecting Nico to come after me, not today or any other day. I am sorry you were anywhere near that.”
Reiko shook her head. “That’s not your fault. I still don’t understand what kind of work you could be involved in that gets people killed like that, but it’s not on you how people respond to grief.”
His lips twitched. “You’re not wrong, but the line tends to get a little blurred with family.”
Her eyes widened again, more than before. “Family? Nico and his brother are your family, too?” Pain already pinched her voice.
Santino gave her hand a careful squeeze. “Not the way you mean the word, no.” He waited a moment, until he could see she was trying to translate what he’d said. But he didn’t make her ask. “The Guerra family is larger than its bloodline, beautiful. We’re a mafia family. And those of the Guerra blood sit at the top, which means that right now,Iam at the top.”
Reiko’s lips parted, her confused eyes still wide and her grip on his hand tightening. “Mafia?” she repeated on an exhale. “I … I don’t follow.”
He let his lips twitch. She did, she was just most likely hesitant to accept it or to put the words in her head out into open air. But her physical reaction was proof enough that she had the right idea. “Most of what I do is not above-board, Reiko,” he said calmly. “And it would be my preference to leave you out of the specific details of that work, even if only for your peace of mind. But what I doisdangerous—it’s violent, underhanded, and absolutely against the law. And that, beautiful, is why we didn’t give a shit about walking away today.” He paused, head tilting as he briefly debated on how much to elaborate, and finally shrugged. “Well, that, and in all the ways that matter I basically own this city. No one in any position of authority will be laying a finger on me or mine.”
She tried valiantly to distract him with her half-contained tits as she drew a heavy breath, her chest rising with the movement. Seconds passed while he allowed her to reflect on his words.
Finally, Reiko said, “So, that manisdead … but no one’s going to come knocking on my door tonight and accusing me of running from a crime scene? Or worse?”
For the strangest moment, Santino was torn between wanting to laugh and fighting a resurgence of fury at the visual her words painted. He pulled in a hard breath, pushed both down to manageable levels, and used their still-clasping hands to tug her closer. She wasn’t prepared for the action and toppled forward against him wonderfully. He let her chest lean fully into his, the fabric of her bra an elite type of torture, and cupped his free hand around the back of her neck to hold her in place. “No onecomes for you, Reiko. No one with any sense of self-preservation will try. Idiots who lack that and try anyway answer to me. And that is a message that’s already spreading, beautiful. So you don’t have to worry.”
She blinked at him as her face burned with another alluring blush. “What do you mean, already spreading?”
He grinned at her choice of phrase, dipped his head, and teased her lips with his tongue. The salt from her tears lingered on her skin, but he didn’t care. He’d consume all of her. Until then, he retreated enough to explain properly. “The most powerful man in St. Louis put himself between you and an active shooter in a public space today, then whisked you away in his car. I guarantee that’s getting around. No dumb beat cop’s gonna come knocking on your door, because my good buddies who employ them would never allow it.”
He felt her throat move with a hard swallow. “That’s … a lot.”
He dipped his chin. “It is.”
Mafia.
It wasn’t like Reiko didn’t know what the word meant, or what the general history of it represented. But it was certainly a word she hadn’t spent a whole lot of time thinking about, let alone weighing her opinions on. She knew ‘mafia’ was another word for ‘organized crime.’ It was similar to the yakuza in that way, though she was sure their customs weren’t all the same. And again, it wasn’t as if she were an expert on the yakuza, either.
Santino continued to hold her tight against him, his grip firm and steady, but not bruising. Never threatening.
