He woke an hour later, and the first thing he said was, “Tell me you’re not sleeping in your suit pants.”
“Forget about my suit pants. How are you feeling?”
He stretched, yawned, and flopped around in the bed until he was facing me. “Okay, I guess?”
“Nightmares?”
“No,” he said slowly. “I don’t remember what I dreamed. If I did at all…” He frowned. “You were right, though.”
“About?”
“It changes you. Killing a person.”
I pushed his golden hair back from his face and kissed him. “I wish you’d let me handle it,” I say afterward.
“No. It had to be me. If it had been you…”
“Yes?”
“I don’t know if I could have forgiven you,” he told me, eyes looking into mine. “She hated me and she wanted me dead, but she was still my sister. So, you see. Ithadto be me who killed her.”
There wasn’t anything I could say to that, so I just kissed him instead.
“I’m done, though,” he added after. “I can’t do…what you do.”
“And I wouldn’t want you to,” I told him.
“But I do needsomethingto do. You get that, right? I can’t just sit at home and paint my nails or do volunteer shit while you’re out there.” He frowned. “I’m not Cee.”
That made me laugh. “You’redefinitelynot Celia, no. So—what did you have in mind?”
“I’m glad you asked.” In one swift movement, Finch mounted me, thighs spreading across mine, his hands pressing on my shoulders like he was holding me down. “Kismet,” he announces. “I want it.”
“It’s already yours.”
“I mean I want torunit. Eddie Garcia’s doing a good job, and I’ll keep him on, because I’ll want time off to be with you. But I want to put my own stamp on it. Because I think…maybe I’m not cut out for a life in the Family, if you know what I mean.”
I knew exactly what he meant. But—“I don’t want any drugs run out of Kismet,” I warned him. “No excuses for the Feds to start looking into the accounts.”
“Won’t be a problem. I’ll run it clean. The club isn’t an excuse to fry my brain and forget about shit. No way. I want somethingfunto do. I want a distraction.”
“And I’m not enough of one?”
“You’re myfocus, baby,” he said, grinding his crotch down on me. “Everything else is the distraction.”
I’ll admit it crossed my mind again, whether it was wise to fuck right after the kind of night we’d had—but I trust him when he says the sex is good for him. Besides, I never want to deny my husband anything.
As far as I’m concerned, what Finch wants, Finch gets.
* * *
I decidedto take the olive branch extended by Salvatore Rossi and Joe Alessi. They’re solid Families; old, established, no friends to the Clemenzas. I had Angelo set up a meeting with them, although I need to stop using him as I used to; he has other problems to worry about now as my Underboss. But he’s always happy to help, and besides, Rossi and Alessi know and trust him.
They’ve even agreed to gather on my home ground, and attend a late night meeting at the townhouse. I take them into the study on their arrival. It’s just the three of us. No muscle. No bullshit, either.
“Your husband’s not joining us?” Rossi asks after we’re seated.
“He’s at work,” I say, and ignore their astonishment.
