I sulk a little.
He sips from the steaming cup and then sets it down. “I don’t expect another late-night meeting,” he adds, kissing Ash on the hair but looking directly at me. “Does that make you feel a little bit better, sweet girl?”
I smile at him. “Se.”
“Se.” He nods approvingly.
I pick at Luca’s muffin. A bit for him. A bit for me. Ash gazes around the restaurant over his dad’s shoulder, having alreadyforgotten why he was crying, unknowing of danger, unimpressed by green notes, just a boy and his daddy.
The safest man in the city.
To him.
To me.
“Now this is pretty close tonormality,” I breathe, engrossed in the vision of Sir in his exquisite navy suit, sitting casually in a family buffet restaurant, with his toddler pressed to his chest. I can overlook the violence across his knuckles.
CHAPTER TWELVE
clay
I loosen my tie.The District city glows through the window before me, its expansive grounds rolling out like an urban canvas devouring the horizon.
It’s a stunning view.
We should stay at the penthouse more often. I think she likes it here. A new place to play, to shop, to eat.
To fuck.
Easy for me too.
My laptop screen throws light across neatly stacked manila folders, each one thick with surveillance photos and hundreds of pages of minutes taken during observation.
I sort through months’ worth of printouts, faces hardened in the Sicilian sun, license plates snapped by my personal men on the ground in the old country, each file a pulse of old secrets.
I comb through the history of my Family, page after page, searching for cracks, for tremors in loyalty, for anything straining at the leash since the divorce from Aurora.
New Made Men?
Old ones missing?
Anything that sticks out.
Bronson and Max will have matching stacks, perhaps slightly more modest, on their desks at home. Only a Butcher can touch this side of the business. Before I fly the old boys here for the wedding, I need to know their alliances still hold true to my Family blood. Lucchese blood. Divorcing Jimmy Storm’s daughter destabilized me; I know this. It gave the rodents a reason to gnaw.
I’d do it again.
For my little deer’s smile.
To give her everything.
Though I am busy, I never let my guard slip from the quiet creature hovering in the doorway to my left. My little deer stands in her nightgown, not speaking—a nervousness so sweet I can taste it in the air. She's been tucking the twins in. Now she hovers there, one finger coiling a strand of blonde hair, her gaze wandering the room as if I don't notice her every breath, her every hesitation.Her.
"Little deer." I don't turn to face her yet, closing a folder and sliding it to the side.
She exhales and takes that as an invitation to step inside my office. "Yes, Sir?"
"What is going on inside your pretty head?" I roll up my sleeves methodically, one cuff at a time, before turning to face her. Fixing my gaze on her, a slow smile spreads across my face as I take in the sight before me. A vision in a pink robe. It clings to her lithe frame, her toes curling into the carpet. Her knees tremble slightly, dimpling as she shifts her weight. An urge surges through me. I want to taste those legs, to trail my mouth along her thighs and lick what lies weeping between them.
