Jace had stayed at his side, paranoid someone like Garth would try to murder him in the night, but they both insisted I wasnotto come back.
“We should just take a vacation,” Grayson mused aloud as he checked the cut on my head. “Rhett doesn’t want you in Townsend because it’s too dangerous. Angelo, though he hasn’t said it, doesn’t want you in Siena because it’s too dangerous. Maybe we just take a vacation and let them sort it out?”
I chuckled, tipping my head back to kiss him. “Grayson Taylor choosing to vacation over getting his hands bloody? That doesn’t sound right. Are you feeling okay?”
He huffed, kissing me back deeply until I moaned and melted against him.
“If it means never seeing you with blood dripping down your face again, Prickles, I would happily walk away from any and every fight.” He cupped my face in his huge hands, his dark eyes locked on mine. “You are the most precious thing in my life, Billie. I’m quickly coming to realize there is nothing I wouldn’t do to keep you safe.”
Oh, my heart. “As much as I love the growly protective thing, you know I’d never leave the guys to handle shit on their own.”
He released me, gusting a long sigh. “I know. Worth a try, though. So… who are we pissing off? Rhett or Angelo?”
I screwed up my nose, hating that it was even a choice. “Angelo,” I finally decided. “I know he’s got a lot to handle with the Ricci Corp takeover, but with Giovanni dead and his lieutenants all locked up… it’s kind of safer now than ever before, right?”
Grayson stared at me a long moment, like he wanted to argue that we wereneversafe—not while Angelo was a Ricci, my father was Wilson, and Bellerose wasBellerose.But he respected my intelligence enough to just grimace and shrug. “Sure. That’s plausible. Call Rhett and let him know we’re heading back to Siena, then. See what Jace wants to do.”
He packed up our things while I made that call, then we were back on the road. Heading home. I hadn’t been back to Siena since the whole fake-baby-mama situation we’d pulled to keep me safe from Giovanni’s men. The closer we got, the more nervous I grew, like there was a heavy, dark cloud hanging over the whole fucking city in the form of my not-so-dead father.
“Why are all our fathers these sick, power-hungry psychopaths?” I mused aloud as fat droplets of rain started to fall outside. The weather was moody, like me. “Do you think that’s why the universe brought us all together? Shared fucked up family trauma?”
Grayson arched a brow, giving me an amused smile. “Jace’s dad seems normal.”
True. “Good point.” I sighed. “That’s so typical Jace, staying all squeaky clean while the rest of us are the children of murderers.”
“Technically, it was mymom’sfamily running a cartel, not my dad’s,” Grayson commented thoughtfully. “But I see your point. Nah, the universe brought us all together because we’re just fractured parts of one heart.”
“I like that.” I hummed a tune that’d just popped into my head, then quietly tried out some combinations of his words, incorporating the “fractured parts of one heart” line he’d just handed me. Grayson stayed quiet, listening, then a slow grin curved his lips.
Huffing a sound of irritation, I glared. “I’m well aware I can’t sing; there’s no need to smirk about it. At least you know I’m not just angling for a place in the band.”
“It’s cute,” he told me with way too much patronization for a man who liked to sink his dick inside me. Guess who wasn’t getting said dick sucked on this road trip now.
Angelo hadn’t replied to our message asking where he was, but Vee had sent us back an address that turned out to be one of the flagshipGiovanni’srestaurants in Old Siena, on the south side of the river. It wouldn’t be open to the public for hours yet, but Giana met us at the door with a wicked smile on her perfectly painted lips.
“Remind me again how Vee wanted to keep yououtof the mafia?” Grayson muttered with a dry voice as Giana let us into the restaurant, then locked the door behind us.
Giana snickered. “Silly woman was taking a page out of your book, Gray, acting all growly and protective, as if I can’t hold my own. Come on through; the meeting is almost done.”
“What meeting?” I asked, genuinely curious as she led the way through the vacant dining room and into the kitchen.
She turned around to flash me a wide grin. “Changing of the guard, baby girl. I used to date an Australian girl in high school who’d say, ‘We’re not here to fuck spiders.’ In other words, there’s no time to pussyfoot around. With Giovanni dead, we need to move fast.”
I shared a glance with Grayson, who was frowning with concern. Giana didn’t wait for us to question what she meant, just slid open the false wall at the back of the kitchen. The room beyond appeared, and I quickly noted the long conference-style table with a dozen gray-haired and balding old men seated and my Angel standing at the head of it.
He glanced up when the door opened, locking eyes with me as the tiniest flicker of surprise crossed his face before he slapped his hand down on the table top. “Now’s your chance, ladies.”
For a moment I thought he was speaking to Giana and Vee, but then twelve women stepped out of the shadows, each standing behind a man seated around the table. Each with a gun to that man’s head. Then they collectively fired their weapons, painting the room red and deafening me momentarily.
I screamed, burying my face in Grayson’s chest as he instinctively guarded me with his body. Suddenly, Giana’s comment made sense. They wereliterallychanging Giovanni’s guard for a whole new set of leaders, all handpicked by Vee and Giana, I was going to bet. They’d hinted at it often enough, but now I saw their plan coming to fruition. They didn’t just want to disrupt the gender rules oftheir ownplaces within the Siena mafia, they wanted to rewrite the whole fucking rulebook.
Angelo spoke, addressing his new enforcers, I guessed. But my ears were still ringing, and Grayson held me in an iron grip. Then a moment later, I was being guided back through the kitchen to the dining area, where it was quiet and blood-free.
“What the fuck…” I caught Angelo snarling as my hearing started to return. “…waited for me back at…” How were their ears not suffering? Was the ability to stand sound just like building up a callous? “…fucking Vee.”
Grayson released me, and then Angelo had his hands on my face, tipping my head back as his lips crashed against mine. My hearing might be spotty, but there wasnothingwrong with my appetite for these men, so I groaned and kissed him back, our tongues intertwining as he effectively made me forget the mass murder I’d just witnessed.
Until he released me, then I winced as I remembered.
