Page 36 of Satin Empire

Lucky me. I close my eyes, head tilted back, thinking about everything that has happened recently, about Alana and her reaction to getting the car, about my brother and his refusal to give me more responsibility in the Famiglia.

Whenever they need someone dead, they’re happy to give me a call. And it’s not like I can blame them; I’ve proven that I’m a dependable and capable killer over the past few years of skirmishing and battling. When I got shot early on, I told myself that I’d never get caught out like that again, that I’d take the death and mayhem right to their doors and I’d laugh in the face of bullets. It hasn’t been exactly like that, but I’ve burned plenty of Russian and Irish safe houses and pulled the trigger on even more of their soldiers.

Killing’s one thing, but all that blood hasn’t bought me enough respect to earn a larger role within the organization. I’m a Capo, but I barely control any territory, and my personal crew’s small and mostly made up of fighters. There aren’t many businessmen under my control, which makes it fucking hard to show Renzo that I can manage a money-making operation. No, I’m just the hitman, the smiling, happy brute, the trigger-man with a cocky smile and a light joke.

The back door opens. Alana steps out and looks around before sitting down with me at the table. I eye her for a second and she curls her knees up against her chest, hugging them tight and avoiding my gaze. It’s obvious she’s got something on her mind and I decide to give her the space to say it instead of making some joke, which is basically instinct for me at this point.

“I had a nice time today,” she says, chewing on her pretty lip like she’s nervous. Fuck, I’m attracted to this girl, and I really shouldn’t be. She’s so damn young, and if I want to earn more respect, I need my brothers to see me as a person worth taking seriously. Not some guy fucking a twenty-one-year-old.

“You fit in pretty good with the other girls.”

“I have a bush now.”

I nearly groan. What the fuck, she’s teeing me up. “Last time I checked, you kept yourself pretty groomed.”

“Don’t be an immature idiot,” she says, flashing me a glare, and I kind of like it when she stares at me like she wants to stab me in the chest. Makes me wonder how pretty she’d look with my hands wrapped around her neck. “I mean, Maddie and I planted a bush, like to commemorate joining the family.”

“I figured she’d do that eventually.” Maddie was sentimental like that, but even though everyone always complained about the crazy garden and the wild bushes, we all loved it. “The bushes are my mom’s favorite. Did she tell you that?”

Alana shakes her head. “Yeah, she mentioned it, but she didn’t go into much detail.”

“Back when Maddie first joined the family, she’d sit on the porch with Mom and they’d watch the butterflies. Mom loved them, so Maddie planted more of those butterfly bushes, and I guess it just snowballed from there.”

“That’s really sweet,” Alana says, watching me for something, but I don’t know what. “Your mom’s pretty sick, isn’t she?”

“Alzheimer’s. She’s doing worse now than when Maddie joined. She doesn’t get out of her room much.” I finish my drink and don’t add that we’re all basically waiting for Mom to die at this point, even though nobody’s saying it out loud. She barely eats, barely drinks, doesn’t get out of bed, and the nurses and doctors have all been preparing everyone for the inevitable.

“I’m so sorry. That must be really hard.”

I grunt and look away from her. “Mom was the last good thing in our family for a while. Dad was a real son of a bitch and growing up with that guy was a nightmare, but Mom was nice to us. She didn’t protect us… but she was nice to us, and I guess when you’re the son of a brutal psychopath like my dad was, you take what you can get.”

“God, that sounds awful. I can’t even imagine. I mean, I had my gran, and she was basically like a mother to me?—”

She stops like she wants to keep going but hugs her knees tighter.

“Tell me about her,” I say softly, prompting her, surprised to find that I really want to hear about her life. I’m not known as a particularly emotional and caring guy, but Alana makes me want to expand myself in ways I didn’t even know existed.

“Mom had me when she was fifteen. She was pretty much incapable of being a mother back then. I mean… she was a kid too, right? Gran raised me until I was ten, and when she died, Mom sort of went off the deep end. She started stripping to pay our bills and really tried to step up, but god, she was a shit parent. I guess she still is.”

“That’s how she met Orsino?” I ask because I can already see it. Young, attractive single mother meets a rich and powerful mob boss, falls madly in love with his checkbook.

“She danced for him and the rest is history. I don’t know the details, but I’m guessing they’re a little more, you know, graphic than that.”

I grunt in reply, because yeah, I can’t imagine Orsino marrying a stripper after watching her dance just once.

“I take it things weren’t always great in the Milano household.”

She shakes her head and laughs a little, but there’s no humor behind the sound. I know all about that laugh; I learned from a young age to laugh instead of cry, to laugh instead of scream, to laugh instead of letting any of my emotions get the better of me. Smile through the pain and joke at the bleak horrors of the world, that’s how I’ve managed to cope all this time.

“Orsino was a controlling prick. I guess that’s why getting the car means so much to me. Actually, that’s why I’m out here. I wanted to say thanks.”

“You don’t have to thank me. It’s just a car.”

“Maybe to you,” she says and seems frustrated over something. “To me, it’s everything. I can walk out the door right now, get behind the wheel, and go wherever I want. For the first time in my life, I’m not beholden to my stepfather or my mother, I can make my own choices about where I go.”

“Within reason,” I say and smirk at the annoyed glare she shoots me. “You’re still my wife, you know.”

“Thanks for the reminder. But I’m serious. The car means a lot to me, so thank you.”

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