Page 43 of Satin Empire

“I mean it,” she says simply. “You’re really agonizing over it, huh? I’m a little hurt. I thought I distracted you enough.”

“Baby, I’ll never get the sounds of your moans out of my head, or the sexy noise you make when my cock hits the back of your throat.”

“Oh my god,” she says, groaning. “Please, don’t ever say that again.”

I kiss her hard. Last night changed something. I’ve been feeling this for her ever since she came into my life, ever since I palmed her tits at the strip club, but now it’s coming into focus. She’s young, too fucking young, but what the fuck does it matter when she obviously sees life more clearly than I do?

“I can’t just do it,” I say and she definitely wants to argue that point, but I shut her up by squeezing her ass hard. “I’m going to do it, but I have to tell Renzo first.”

“You mafia idiots,” she murmurs, swatting my hands away, pretending like she doesn’t love it when I grab her. The girl sets my heart racing up into my throat, and I haven’t felt like this in a very long time. Her lips are parted and pouty, and I’m pretty sure we’re not going to make it to breakfast, not before I drive myself between her legs at least one more time.

“I seem to recall that you’re a mafia idiot too,” I point out.

“No, I’m a mafia idiot’s stepdaughter. I’ll never understand the way you people worship your stupid Don, especially when he’s a guy like Orsino.”

I grunt in response and I know what she’s saying. I kiss her neck, choosing not to be insulted by the way she dismisses my entire worldview so easily.

“You don’t get to choose your Don, the same way you don’t choose your parents, but in our world the Don must earn respect even when he’s owed it. A Don that doesn’t live up to his station is a Don that doesn’t last very long.”

She laughs gently and stares down at the floor. “I wish things really were that simple.”

I want to tell her that they are, or at least they can be, but she tilts her chin up and I’m kissing her again. Once my fingers find her stiff nipples and start to tease her through the fabric of her shirt, all my arguments are lost.

Because I’m going to eat her delicious pussy on my kitchen table then fill her to the brim for dessert.

* * *

I find Renzo in his office a few hours later. Alana insists on coming with me, which is both adorable and distracting, but she hurries off to find Maddie and the other girls the second we’re inside. I try not to smile, except I love that she’s starting to fit in with my family already. I can’t pretend like I wasn’t worried about that, especially given our rocky start, and how she definitely didn’t want to be a Rossi wife. But maybe being mine isn’t so bad after all.

Renzo’s on the phone so I sit and wait, trying not to show how anxious I feel, but doing a shit job—my knee jostles and my hands stay firmly clasped in my lap. He definitely notices, and keeps giving me hard looks like I’d better stop being so damn annoying, but I can’t help myself.

I’ve asked him for favors. That’s sort of what the job entails—he provides for the organization and in return we do whatever tasks need doing, usually blowing out Russian brains and shit like that. But I’ve never come to his office to tell him that I’m doing something, and that I’m not asking permission. I doubt anyone ever has.

Renzo’s a fair Don, all things considered, at least much more evenhanded than my father was, and I’d rather work for my brother than for any of the other heads of families. Orsino Milano’s a prick and Rocco Rinaldo is a self-involved moron, and both of them make Renzo look like a goddamn selfless genius by comparison. My brother’s got his faults, but he does his best to treat everyone in the organization with care and dignity, even the lowest, most unimportant soldiers.

He’s also my brother. It’s hard to understate what that means in our family. Our father was a vicious fucking prick and he treated the four of us like absolute garbage growing up, constantly trying to make us feud with each other, always pushing us to be better and faster, and it was never good enough. Instead of making us hate each other, my father’s constant meddling and shit-stirring only pushed the four of us closer together. I love my brothers, even if they can be a bunch of annoying pricks sometimes, and I’d give my life for any one of them in a heartbeat, and I know they’d do the same for me.

Only taking a bullet isn’t the same as opening a business. Sometimes, getting shot is easier than taking a chance.

“You look like you’re about to have a fucking meltdown,” Renzo says when he’s finally off the phone. “What’s going on? That new wife giving you trouble or something?”

“Alana’s fine,” I say although he’s kind of not wrong. If she had just kept her mouth shut, none of this would be happening—and I should be grateful that she didn’t. “I want to talk business.”

“You hear something about Jasha Aslanov’s whereabouts?” Renzo perks up, and of course he thinks it’s about the war. What else could Carlo have to say?

“Nah, bro, it’s not that. I need to tell you something.” I take a deep breath. Why the fuck is this so hard? “I’m opening a club. I’m thinking a high-end dance place, good booze, solid DJs, that sort of thing.”

Renzo sits back in his chair, looking confused. “I thought Saul told you to hold off on that.”

I grimace and inwardly curse. No shit they talked. Saul doesn’t do anything without running it up through the Don, because that’s the kind of rule-following dickhead he is.

“I’m doing this on my own, bro, with my own money, without any help from the Famiglia. I understand you think it’s a bad time, but I’m ready, and I’m doing it.”

Renzo’s face falls and he puts on the expression he likes to wear when he’s in a high-stress negotiation. “And if I say no?”

“You won’t.”

I fucking hope.

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