Page 73 of Satin Empire

“You smell sweaty.” I breathe him in—I love it so much I could bathe in the freaking scent.

“Been hard at work downstairs.” He brushes his knuckles across my cheek. “Honestly, is everything okay out there?”

“It’s great,” I admit, and a little current of worry runs through me. “But what about you? And you know… what’s downstairs.”

His eyes go cloudy as he shakes his head. “It’s been a month and he still hasn’t talked.”

I glance at the floor. Jasha Aslanov. Everyone knows he’s being kept down there, chained to a wall, barely alive. He refuses to give up the rest of his men, and Renzo’s convinced that he was working with someone bigger, someone more powerful, and possibly someone inside the Famiglia. But so far, he hasn’t admitted it.

“How much longer?” I whisper, not because I want them to spare the Russian, but there’s only so much hate I have left in me, and I’m worried this whole thing is distracting him from focusing on the club.

“As long as it takes.” He kisses me gently and a sly smile replaces the faraway stare. “Did your mother mention kids yet?”

“Yep, and Maddie and Allegra joined in this time.”

“Maybe we should give everyone what they want?”

“Sly dog.” My heart beats quickly as I push him away, grinning. “You just want the fun bits.”

“Damn right.” He slaps my ass when I walk past him and I flip him off as I head outside, smiling to myself.

I like the idea of kids. Hell, I really want children one day soon—but I’m not ready to be a mom, not yet anyway. Not until I figure out who I am and what I want to be. I think Carlo needs that same space to explore himself first too.

But someday soon, I can see myself with a few babies, maybe three, maybe four, I don’t know, it all depends.

“Everything good in there?” Maddie asks when I sit back down at the table.

I give her my best smile. “Everything’s great.”

Chapter 37

Carlo

The warehouse is a hive of activity as three large work trucks park out front and the crew unloads. I shake hands with the foreman briefly, but I stay back and don’t get in their way—these guys are the best in the business and they know what they’re doing.

“You don’t look nervous,” Alana says, leaning against my shoulder. The guys shout and start unloading materials, and we watch from a distance.

“No reason to be. They’re going to be busy for a while. This is the easy part.”

She laughs and gets on her toes to kiss my neck. “Easy? Come on, that’s not true. There are a million things that can go wrong.”

I give her a look, eyebrows raised. “Are you trying to fuck me up here?”

“No,” she says quickly, waving her hands. “No, I just meant?—”

“I’m kidding. I know what you mean.” I lean down and kiss her. God, she’s still so easy to rile up. “And it’s totally fine. I guess I’m just not worried about the construction part since that’s just a physical problem, you know what I mean?”

She nods and hugs me tighter. “I’m proud of you,” she whispers, and I never would’ve thought those simple words would feel good, but they fucking do coming from her.

Physical problems are easy. You kick down doors, you beat guys up, you fix what needs fixing. You move concrete, put up plaster, patch holes, repair roofs, that sort of thing. There’s no ambiguity, no uncertainty. It can either be done, or it can’t be done, and that’s the end of the discussion.

But the other problems are harder. Marketing, hyping, getting people interested in this experiment—that’s the shit I’m nervous about, because it’s far from my specialty. I’ve been talking with her cousin Noah for a couple weeks about the overall vibe, and I think the guy’s got a pretty good eye for this sort of thing. I’m not sure I’m making him a part of the team officially, but it’s on the table.

We go for a walk around the grounds. She tells me about Niccolo coming over to the Rossi mansion more often to play with the other kids and how rewarding it is to see him having fun with children his own age. I love the way she smiles and gets excited when she talks about her little brother, and I can’t wait to see her react the same way when our kids go through all this.

Except I don’t talk about kids. We agreed that we’ll start churning out the babies after she graduates college, which is four long years of waiting, but this girl is more than worth it.

“I have some news I want to share.” She hops up onto the stump of a long-gone tree, balancing there like a queen surveying her world. And right now, her world is a bunch of bushes, some weeds, a falling-apart chain-link fence, and a warehouse missing half its windows.

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