Page 77 of Dragonfly

That means my husband keeps trying to keep his ‘business’ life separate from his ‘personal’ life, and because it’s easier for me to accept this new life I found myself living when he does that, I usually let him.

But it’s harder for him to do that these days. And I guess one part of being a mafia leader’s wife is being there for him when he doesn’t have the bandwidth to continue to hide the realities of who Damien Libellula really is from me.

And that means I keep hearing about Jimmy Winter.

Jimmy Winter is a wannabe gangster who seemed to come out of nowhere. Damien is sure this guy is being bankrolled by someone even bigger for him to infiltrate as much as Springfield as he has, and it bothers him that he can’t squash him like a cockroach. Even when he does get his hands on a member of Winter’s crew, another takes his place, and he’s no closer to extinguishing the head of the gang.

I try not to smirk and point out that I know exactly what he means, though I don’t often manage it. On the plus side, he doesn’t mind my sass—and I’m becoming a fan of letting him spank me to get out some of his frustration.

Like earlier tonight.

He got a phone call while we were getting ready for bed. Because the Dragonflies usually speak in a code when they don’t want anyone to understand what they’re discussing, he doesn’t leave the room if he has to answer and we’re together.

Lately, he hasn’t been using the code as much as he has been. That makes sense to me for a few reasons. One: because most of his discussion had been about getting my new supplement store off the ground and, now that he’s showed it to me, he doesn’t have to keep it a secret any longer. And, most importantly, two: because now that I have no desire to kill him, he trusts me enough to speak more openly about Dragonfly biz.

Of course, his innate overprotective nature means that he wants to keep me as coddled as Gen. Instead of confining me to the house so that he can keep his eye on me—or Vin’s—he doesn’t want me to leave because I might be in danger.

And we have Jimmy fucking Winter to blame.

I never understood why Damien seemed so obsessed with the snowflake that was marked on the bottom of the gun I bought from the pawn shop. I finally admitted where I got it from after another disastrous morning at the gun range, and while I accepted I’ll never be a marksman and my former fantasy of putting a bullet through Damien’s skull was just that, he was more interested in the weapon itself.

I have no use for it. Since Damien gave me his stiletto, I’ve worn the holster he gave me on my hip whenever I’m dressed.

I’m naked now, curled up on his chest. He seems a lot more relaxed now, though I’ve learned that my older husband has quite the stamina. He’ll be ready to fuck me again before we turn in for the night, but for the moment, he’s content to stroke my hair as he confesses to me what the earlier call was about.

Turns out, two soldiers caught a pair of Winter’s men sneaking around Il Sogno. They tried to act like they were down for some Italian, but they were caught with a kilo of cocaine on them. Damien didn’t hesitate while he was on the phone. He gave the order to send an enforcer.

In his Family, enforcers are the sly assassins who kill on Damien’s orders. He doesn’t have that many, and he prizes the ones he has. The night I met him, he’d lost one to his rivals on the West Side of Springfield. Of course, then I realized the man was killed because he’d beaten that poor blonde girl half-to-death and I understood why Damien didn’t retaliate.

He did, however, enlist Oliver to be his next enforcer. But Oliver, it seems, disappeared after he was dispatched.

Whether he was killed, poached, or just decided not to be a syndicate murderer anymore, Damien doesn’t know—but it bothers him that one of his men went missing and he can’t track him.

I lay my head on his chest, listening to his heart beat. “I don’t know why you can’t,” I muse. “Don’t you have all of your guys chipped like me? You said I wasn’t the only one.”

“You’re not, but the technology was too expensive to insist on it being a requirement to join the Family. Only a few of my most trusted men have it.”

Really? Sitting up so that I’m next to Damien, I gaze down at his face. “Like who?”

“Vin, for one. Christopher. As part of the truce, I have Lincoln Crewes’s code. Tony accepted. So did Gio. A couple of my lieutenants said they were willing to test out the tech, too. But that’s all.” He pauses for a moment. “I have one, too, but the only one who has the code is Devil.”

“Because of the truce.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Not Gen, though?” I ask. Then, thinking better about what I asked, I answer my own question. “No. She’d never let you do that. And she’d probably kick you right in the balls if you ever did that without her permission. You know that, too, so you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t do anything to push your sister away.”

Damien chuckles. “Very perceptive.”

I shrug. “I guess.”

I don’t mean to sound so forlorn all of a sudden. Now that I don’t pretend to use the Southern drawl anymore around Damien, I rarely police my tone, but that came out on its own.

Worse, he noticed.

“Savannah? Amore… what’s wrong.”

I shake my head. “Nothing.”

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