Page 33 of Need Him Like Oxygen

“Oh,” Rico said, face tangled in confusion, but his shoulders relaxed a bit.

“Why?” I asked.

“Just heard one of her soldiers talking earlier, saying they hadn’t seen her in weeks.”

“Hadn’t they heard from her at least?” I asked.

“I mean, yeah.”

“You know Cinna,” I said, shrugging. “She’s always busy.”

“True,” Rico agreed.

“Or maybe she found herself a personal life,” I said, getting a chuckle out of Rico.

“That’ll be the day,” he said.

“Hey, we never thought Renzo would slow down either,” I reasoned, jerking my chin toward our boss, who was leaning against the bar, watching his wife talking to Elian, her clear favorite of all the capos, a man who’d championed for Renzo to understand what a prize he had in his wife.

I liked Lore. Everyone did. She just… wasn’t my type. Soft and sweet and timid. A mafia princess raised in a sheltered life thanks to her father and five mafia capo brothers. But I could see that she was exactly what Renzo needed. Someone to come home to. A reason not to work himself to the bone.

“Gonna go say hi to the boss,” I told Rico, moving in that direction.

I was a solid ten feet away still, though, when someone came charging through the crush of people, making a beeline for the pool table, and snatching up the eight ball, turning, aiming, and sending the fucking thing sailing through the air, missing Renzo’s head by two inches, and crashing into the bar behind him, a bottle of liquor smashing with the impact.

“Jesus Christ, Saff,” Renzo said, brows pinched.

The man didn’t even flinch.

“You had no right to do that,” Saff snapped, charging toward him.

All five-feet-three-inches of fury.

When it came to mafia bosses, Renzo Lombardi was probably the most progressive out there. Because he not only tolerated, but encouraged, the idea of female capos in his organization.

I think a lot of us thought Cinna was a one-off back in the day. Because she was so tough and badass. Because everyone who ever met her knew she was meant for a life like this.

But, slowly over the years, he added more and more female soldiers and capos.

Saff was one of those.

Looking at her, you wouldn’t think she was every bit as tough—if not more so—as Cinna. She was short and thin with thick thighs and almost comically small feet. I was pretty sure the woman could shop in the children’s section still.

She had a pretty, deceptively sweet-looking heart-shaped face with big light brown eyes that almost hinted a bit grayish in the right light, a delicate nose with a ring, very defined cupid’s bow lips, and a smattering of subtle freckles over her nose and cheeks.

Her long hair was usually down, but tonight she had the dark blue wavy strands pulled up in a ponytail, the resulting effect making her look even younger than she was.

The real difference between Saff and Cinna, though, had nothing to do with looks.

Where Cinna was calm and collected with anger that ran cold, Saff was pure chaos whose anger ran hot enough to burn up everyone around her.

Like throwing a pool ball at a fucking mafia boss.

“Seeing as this is my family, Saff, yeah, I did have the right,” Renzo said, voice patient. Because, quite frankly, he’d been dealing with Saff’s explosions for years.

“I had it handled,” she raged, moving toward him, her heeled boots clicking on the floor as she went. They were a solid five inches, and they just barely made her average height.

“I never said you didn’t.”

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