Page 55 of Hold Him Like Gravity

Even just the thought of what happened in my office had my cock nearly springing to life again. Despite having tried to relieve that urge twice already.

Nothing, I was starting to see, was going to make it go away but getting inside of her, fucking through the connection that had grown between us.

If only fucking work would let up for two minutes.

“So, there should be two guys walking around Brooklyn pretty fucked up right now,” Renzo concluded.

“Yeah. I mean, unless they have the good sense to lie low.”

“If they’re jumping a Lombardi soldier, I think it’s safe to say they don’t have much in the way of sense.”

“True. I did get word out to the capos about what happened, but I wanted to wait to talk to you before we give them permission to talk to their soldiers or associates.”

To that, Renzo nodded as he took a sip of his coffee. “Let’s tell them to be on the lookout for guys who are fucked up. We don’t have to tell them all the details. Tell Coal to take a few days off at home to recover. But the more eyes on the street, the better.We need to find these fucks and see who they are working for. If anyone.”

That was what I was thinking too.

It was why Renzo put so much work on my shoulders. We’d been working side-by-side for so long we practically shared a brain.

“Anything else going on that I need to know about?”

“I put out that fire with Cage,” I said. He was another of Renzo’s pet projects. The spoiled, fucked-up son of a previous capo, Cage had gotten himself into all sorts of shit before Renzo got his hands on him, dusted him off, cleaned him up, and put him to work.

Since then, he’d been a pretty reliable soldier. Not our biggest earner, but doing good work. It was a job he was working on that went sideways, making him step on the toes of a local crew who was pissed off about the interference. It only required a little smoothing over. But I had to relocate Cage to a different neighborhood to avoid any future altercations.

“Good. Alright. Well, let me know if you hear anything before I do about the shit with Coal.”

“Will do,” I agreed.

“How’s business?” he asked.

“Good. The slight price hike is still less than a lot of the stores in the area, so people aren’t bitching. You got some money you need to pass through?” I asked.

Like any money laundering operation, I had two sets of books. The ones I’d show the IRS if they came looking, cooked to inflate certain expenses, and the ones that showed me how much money I was washing through the business and sending back into pockets. Mostly just mine and Renzo’s. It was everyone else’s job to figure out how to wash their cash.

“Yeah,” Renzo said, heading into his office and coming back with a backpack. “Twenty-five grand, give or take,” he told me. “Too much at once?”

“I can make it work with all the renovations. Got the new slicers and TVs and shit from the backs of trucks, more or less. It’ll all shake out.”

“Good. Thanks.”

“Renzo, where did you put my book?” Lore, Renzo’s wife, called from upstairs.

“You, ah, knocked it off of the nightstand last night, remember?” Renzo called, a smirk tugging at his lips.

“I’ll let you get back to your girl,” I said, slinging the backpack strap over my shoulder, then making my way to the door.

I couldn’t help it; my mind drifted back to Kick in the office yet again.

I never gave much thought to relationships in the past. Maybe it was the members of my family starting to shack up that made me stop to consider the possibility for my own future.

Renzo with Lore. Cinna and Dav. Elian and Elizabeth. I was one of the few of the OG guys who hadn’t started considering rings and kids and shit like that.

A handful of interactions with Kick and I was suddenly envisioning that shit. Things came to mind that I’d never considered before. Like how my apartment with its one spare bedroom wouldn’t be big enough if I decided to have kids. And that it was a logistical nightmare from a safety standpoint if I were looking to protect anyone aside from myself.

“Christ,” I said, raking a hand down my face as I moved out of the elevator and walked out of Renzo’s building.

I made my way back to the meat shop then, not wanting to be walking around with that much cash on me.

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