Page 94 of Hold Him Like Gravity

“I’ll reach out and ask him to come see me at the shop tomorrow,” I offered.

“Good. Now, what about the brother?” Renzo asked. “We can’t kill him.”

“Why the hell not?” Saff asked, face scrunched up.

“Because it’s Kick’s brother,” Dav said.

“So? He’s a dirtbag. I mean, who the hell manipulates their sister like that? He deserves a trip to the bottom of the Hudson.”

I was inclined to agree. But I also couldn’t murder the woman I was falling in love with’s brother. I might not have been an expert on relationships, but I was reasonably sure you shouldn’t start a relationship with that kind of dark cloud hanging over you.

“I think it’s fine to knock some sense into him,” I offered. “Then tell him to get the fuck out of the city and never come back, never try to make contact with Kick.”

“I’d be alright with that. So long as he stays away. If he ever starts shit again, though…” Renzo said, spreading his hands out.

“I agree,” I said.

“I imagine you want to get your hands dirty with these guys?” he asked, looking at me.

“If that’s alright, yeah.”

“Yeah,” he said, glancing up to where Lore was walking across the top landing, a book open in her hands, likely thinkingof how dirty he’d wanted his hands when someone fucked with her. “That’s fine. Alright. That’s settled, at least.”

“Has there been any more progress on Coal getting jumped?” Elian asked.

“Cage thinks he might have a lead on that,” Renzo said, which was news to me. I’d been so distracted by Kick that I was losing sight of family business. “But we don’t have a definitive answer yet.”

“What is the lead?” I asked.

“Well,” Renzo said, sighing hard as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Cage has reason to believe it might be the two younger sons of Slick.”

“Slick?” I asked, brows raising. I hadn’t heard that name in years. Not since Renzo had taken over and promptly kicked his ass out of the family, only sparing his life because he had a whole litter of kids to take care of and a ‘fragile’ wife who never would have been able to handle it without him.

“His youngest two are just twenty-one and three,” Renzo explained.

“They out of their fucking minds trying to take on the family?” Bastian asked.

“I think it might be more out of spite for them,” Renzo explained. “Coal isn’t even family and he gets to be working for us, while they’re ousted because their old man was a shithead. And, I mean, I get it. Our old men sucked too. Didn’t mean we deserved to suffer for their sins.”

“You considering inviting them in?” I asked.

Renzo was a hard man, a firm leader, but he did seem to have a soft spot for lost kids who needed direction. That was why Cinna, Dav, and Saff ended up working for the family.

“I dunno. Depends on what Cage figures out. I want full reports on them and what they’re up to. Their older brothers too. And Slick. Last I heard, he was working as a mechanic, butI want to make sure that’s the case. Shit is relatively stable with us. I don’t want to invite trouble. But I do understand their anger at having their legacy stripped away from them because their old man is a fuck up.”

We talked for a while about other, smaller matters, before we all headed out.

I made the call to Primo before I made my way home to Kick.

Even just that thought made that strange warm sensation move across my chest. It was something I was having a lot around her or with thoughts of her.

It was clear she was still uncertain about me. Or, maybe more accurately, about my reaction to the situation between us.

I hoped that with a few days in my place, with proof that things were okay between us, she would stop asking for confirmation that things were okay, that I still wanted her around.

“What are you doing?” I asked the next morning after having finally spent the whole night with her, woken up with her still curled up against me.

“What do you mean?” she asked, coming into the kitchen still pulling her damp hair into a ponytail, her Lombardi Premium Meats tee on.

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