Page 93 of Hold Him Like Gravity

“For weeks,” he said. “I know shit is new and we need to explore this without the secrets between us for a while before we can give that other shit more serious thought. But I’m game if you are.”

“You’re sure?” I asked, still struggling to believe he was so accepting of my betrayal.

“Yeah, babe, I’m sure. The question is… are you in?”

I was in.

God, I wasallin.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Rico

I knew Kick was nervous that Renzo was going to lose his shit about her fucking with the family money.

The thing was, I’d been working so closely with Renzo for so long that the two of us practically shared the same mind on just about every issue.

No, he wasn’t happy that her ex and her brother had the balls to think they could come at us, that they could force one of our employees to work for them.

But, yeah, he understood the impossible situation Kick was in. Even if she and her brother were estranged and there were hard feelings over Jake deciding to side with her ex and lead him to her when she was free of him, there were still some feeling of responsibility when she realized he was in duress.

“You’re sure she’s telling the whole truth?” Cinna asked, watching me.

“I’m sure.”

“I don’t even really know Kick,” Bass piped in. “But that chick looked horrified about what she was doing in the surveillance videos. She wasn’t excited about getting away with something or anything like that.”

To that, Cinna nodded.

“I could lean on her if you want to be sure,” Saff volunteered.

“Absolutely fucking not,” I said, watching as everyone turned to me, brows raised.

Because, yeah, I understood their confusion. I’d always been the one who never wanted to leave a stone unturned, who was always insisting that we knew every single factor of a situation. Whether that meant grueling questioning or outright torture, I was okay with it if it was what was best for the family.

But not when it came to Kick.

“Sounds like congratulations are in order,” Dav said, shooting me his trademark smirk.

“Kinda saw that shit coming since that day she threatened to put some guy’s hand in a meat grinder,” Elian said.

“Gotta give her credit for standing up for herself after everything she’s been through,” Saff said.

“Kinda badass to stab the fucker in the neck too,” Cinna agreed.

“So back to this Kyle fuck… he’s living in the Bronx, right now?” Renzo asked.

I knew what he was thinking. Given the way the Five Families in the city were set up, we couldn’t just waltz our asses into a borough that belonged to another family and do whatever the fuck we wanted. Especially a murder. Or several murders, since it wasn’t just Kyle who needed to be neutralized. There’d been three other guys aside from Jake who’d robbed my place, who’d hurt my employees in the process.

“Yeah, he is. I don’t have the exact address, but yeah, it’s definitely in the Bronx.”

“So, next step is a meeting with Primo,” Renzo said, nodding.

That was no big deal for us. Even before the marriage of Renzo to Lore Costa that created a truce between us and theCosta, D’Onofrio, and Morelli families, we’d always been tight with Primo Esposito.

When the power shift happened a while back, shaking up the holds each of the families had, our family and the Espositos got the short end of the stick. Which forced us to have more of a truce, giving us a little power against the other families.

So calling up Primo and telling him we had to do some work on his turf wasn’t going to be a big deal.

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