Page 13 of Ink

“I’ll brief Ash in the morning,” Blaze offered. “But he’ll want to talk directly to Annika at some point.”

As I ushered her to the door, I told him, “Took off the rest of the week to get shit straightened out.”

King leaned back in his seat, his arms crossed over his chest as he watched me carefully. “Gonna call Rafa?” he asked just before I stepped into the hall.

I froze for a second, then squeezed Annika’s hand. When she looked up at me, I smiled gently. “Need to talk club business with my prez for just a sec. You okay out here?”

“Of course,” she replied with a sweet smile.

“Thanks, baby.”

After stepping back into the room, I shut the door behind me. Then I stared back at King and frowned. “Why?”

Since we didn’t need the DeLuca Crime Family to handle club shit, I knew what he was really asking. But I played dumb because I didn’t want to admit that I was a fucking idiot.

“Not about the uncle,” he clarified, in an ironically cryptic response.

Sighing, I shook my head. “Not yet.”

He raised an eyebrow and tilted his head.

“He’ll tell mymamma,” I admitted reluctantly.

Nothing else needed to be said. Every one of us knew that if Rafa told mymammaI’d met a girl, she’d be here with wedding dresses so fast our heads would spin.

“It’s not like he can’t keep a secret,” Ace said, his tone sarcastic.

Yeah, this wasn’t about my cousin, the Mafia underboss, not being able to keep information to himself.

“He’ll do it just to fuck with me,” I muttered, regretting my hasty actions at dinner the other night.

“Threw him under the bus at Sunday dinner, didn’t you?” King stated.

King’s uncanny ability to see what no one else could, particularly when people were tryingnotto say it, was seriously frightening sometimes.

When I didn't say anything, his mouth curled into an extremely rare smile. “Grandbabies.”

“Fucking grandbabies.”

“So give her what she wants,” Blaze said, as if the answer were blatantly obvious, and I was too dense to figure it out.

“Working on it,” I grunted.

King chuckled. “I’ll send a vest to the shop for a property patch tomorrow.”

I lifted my chin in thanks before doing a one-eighty and exiting the room.

Annika was leaning against the wall, reading something on her phone, and she had a frown on her beautiful lips.

“Problem?” I asked.

She popped her head up and gave me a tired smile. “Just thinking about my parents and how hard this would be on them.”

Flipping her phone around, she showed me a picture of a beaming couple with their arms around a younger Annika.

“Don’t let this taint the happy memories,dolcezza,” I murmured, pulling into the circle of my arms.

She rested her cheek on my chest and sighed. “I don’t even know how I’m going to face him when I get home.”

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