Page 21 of The Woman in the Garage

“Crap,” I said, jumping out of my chair, grabbing my purse and keys, and saying a silent prayer that my car would start. “Thanks, David. I’ll be back in a few,” I said, remembering to lock the office before I walked out of one of the open garage doors.

I racked my brain the whole drive home, trying to figure out what I’d ordered, but came up blank.

Until I got to my place to find two men with a giant delivery truck unpacking the item in my driveway.

The pink velvet couch.

The freakingpink velvet couch.

“Hi!” I said, rushing out of my car and up the driveway, glad I’d stopped at the bank on the way to work so I had some tip money for them. “Sorry. I didn’t realize I had a delivery today. Do you guys have, uh, the receipt by chance?”

One of them went to grab it while the other finished unwrapping the plastic from the couch.

“Thank you,” I said, scanning the full page. Until I got to the bottom where it was signed.

By Santo Grassi.

The guy who I was indebted to for protection, who just so happened to be a mob guy, and who said he would be lucky to be in bed with me… sent me a couch.

Well.

I certainly owed him a thank you, didn’t I?

And so what if my mind went right to thanking him?

With my mouth.

Wordlessly.

CHAPTER SIX

Santo

I didn’t regret saying it.

Even if I knew I shouldn’t have, that I really needed to keep shit professional.

She’d just gone fucking crimson when she’d said the thing about being in bed with me. I couldn’t seem to stop myself. From saying that, from imagining where else she might get all red when she was all worked up.

“Focus,” Lucky said, snapping in my face.

“Yeah, I didn’t catch any of that,” I admitted, sitting in his office at one of his pizza joints.

“What’s her name?” Lucky asked with a knowing smirk.

“Yeah… I can’t tell you that.”

“Been there,” Lucky admitted.

It was no secret that Lucky met his girl on a job. So had his brother Aurelio. And my brothers Mass and August.

That said, none of those women owed the Family money on a monthly basis. As far as I knew, shacking up with them hadn’t hurt anyone’s bottom line. If anything, they made the men work harder because they had wives and kids to worry about.

I mean, if sleeping with Dasha led to more than that, I would have another legit business to wash Family money…

Christ.

Getting a little ahead of myself, wasn’t I?

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