Page 11 of The Secrets We Keep

“How are the new drink menus performing at the strip club?”

Sitting forward in his chair, Luca dug the correct folder out of the stack in front of him and flipped it open. “Very well, actually. The higher profit margin helps, but sales are better and steadier than this time last year.”

He passed the report and waited for Matteo to glance over it. “Perfect. Let’s roll this out to the other clubs and keep an eye on the numbers. Eventually, I want to open some clubs and casinos in Varda’s territory. Mark it as ours.”

“Am I not doing that already by wasting away in Agrigento?” Dom asked.

“Missing home, brother?” Carina teased.

“Let’s just say I preferred my compound with a view of the Mediterranean.”

“It was too far and still in our territory. Agrigento was Varda’s seat of power, and I wanted to keep it that way.”

“I remember the reasons.” Dom waved a hand over the table. “That doesn’t mean I like them. Emilia, at least, has enjoyed gutting Varda’s hideously ugly house and redecorating.”

“Happy to hear she’s making herself at home,” Matteo grumbled.

“Don’t start,” Carina chided before Dom could snarl a retort. “I think it’s nice someone finally revealed Dom’s softer side.” Dom’s lip curled back over his teeth, and Carina chuckled. “Such as it is. Soon enough it’ll be you or Luca.”

Matteo grimaced. “Please, you’ll make me lose my lunch. And Luca is too busy making eyes at my off-limits assistant to think of getting himself saddled with a woman.”

“I’ll have to remember to tell Alexei he’s been saddled with me,” Carina replied, one eyebrow arched over unamused brown eyes.

Pursing his lips, Matteo turned to Dom. “Strongholds are bearing up along the Antonetti and Gallo borders?”

Luca let his mind drift again to Sienna and Catania. From the first moment he saw her four years ago, he wanted her. She’d been out celebrating her twenty-first birthday, grinding on some guy in a club, her ass pressed against his crotch, his hands on her hips.

He’d never felt lust punch through him like that, an immediate, desperate need for one person. Stalking across the dance floor, he stared the guy down until he dropped his hands and wandered off. He’d slid in behind her, taking the other guy’s place and whispering everything he wanted to do to her against her skin.

Then he’d shown her. First in the bathroom of the club with her skirt hiked up around her waist, then in the backseat of his SUV barely shielded by the tinted windows, then at the hotel room he rented because he couldn’t get enough of her, couldn’t fathom not spending the night with her.

It hadn’t taken them long to realize they were on opposite ends of the island. Him a Bianchi, her a Gallo. Their families didn’t strictly hate each other, but they wouldn’t have approved of them being together. There was no money in it.

She was the youngest daughter of the second Gallo son; he was the third son of the Bianchi Don who couldn’t seem to get his shit together. But that didn’t make him want her any less. They spent as much time together as they could, sneaking off to meet somewhere in the middle or contriving to run into each other at clubs and falling into a hotel room bed.

He’d seen her for the last time two days before her birthday, before the day that changed everything. He’d taken her on a picnic in a field of wildflowers. She had a thing about wildflowers, always stopping to collect them from cracks in the sidewalk or on the side of the road.

They ate, they laughed, and he teased her for spending her summer learning another language just for fun, as if three wasn’t enough already. Then he’d rolled her onto her back, fitted himself between her thighs, and…

“Luca!”

Dom’s shout jerked him out of his thoughts, and he rammed his elbow into the edge of the glass table. “Fuck. What?”

“What the hell is wrong with you lately?” Matteo demanded. “You’ve been acting weird for days.”

“Just…” He rubbed his forehead. “Haven’t been sleeping well. I’m fine.”

“Well, take the rest of the week. Christ, take the weekend too, to sort your shit out or get laid or something because I need your head in the game next week. We’re taking our first hit at Gallo, and I don’t want it to go sideways because you’re too busy thinking about pussy.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be ready. Besides, Dom is the one who gets to have all the fun.”

Matteo raised a brow. “I can’t spare you for an active op. But I do need you sharp so you can keep an eye on everything when it goes down. So go get your dick wet or whatever you need to do to stop moping around my house.”

“I’m not moping around the house.”

“Uh huh,” Matteo replied, unconvinced. “Let’s plan to meet again after the first strike. Dom, you can call in. I know you hate to leave Emilia alone. Now that you’re a family man and all.”

Dom slapped Matteo on the shoulder, squeezing until Matteo winced. “One day, brother”—Dom laced the single word with venom—“you’ll have to get married to make little Matteos to carry on your master plans and rule over the empire. Unless you expect Luca or me to do it for you like we’ve done everything else.”

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