Page 77 of The Woman on the Jury

“Ah, sure,” I said, shaking my head, and turning to make my way out.

“You gonna put Leon on the shelf?” Miko asked as we got in the car.

“I haven’t decided yet.”

Shelving a Made man was not something to take lightly. It meant cutting them off from everyone else, forbidding others to talk to them, and absorbing all their jobs and rackets into the rest of the Family, leaving them with no stream of income.

To most of us, it would be a fate worse than death.

Sure, Leon was a royal pain in my ass. And he’d overstepped. But I didn’t know if I wanted the headache of putting him on the shelf.

“Well, let me know what you decide. I can put feelers out for anyone from Leon’s crew we might want to move up.”

He dropped me off at my building ten minutes later, and I could feel this thrumming sensation in my chest as I rode the elevator up to the penthouse.

Anticipation.

That was what it was.

Excitement.

Not to be home, per se, but to be home with Halle.

I nodded at the guards at either side of the door, then unlocked it, and let myself in.

To the sound of some sort of pop music playing from the TV.

And Halle dancing around in the kitchen.

Wearing nothing but another one of my tees that she must have snagged for herself since I hadn’t gotten her any at the store. Maybe not my brightest idea. But as I watched her tits bounce around under her shirt as she danced around, I stood by my declaration that she didn’t need any bras.

She didn’t hear me coming in as she scooped something she’d chopped up into a pan.

I didn’t stop to think.

To be rational about it.

I just walked over there, sinking my hands into her hip, turning her around to face me, then catching her gasp of surprise with my lips.

There was a second of stunned stillness before she melted into me, her hands grabbing my forearms, then sliding upward until they wrapped around the back of my neck as I pushed her back against the counter as my lips caressed again and again.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Halle

It was getting late.

I wasn’t anyone’s gourmet cook, but I was too hungry to wait around for Cosimo to remember to order dinner. So I figured I would throw some food together for myself since he’d had groceries delivered.

Not wanting to get anything on my obnoxiously expensive new wardrobe, I opted to steal another of his shirts to cook in.

I’d been having the first kind of carefree moment, dancing around the kitchen as I prepped the food, when hands suddenly reached out, grabbing me, and turning me.

My stomach plummeted.

But not in fear.

Because locked up in Cosimo’s penthouse was probably the safest I had ever been in my life.

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