“Did I give you any kind of instruction?” he snapped. “You taught yourself, Frankie. You observed and learned. He’s incapable of doing the same. Until he feels an ounce of humility, he’ll never amount to anything. He’ll always be a soldier, always be a sidekick…and he needs to accept that.”
When I made it home, Wolfe had already loaded his Range Rover with our stuff for the weekend.
“Sorry I’m late.” I parked my car next to his in the garage and walked up to him to kiss him.
“It’s alright, baby. Ready?”
“Yeah, just let me pee real quick.” I went into the house, quickly changed, and did my business before I hopped in the vehicle with him. We left Caltanissetta and headed toward Palermo. I looked out the window and thought about my brother. I wondered if I should reach out and check on him.
“Something on your mind?” Wolfe asked as he drove with one hand on the wheel, the other on my thigh.
It must have been written all over my face. I was unsure how he’d know otherwise. “Had lunch with my dad and Leo, and it didn’t go well.”
“What do you mean?”
“My dad basically confronted my brother in front of me and said I would run the business and he wouldn’t…for numerous reasons. Basically called him incompetent…and an idiot, and it was harsh.”
“If he wasn’t harsh, Leo would probably never stop.”
“Maybe. But it was still mean.”
“I’m sure Leo said some shit about you.”
“But I have tough skin. He doesn’t.”
“You’re awfully protective of your brother.”
“He’s my little brother—of course I am. I guess I feel bad for him because I know how much he wants it. But he’s not capable of understanding how things work. I could dedicate a lot of time to teaching him, and he would probably grasp it eventually… But he also wouldn’t take it seriously. Questioning why things matter, always assuming he knows better. I offered to run it with my brother, but my dad shot that down pretty quickly.”
Wolfe fell quiet, eyes on the road with his dark sunglasses sitting on the bridge of his nose.
“It’s just shitty.”
“He’ll get over it, baby.”
“I don’t understand why it means so much to him.”
“He probably sees it as an insult that his father chose his sister, a woman, to oversee a criminal business.”
“My brother isn’t misogynistic.”
“He clearly is, at least a little bit.”
“I’m not sure what to do about it.”
“There is nothing to do about it,” he said. “He’ll get over it. And when I’m back, I’ll make sure he gets over it—as many times as it takes.”
Wolfe took me out to dinner and gelato that evening, and when we came home, I found a lingerie set on the bed that hadn’t been there when we left. It was black and lacy, with stockings and a crotchless thong so I wouldn’t have to take anything off for us to have fun.
I approached the bed and looked at it before I turned to glance at him in the doorway.
He grinned, completely unapologetic. “I’ll give you a minute.” He winked before he walked out and closed the door behind him.
I smirked and blushed at the same time, flattered that he wanted me to wear this for him. Our sex life was pretty vanilla, and I knew he’d had more adventurous encounters with the other women he’d met…and the ones he’d paid.
I put it on, taking longer than I wanted to admit because I’d never actually put on lingerie before. I pulled on the stockings and slipped on the heels, fixed my hair and reapplied my makeup in the mirror. I wasn’t sure how I should position myself when he came back into the room, so I lay on my stomach, my ankles crossed in the air.
His footsteps sounded outside the door when he approached. Then he gave a quiet knock with his knuckles before he stepped inside. His eyes immediately went to me on the bed, and he gave a low whistle as he approached. “Damn, that is a fine-ass woman right there.”
