"I do not want to leave it until tomorrow. I want them all checked and then up and running by sunrise."
"Alright." Ethan slips into the driver's seat and I follow. Two cars follow behind while Ethan drives through the city toward the last of the new cookhouses set up to replace the ones lost to the Italians.
"This house should make its cost back within two weeks," I murmur while staring at the information on my phone. "The cost of setting up and product alone is painful, but I think this will be the last one we need to get us back on track."
"As long as we keep the Italians busy, right?" Ethan replies with a soft snort. "Can't burn us down again if we don't give them room to breathe."
"Exactly. It helps that the Chaika family have a warehouse near the Italian docks. Easier to keep an eye."
Ethan murmurs his agreement, then he clears his throat. "Speaking of… Rose seems nice."
I tense slightly and focus on him in my peripheral vision. "Yes. She does."
"Almost too nice." Ethan's hand shifts on the steering wheel. "Every time I see her, she smiles at me. She's always busy doing something. Did you know that last week I found her in the dining room helping Beth polish the silver? She said she was having fun. Day before that, she was out in the garden chatting with the pool cleaner about his dog. He's worked with us for six years and I never knew anything about him. Now I feel like I know everything."
"She is a people person it would seem." Her face lights up my thoughts and a budding warmth of affection blooms in my chest. "Do you think she is happy?"
Ethan glances at me. "Happy?"
I nod. "The deal I made with her father was for reasons we both benefit from. I did not think I would come to care about her happiness as I did not expect to see much of her. But she is… like the sunlight after a cool breeze."
"Poetic," Ethan murmurs. "I don't know if she's happy. I haven't spoken much to her about that and I don't think she would tell me given how I'm always with you. Maybe she would tell Calvin?But at the same time…" He sighs deeply as we turn a corner. "She almost doesn't seem cut out for a life in a world like this."
"She grew up in it," I reply.
"Did she?" Ethan glances at me. "The world her father lives in is really different from yours. You're much more powerful for one, you have thousands of loyal men under you, and nearly every other leader in New York wants your head on a platter. Which means there's a target very firmly on her back too."
"It will not come to that."
"Are you sure?"
While Ethan's line of questioning is pressing, I know it comes from a place of concern. "I will not get complacent. I will not make the same mistake with Rose that I made with Lianna."
"Lianna wasn't your mistake," Ethan replies quickly. "It was a terrible tragedy, but not your fault."
"I do not care." The words catch in my throat. "I swore to protect her and I failed. I will not fail Rose." My chest tights as if my ribs are curling protectively around my heart. "Besides… Rose is like a ray of sunshine and I like that about her. She smiles at the birds and the butterflies, she makes faces with her sauce when she eats, she walks on her tiptoes down the stairs and always hops the last step. She takes joy in the little things and I like that. Everywhere I turn there is death and anger, blood and jealousy, theft and rage. It is smothering and intoxicating. Rose is… peace."
And the sex is amazing. Initially, I held back due to a worry that she hated me for the wedding or that our age gap would makeher far too uncomfortable. She seems to feel differently, and puts her hands on me at every opportunity.
Not that I complain.
"She is peace," Ethan agrees. "I don't doubt you, Kon. I just wanted to see how you felt. If things weren't clicking, we could send her upstate for the rest of her life."
"Things are clicking," I assure him. "Once we check this house over, I intend to spend the rest of the night getting to know her family. She invited them all to the party and I would very much like to?—"
The rest of my thought screeches to a halt as loudly as the crunch of metal rising from outside my car. Another vehicle slams into us from the left and Ethan curses as he jerks the wheel and fights to keep us on the road.
"What the fuck?" My hand immediately drops to my gun at my waist as the car revs its engine loudly and slams into us once more. We veer hard to the right, and Ethan fights with the wheel while one of my cars races up the right-hand side to catch us before we careen off the road.
That nudge is enough to help Ethan get us back on the road, but the attacking car swerves into us once more.
Before it can make contact, another of my cars races in between us and takes the brunt of the impact.
Ethan wrenches the steering wheel to the left and slams us into our own car, trapping it between the racing attackers and us.
Seconds later, the rapid pop of gunfire fills the air and the car between us shudders, then loses all momentum.
As it slides backward, the attacking car careens back into his and crushes the front bumper of the retreating car.
