Page 106 of Made in Love and Blood

“They also said, straight up, it’ll be a caesarean. You know why. You’re not really worried about your age, seriously?”

“Yeah, I am worried about what the road looks like in twenty years, for everybody,” he eventually said knowing she wouldn’t let it go.

She cocked her head sideways, rolling pretty eyes that had cleared of tears. “Samuel L. Jackson, and Liam Neeson. Mmm, who else? Oh, George. You know what watching him always does to me.”

Sal smirked. “Clooney? Woman, I’ll have almost ten years on—”

“Fine wine, husband. That’s what you are. And if you’re dead before I start looking like rotten fruit, that’ll be a cold day in hell. Because guess what, you’re keeping me until I’m at least eighty.”

He couldn’t even do the math on that one, he laughed so hard.

“And we better be still fucking like rabbits,” she added pointedly, “or you’ll be fighting me for a whole different reason every damn day.”

Jesus Christ, his side hurt.

“I love you,” he told her again, just because it didn’t ache as much as those initial times. “You don’t even know how much.”

“Yeah, I do. Truth is, I probably always did every time I caught you looking at me. It was just going to hurt a lot for you to say it.”

Something triggered in his mind, and his laughter faded away quickly.

Carina didn’t miss the change. “What is it?”

“You know tomorrow...who’s going to be here.”

The boss, he meant.

He didn’t spell it out.

Carina proved he didn’t need to. “I know, but I see you now, too, Sal.”

“I don’t feel safe in a room with him, either. I hope you know that.”

“Salvatore, you pay thirty million dollars a year for a security team that rivals the President’s. You think I don’t know what he’s done to you, too? I know the details, yes, but I know, too. I sleep in your bed, too. I hear your nightmares, too. I’ve been to their graves, too. Every dollar you spend on our well-being probably feels like another inch between your head and his bullet, doesn’t it?”

He couldn’t deny it.

He couldn’t even tell her that she didn’t know how it felt to live through what that man could do to a person one choice, or one funeral, at a time. Because she did know.

Just differently.

“I still wished you killed him that day,” she said, the words barely above a breath. They never spoke about that day. The day it all changed for the two of them a long time ago.

He didn’t want to talk about it now, either.

“I might still,” he admitted.

“How many more reasons do you need?” she asked him.

•••

The next day...

Sissy and Larkin strolled into the kitchen while a few of his guys straggled behind. Salvatore passed the group a nod as they came to stand at an attention of sorts while he finished affixing the cufflinks on his suit jacket.

Next to him, Carina adjusted the cape of Frankie’s dress where it connected at the shoulders. Frankie wore hers at her back, pink, that way while Carina opted to drape the cape of hers, in blue, across the front of her chest and back down her shoulders like a shawl.

“An hour to go-time,” he said to the quiet room.