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CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Salvatore
I should have known better than to expect peace and quiet.
There was no such thing when a member of the Costa family was down and out.
It was endless streams of guests in and out of the apartment. And, normally, that didn’t bother me. I liked having everyone around. Especially after so many years of being virtually by myself while in prison.
It was nice to have family around.
Especially when they weren’t there on Family business.
But when I had a beautiful woman in my bed waiting on me, yeah, I was all too happy to just not answer the door.
Anthony, though, wanted some guests to distract himself from being couch-bound and bored, heaving his solid frame off the sectional, and hobbling over to let Brio and Cesare in while I was making coffee.
I still hadn’t figured out how I was going to broach the topic of Whitney to the guys, especially Lorenzo. And while I knew it should have been on the top of my priority list since I was forcing Anthony to be a part of my disloyalty, I couldn’t seem to bring myself to prioritize the confession when Whit was waiting for me.
Then, well, she walked out.
And I had no choice but to explain to Cesare and Brio what was going on. Though, clearly, they understood it the second they saw her.
Because I didn’t do sleepovers.
I didn’t have random hook-ups in my personal space.
First, because I felt it might send the wrong message.
But second, because it was just an unspoken rule around the Family. Strangers in your space presented a unique danger. They had access to your home. Which meant your weapons, your money, and even all the places they could place cameras or listening devices.
That sounded paranoid, but that was the life we lived now that technology had advanced so much. It wasn’t the feds dressing up as cable guys and wiring your house anymore.
It was slicker and more intimate than that.
So to be safe, you went to the woman’s house and kept your space sacred.
That meant that seeing Whitney there told them all they needed to know. That shit was more than work. And it was more than a random hook-up too.
I hadn’t exactly had a lot of time to think that over for myself yet. I’d been fucking beat the night before. So after following the uncharacteristic urge to put my arms around her and pull her close, I’d passed the fuck out.
I think it went without saying, though, that this wasn’t casual. And while I wouldn’t even pretend to understand all that a relationship entailed, I had to admit that it seemed to be heading in that direction.
Because not only did I like having her around, talking to her, being with her, I found myself more invested than I expected in her ability to interact with my people.
She’d probably thought I was a fucking asshole for being so quiet while she talked to Cesare, Brio, and Anthony, but some part of me just wanted to see how she fit in with my family, how comfortable she was with them.
I’d been pleasantly surprised. Even by her wish to help take care of Ant, who really needed a reality kick to the ass to see that not every woman he crossed paths with was going to wait on him hand-and-foot like the women of his family did.
“So…” Cesare said, lips twitching, after Whitney went back into my bedroom. “That’s a development.”
“He’s fucking one-hundred or something,” Brio said, smirking. “It’s about time he settled down.”
“I gotta ask, man,” Cesare started, giving me a knowing look.
He might have been newly back in the city after a long gig up in Maine after fucking a married woman in the Lombardi Family who, understandably, wanted him dead, but he knew how shit worked around here.
You didn’t keep shit from the boss man.
