AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He frowned and sat on one of the bar stools next to the island.
“Why on earth did your father send you to us then?” His expression was one of confusion. “You’re worth more to him than you are to us as a peace offering. Now, he’s got no one to watch his back.”
I huff. “Au contraire, he thinks that the Romano family will take over protection for his family now because he’s given you his daughter to marry. As if marrying me is an automatic protection from others to back off and leave the Montrellis alone. They don’t want to mess with both of our families. He’s going to be more careless in the next few weeks until your family takes control of things,” I warned, pointing my fork at him before I scoop up another bite.
“I must still be missing something. Why would your father want a peace treaty with someone else taking over?”
I shrugged, it was obvious. “He didn’t have confidence that I could get the job done properly because I have a vagina.”
Luciano’s eyes bugged out at my flippant remark. I laughed at the look on his face. It was one I never expected to see from him.
“My father is super old school, so it doesn’t matter that I have a degree in business and handle all of the wet and dirty work for the family, he still doesn’t think that I’m tough enough to do what’s needed to keep our family alive. Thus the treaty.”
“Wow! He’s such a dick.” Luciano’s words helped soothe my soul. “If your other work is anything as ruthless as what you displayed today, then I don’t have a single doubt that you would have been fine. Your gun skills are even better than most of my men that were there with you today and you out shot them.”
His praise took some of the sting out of what my father had done to me. I didn’t want to be bitter, but there wasn’t much of a reason not to be after the way I’d been treated by my father’s actions.
“Thank you.” Warm feelings flooded my body, and I was hoping that this might not be as hopeless of a situation as I’d thought.
“I wasn’t able to go to school.” He shared. “Mom really wanted me to, but I stepped into the company at an early age. You know how it goes, things never slowed down long enough for me to take that kind of time away to get a degree. They also don’t hand out degrees for life skills. If they did, I’d have leveled up years ago.” There was a hint of sadness behind his words that made me want to give him a hug.
WTF! Where had that thought come from? It was like an entirely different part of me was responding to him.
“Where did your brain just go? You looked as if you’d swallowed a horrible tasting pill.”
“Just that I was sad that your life has also been taken over by the companies we work for. We weren’t given any choice in our lives, and I just wish that things were different on rare occasions.”
He eyed me. “Regretting your decision to take your sister’s place?”
Without hesitation, I reply, “Nah, I don’t regret anything about what I do or decisions I make. Sometimes, I do think about what it would have been like to go to a normal job, have a family that wasn’t threatened by gunfire and violence on a daily basis, you know?”
“I can understand that. Did coming here bring up those kinds of thoughts?” He carried our empty plates around to the sink and began to put the dishes we’d used with them.
“Yes, but you aren’t anything like I’d imagined, so maybe I’ll be able to make this my picket fence dream instead.”
“Fair enough,” he acknowledged. “Although, you can dream or think about that from the comfort of your new bed with me. It’s been a long day and we both need to get some sleep.”
He held out a hand, and I took it as a sign of trust.
So far he hadn’t tried to harm me, and I was going to take that as a good sign.
* * *
I wasn’t sure how long I’d been asleep or when I’d curled up against Luciano’s side, but the sound of a phone buzzing jerked me awake.
At home I was used to being awakened to take care of whatever problem might have come up, but here I wasn’t in charge of taking care of the issues that had gone wrong. The idea of getting to stay curled up in the warm bed was a perk I didn’t know I needed or even wanted.
Luciano listened to the voice on the other end, it sounded like Stefano from where I was.
“I’ll be right there.” He reached for the light and I covered my eyes to allow them a chance to adjust.
He leaned over and gave me a kiss on the forehead.
“No need to get up. I’ve got to run and see about a missing shipment.” I watched his naked body move around the room as he started to get dressed and put on his gun holster.
I stared at him, admiring the firm abs and chiseled features that I hadn’t taken the time to look at before. I had to admit I was blessed with a hot as fuck husband.
“I should go with you. Learn more about your life and be your back up,” I offered. This staying at home bit was going to make me crazy, even though I wanted to crawl back under the covers and go to sleep.
