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That’s…interesting. It’s more than interesting. “A coup?”
“Possibly.” Kane doesn’t need to say he saw it coming because we all did. You can’t run your family the way Romano has—treating them all like they’re expendable, like they’re worthless, without having them turn on you. He’s made them grovel and crawl for too fucking long.
“How many of them know about Alice?”
He looks down at me. “About her paternity?” I nod, and he blows out a sigh. “I think just her biological brothers. Maybe even just Leonardo because I don’t think Marco gives a shit.”
Ari’s favorite term for Marco—the current marked heir of the Romano family—is himbo. A dumb wall of muscle good for intimidation, looking pretty, and brutal violence, but not much else. It’s almost a running joke with any family on the East Coast that the moment Marco is given the reigns, the Romanos will all come tumbling down.
They’ll tuck tail and run back to Italy and pray to God the family there won’t shun them.
But the other families have no idea what Kane has been planning all this time either. He won’t wait for it to collapse on itself. There’s no sweet in that style of revenge.
“Did she tell you he phoned her while we were out bringing you home?” I ask him.
Kane’s eyes flash, and he nods. “Yes. She did.”
Points to the little darling for not being too afraid. Or maybe she was more frightened about what Kane would do if he found out she’d kept something like that from him.
I run my fingers along the inside of Kane’s thigh as he loosens his grip on me finally, and I pull back as far as he’ll let me. “When I was healing—both times,” I remind him without any bitterness because I’d forgive even the most grievous sin committed against me, “you reminded me that patience was the only virtue I’d need until I was better.”
“That was different.”
I meet his gaze. “Was it?”
Licking his lips, his hand moves to my face, his fingernails scraping along my short beard, his thumb brushing my lips. “We don’t have time for patience any longer. I don’t want to sit back and let some useless little shit take Romano down. It’s time to act.”
“Then we act,” I tell him. “Just tell me what to do.”
His eyes dart toward the door, almost like he’s trying to see through it to anyone who might be listening, then he sets both hands on my shoulders and uses me to help him up. His balance is good, but I can see the tension in his thigh from where it’s straining to keep his knee steady.
I rise after a beat, and he takes my chin between his fingers with one hand while the other holds himself steady by gripping my stump. “It’s time.”
I know what he means, and my entire body erupts into flames. “You want me to—”
“Yes. We’re going to have an engagement party in six weeks. I want an announcement by then.” The rest of his silence just says one more thing: You know your duty, so go and do it.
* * *
I avoidAlice the rest of the day like a bleeding coward. It’s not what I need to do because I’ve been craving taking her in the way Phoenix and Ari already have, and that hasn’t changed. And the idea of knocking her up triggers something primal in me. The idea of watching her swell with my child makes me rock hard in my jeans, and I have to shove back the urge to either find her or rub one out just for some relief.
No, what has me terrified is the idea that she might change her mind. That she might find the idea of having a child with me abhorrent. Not that I would blame her, considering the life we live and the stock I come from. My mother was a nobody, and my father was a low-level drug dealer under Romano’s thumb. He was a piece of shit willing to sell his son to pay off debts.
God only knows what kind of poison I’ll pass on to my child.
And yet, I want it. I have a breeding kink that’s bad enough with my boys, but to spill deep in Alice’s cunt and let my seed take root?
Fuck.
I just don’t know if I can take her rejection.
I resolve to put it off another day and spend two hours in the gym after a pathetic portion of my dinner. I’m sweaty and exhausted, and I’m ready to shower and collapse when I walk into my room and find her waiting for me.
She looks very small and very uncertain in a tank top and baggy pajama bottoms. Her hair is loose and hanging down her back, and her eyes tell me she’s determined yet nervous.
“What are you doing here, darling?”
“Kane said,” she says, stops, then swallows thickly. “It’s, well, time, isn’t it?”
