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My husband was sleeping behind me, his stomach pressed against my back. Still in his suit, his breaths were deep and silent.
I could feel his penis digging into my butt through our clothes. He had morning wood. I felt myself blushing, biting down a smile.
He returned to my room. He spent the night in my bed. I asked for something—something he had told me explicitly would never happen—and he gave it to me.
I put my hand over his arm, which circled my midriff, his nose and mouth pushed alongside my shoulder blade. I prayed for one thing that morning—that this wasn’t a sweet lie, but a forbidden truth.
Lies, I couldn’t deal with.
But finding a truth and digging that vein until it gushed out?
I was up for that challenge.
Chapter
Thirteen
WOLFE
Long before I realized that Francesca Rossi was in existence, I’d studied her father’s workday closely. Seeking revenge was a full-time job, and the more you knew, the more thoroughly you could ruin.
I looked for weakness in his business, and loopholes in his contracts, when actually, his daughter was his most-valued possession. Both more fatal and more personal than any strip club I could shut down.
The problem occurred when I realized that Arthur no longer treasured his daughter.
As far as he could tell, she was no longer his ally. And to make matters worse, she married a man who was determined to kill his business, not inherit it.
The game had changed.
Arthur allowed Mike Bandini to target his daughter.
Because his daughter was also my wife.
And my wife, I foolishly proved to him, was important to me.
My Jaguar stopped in front of Mama’s Pizza restaurant in Little Italy. It was a quaint place that smelled of freshly baked sourdough and tomato soup and my goddamn sorrow.
The business lost mountains of money every month but made for a great money-laundering venue. It was where The Outfit had their daily meetings.
Whatever dark feelings I harbored toward Mama’s Pizza weren’t enough to keep me from making my point to those idiots.
Smithy got out of the vehicle and opened the back door for me. I waltzed into the restaurant, ignoring the plump, disoriented lady behind the counter, and went through the door behind her.
Stepping into the dim room, I found ten men sitting around a round table. It was the old checked white and red Italian BS, complete with a yellow, half-burned, unlit candle. Behind it sat my father-in-law.
Round tables broke hierarchy.
Last time I’d been to Mama’s Pizza—the table was square, and Arthur Rossi was at the head of it.
And behind him hung a glassed window covering shotguns. Picture-effin-esque.
I sauntered toward him, the annoying woman behind me yelling and apologizing in one breath, and flipped the table with all its contents—beer, wine, water, orange juice, and breadsticks—over the laps of the men in front of it.
They sat there, mouths slacked, watching me through a curtain of shock and anger. I was standing in front of Rossi, his dress pants soiled with the wine he’d been drinking.
Next to him sat Mike Bandini, Angelo’s father, who slowly began to rise from his chair, no doubt about to either run or point a gun at me.
I grasped his shoulder, digging my fingers in until I met his bones through his skin, then pushed him back into his chair, and kicked it across the room.
