Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 77344 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77344 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
“Anything else?” I asked, itchy to get a move on.
“Ma said she hasn’t seen you at her table in a month,” he said.
“I know. I’m gonna make it this weekend.”
“Been saying that every weekend,” Nero said as he was turning and walking away.
My family was important to me. All six of my siblings and my parents. That said, trying to secure your position as a capo in a syndicate like this was two full-time jobs. And that was being conservative. Because while my job was mostly being Cosimo’s right-hand man, I also had to run jobs of my own to kick money up to him and our Capo dei Capi. That kind of shit gained you favor.
And word was that Ant had been sworn in and given his own crew. So the books were somewhat open. I needed to work harder to prove my worth to get another spot before they closed shit down again.
Who knew how long they would keep them closed after this.
I wasn’t getting any younger.
That said, if I couldn’t make it all the way out to Greenwich for dinner, I could at least call my damn mother every now and again.
I made a mental note to get that done sometime later. But for right that moment, I had something really fucking important to get to.
I was tempting fate to stay there in public for as long as I had already.
So I started walking.
I spotted her a whole block away.
Couldn’t tell you what it was at first that caught my eye. The city was full of women, each with their own kind of pretty.
There was just something about this woman’s pretty that made me look, made me stop to take her in.
She was tall and on the thin side under her cheap faux leather jacket and holey jeans. Her hair was cut into a long bob—or a ‘lob,’ I could hear my sisters saying in my head—and dark at the roots, but brightening to an almost white-blonde at the ends and around her face.
And what a fucking face, too.
High cheekbones flushed pink from the cold, plump lips, and eyes that I couldn’t make out, but they seemed light from far away.
She was the kind of gorgeous that a man would change his plans for just on the off chance she might agree to get a cup of coffee with him.
Any other fucking day, I would have walked right up to her, tried to get a feel for whether she was receptive to talking or not. Get some food with her. Spend the night trapped between her thighs.
But this one day, all I could do was admire her from a distance.
I could have sworn she looked right at me at one point. The kick to the gut sure felt like a mutual moment of acknowledgment, of mutual attraction.
But she just as casually looked away, flipping the hood of the sweatshirt under her jacket up over her head, hiding her hair and most of her face when she turned in my direction, hunched forward against the cold, and started walking.
She was so busy looking down that she didn’t seem to notice me as she got closer that she was plowing right in my direction.
I couldn’t seem to make myself do the gentlemanly thing and move out of the way, though.
Nope. I just let her pretty ass plow right into me.
I’d forgotten all about my coffee until I felt it sloshing down my hand, my suit jacket, and onto my new shoes.
“Fuck,” I said, too distracted for a second to realize that the woman had just… kept walking.
No asking if I was alright.
No apology.
Nothing.
I turned, watching her as she continued walking like nothing at all happened.
Fuck if that didn’t make me all the more attracted to her.
Hell, I almost turned and ran after her.
Almost.
But the coffee was literally starting to freeze on my skin thanks to the cold air, so instead, I tossed the cup and ducked into the closest café to go rinse the shit off of my hands, suit, and shoes.
It wasn’t until I was making my way out of the restroom and thinking about grabbing something to take with me to eat later, or on the way, that I realized what had happened.
When I reached for my wallet.
And found it gone.
She hadn’t put her hood up and ducked her head to resist the cold. She’d done it so I couldn’t see her up close, so I couldn’t identify her in a lineup.
And she hadn’t rammed into me because she wasn’t watching where she was going. She did it so she could use the impact and confusion to reach her fucking hand into my pocket and jack my wallet.
Honestly, if it was any other day—any fucking day of the week, month, year—I would have thrown my head back and laughed. I would have nodded in approval for her quick hands and her steel balls.