Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
I’d gone ahead and not mentioned that I was planning on doing anything as they all left.
“I’m already here. Might as well get the meeting over with,” I said, shrugging. If he was quick enough, Claire might not even know that I was gone. Not that I would lie to her about it. But she’d have no undue worry if I was already home and perfectly fine when she and Judah got in.
“Your funeral,” Luca said, shaking his head. “So, somehow last night as guards were switching out, Denny and his crew fled. We have some people working on figuring out to where. If it’s close, we will be keeping an eye, then making a move. But if they went clear across the country, we are just going to write that off as a win.
“Clearly, Denny has no interest in Claire or Judah with Warren gone. And, judging from what we’ve learned since looking into things, it seems as though Denny has been trying to swing a coup for a long while now. This just gave him a reason to come through with it.”
“I’m sure you have concerns, Aurelio,” Luca said. “But for the time being, trust that Dante is doing everything in his power to keep an eye on this situation, and will let us know if or when we need to spring into action.”
“Okay,” I agreed, nodding.
Dante had done a good job with this so far. There was no reason not to rest my faith to rest in him.
Did I have some concerns about Denny and the rest of Warren’s old crew being alive?
Sure.
That said, clearly Warren and his closest disciples were dead. The biggest threat was gone.
I did wonder if Denny would come for Claire again simply because of what she knew, or what she may have seen, what dirt she could have on Denny and the organization as a whole.
From the sound of things, though, Claire knew very little about all that shit. And if Denny was always around when Claire was, he would know that.
Besides, if he was as logical as Dante seemed to think he was, he would know that coming after Claire or Judah again would mean coming at the whole Grassi Family.
If he was smart, he wouldn’t do something that dumb.
Time would simply have to tell with this.
Somehow, I was okay with that.
We’d already been through so much. The last thing I wanted was more violence if it could be avoided.
Now that I was feeling fully up to it, I had other things I’d rather focus on.
Going out with Claire and Judah. Experiencing new things through their eyes.
And, yeah, not to fucking mention, taking my woman to bed again.
We’d been keeping each other mostly satisfied with hands and mouths, things that didn’t require me to move my hips too much.
But now that I felt better, it was time to stop sleeping in the living room, and to have some closed-door adult activities with Claire.
The meeting went on from there, covering things like the internal audit that was going on, what was dug up, how concerned everyone was about various things, and of course, the usual update on big jobs that various capos were running.
By the time I walked back outside, it was the first time I felt productive in ages.
And the confidence from that had me driving home, cleaning up the living room, and getting the primary bedroom in order again.
“Aurelio?” Claire called while I was shoving the old sheets in the dryer. “What are you doing?” she asked, tone accusatory.
“Cleaning the sheets. I already made the bed. After cleaning up the living room. And going to a meeting. And before you get that little worry crease between our brows, angel, I’m perfectly fine.”
She narrowed her eyes at me, but didn’t object. She had to know that, eventually, I would be back to my usual self. Even if she did seem to enjoy taking care of me.
Done with the laundry, I made my way back into the kitchen, Claire on my heels.
“Listen, if you’re fully well again, the pre-made dinners are going to stop coming,” she said, making a laugh escape me.
“Well, we don’t have to tell them yet just how well I am,” I said, reaching for her hips, and pulling her in for a kiss. “Where’s Judah?”
“Asleep in the back of your mom’s car,” she said. “So she decided to drop me off to check on you while she drives around. He was kind of a bear before he finally passed out. Neither of us wanted to risk waking him.”
“Oh yeah?” I asked, my hands sliding down to her ass. “How long do you think we have?”
I watched the way her eyes heated, how her lips parted. She might be full of objections on the basis of her beliefs in my limitations, but she wanted it every bit as much as I did.