Becoming the Street Boss - Hayley Faiman Page 0,77
see her clearly. Her image hasn’t faded at all in my mind. She’s just as clear today as she was four months ago, and again just as clear as she was three years before that.
Letting out a sigh, I lie back on my bed. I have to find out what the hell is going on and I have to decide if I want to keep her. Pressing the heels of my palms into my eyes, I know that I can’t divorce her. I was stupid to think that I could.
She’s mine.
I wanted her, I had the opportunity and I took her when she was offered to me. I’m not going to just give her up, not that easily. I might be in prison, but she’s still bound to me, even if she’s pissed at me—even if she hates me and I have no fucking doubt by the end of this she will indeed hate me.
ONE WEEK LATER
"You wanna tell me what the fuck Renzo was talkin’ about when he walked in here last week?” I bark into the phone.
Gavino doesn’t say anything right away. My teeth grind together as I clench my jaw and wait for him to tell me what is going on. I feel helpless, useless, it’s fucking bullshit.
“Renzo told me you’d be calling,” he drawls.
“I’m calling, now tell me.”
There’s a moment of silence and then he finally speaks. “Two men have asked. I’ve told them that the rumors were just that, you’d never divorce your bride.”
I grunt.
“You don’t plan on leaving her, do you?”
“I don’t,” I snap. “Pippa is mine. Nobody else’s.”
“Good. I was hoping you’d say that. This is going to fuck with your head. There is no way around that, but you need to stay strong, not just for you, but for Pippa too. I know that you have it in you, Massimo. You will be okay, so will she.”
Leaning back against the wall, I bang the back of my head a couple of times. “It doesn’t feel like it, Vino.”
“I know it doesn’t, but trust me, it will be okay. You will be okay. Your entire famiglia is waiting for you, we love you and we will be here for you no matter how long it takes. We will take care of Pippa and protect her.”
“You got a man on her still?”
There’s a moment of silence, too long of a moment. “There is no reason to have one on her. Roman is in hiding, he’s no threat to her. We’re at a time of peace right now. Everything is nice and calm. There’s no reason to be overcautious.”
“Luciana have a guard? Lenora?”
“They are not Pippa. Their status and who they are married to makes them vulnerable. Chloe doesn’t have a guard, Pippa doesn’t need one either. If there is a threat, that will change.”
“Bullshit,” I hiss. “My mother wasn’t even married to my father and she was gunned down in the street. I want my wife to have a guard.”
“That was over twenty years ago, Mass. This is not the same famiglia and you know that.”
Growling, I feel my blood heating, boiling, just beneath the surface. This motherfucker.
“Fine. Anything happens to her, it’s on your head.”
“I’ll accept that,” Vino says, his voice too fucking calm.
“Anything else,” I snap.
There’s a moment of silence. Gavino is thinking, probably pissed at my harsh tone. I don’t care, he can fuck himself. I’m the one that’s pissed off.
“You’ll see your wife next week.”
“I will?” I ask.
He hums. “You will.”
I end the call, knowing that he has a job for me, one that will include ending someone. I’ll do it, proudly because my boss asked me to. I’ll do it and he’ll put a fucking guard on my wife, threat or not.
Chapter Twenty-Five
PIPPA
Standing at the kitchen stove, I giggle at something Rosana says about a boy at school, one that she thinks is an ass, but I think he clearly has a gigantic crush on her. The house phone rings and my entire body tenses.
The only time this phone has rung were the two times that Massimo called me from prison. “Answer it,” Rosana urges. “I’ll do the meat.”
It’s only tacos, so she couldn’t mess it up if she tried. I couldn’t either, which is why I’m making them tonight. Reaching for the phone, I inhale a deep breath and pick it up, pressing it to my ear.
The recorded message asks me if I’d like to accept the call and I do, far too eagerly. “Pippa?” he asks.