Page 31 of The Butcher's Wife

My work here is done. I’m exhausted, pissed off, and way too fucking sober.

But I’m not going home.

I sift through the conversation tonight.

“Riccardo,” I say, and he lifts his head toward me like a beaten dog. He might hate me, but he’s got enough self-preservation to keep that thought off his face. “That fuck that keeps shirking his debts? What was his name?”

“Hoffman, boss.” Riccardo’s thin shoulders are bunched up around his neck, and he consciously lowers them.

“Get the fuck up. We’re going hunting.”

Carlo was pissedwhen he found out I crushed his friend’s windpipe, but when I told him it was in his sister’s honor, he sucked from his vape and slunk off. I’m going to have to talk to his dad about him soon. Carlo’s thirty-two, and unlike his younger brother, he’s showing no sign he’s cut out for our lifestyle.

Unlike me, too.

My knuckles are throbbing from beating the absolute piss out of that slimy, rich fuck. A deep satisfaction, like the kind after a solid workout, loosens my muscles. I was a little disappointed he ended up coughing up the dough when I finally held my knife to his pinky finger.

Riccardo was annoyed. He and his men had been trying for weeks to do what I’d done in a single night, but he was begrudgingly grateful. I set up another night of drinking with him. Men like Riccardo think they want to be top dog, but what they really want is to submit to a bigger, badder man.

They crave the hierarchy.

Tonight, as I step into the penthouse, I catch the scent of meat and spices. I approach a copper slow cooker sitting in the kitchen, one I’ve never seen before in my life.

Annetta cooked dinner last night, too, leaving me a plate of food in the fridge with carefully written reheating instructions on top. I took it and ate the whole thing cold, like a starved animal.

Something in my chest twists.

I’ve been a complete dick to her, yet she’s made sure I have a delicious meal waiting for me when I get home.There’s a clean bowl and spoon on the counter next to a dish of butter and what I suspect is a loaf of homemade bread.

I prepare myself a bowl, filling it to the absolute brim, and scarf it down, standing over the counter. By the third bowl, I’m completely sated, my belly an overstuffed sausage.

Fuck.

I’ve always appreciated a woman who can cook, and Annetta canfuckingcook. I wouldn’t admit this under the scope of a firing squad, but she might even be a better cook than Conchetta.

I clean up the food and drag my feet upstairs. I need to get the truth out of her. A younger me would have happily taken her up on her offer of a blowjob, but I have the unfortunate benefit of experience. If your gut is telling you not to sleep with a woman before you get all your ducks in a row, then you’d better listen. Turi will get back to me any day now, and I want all the information in my back pocket in case she tries lying to me.

But she’s beautiful and she cooks well, and a man’s only got so much willpower. I’ll give it a few more days, and then I’ll sit her down and get out the truth my own way.

My guess is that it has something to do with that husband of hers dying, which would be a damn shame. I’d definitely have to tell Turi, and he won’t be happy about it.

Who knows? Maybe she had a good reason.

I scrub a hand over my jaw and stand in front of my old bedroom door. I keep forgetting—she’s behind this door.

I would love to suck your cock.

That, I won’t be forgetting anytime soon. I barely managed to stave off an erection until I got in the elevator, laughing at her because otherwise I was gonna say something stupid.

Just thinking about her now, though, with her face flushed pink and her chest heaving from the rower, wakes my dick up—although thinking about the fact that she’s mywifenow has it deflating again.

I didn’t ask for a kept woman. The idea of a half-dozen angry little Doms running around and a miserable domestic servant for a wife has my balls shriveling up inside me. I got enough of that growing up.

I turn from my bedroom door and head to my guest room, but when I twist the door handle, it stops halfway.

Locked.

“What the fuck?”