Hold Him Like Gravity (Lombardi Family #4)

Chapter Sixteen

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Rico

“The fuck you mean he was jumped ?” Renzo snapped as I stood in his living room first thing the next morning, not wanting to wake him up on the first night he’d called it early to go home and spend time with his wife all week.

“Just that. He was jumped.”

“The fuck didn’t he call me?” Renzo asked as he walked over to his coffee pot.

“He was close to the meat shop,” I explained. “He decided to make his way there in case the fucks came back.”

Renzo nodded at that, a muscle ticking in his jaw.

“Does he know who it was?”

“No. Two guys,” I explained.

“Makes sense. Only way that kid is losing a fight is if he’s outnumbered,” Renzo said.

Coal was his little pet project.

The kid started out as an enemy of the family. But after enduring some brutal beatings as Renzo tried to get information out of him without losing his cockiness or begging for mercy, Renzo kind of decided he would be better as a part of our family than potentially working against it.

Coal was a street kid, on his own for a long time. Which made him hard and hungry and eager to prove his worth. The kid was forever carrying around a black eye, busted lip, or ripped open knuckles. And we allowed it because it was always good for the people on the streets to remember how willing we were to spill blood.

It was rare for someone to win against him.

And it was not good that two guys who should have known who Coal belonged to decided to fuck him up anyway.

Renzo sighed. “Did Coal get any good licks in?”

“Never seen his knuckles so bloody,” I confirmed. I’d taken him with me into the bathroom to clean him up. Partly because I needed the water from the sink. But also because my office smelled like blueberries and sex.

Even just the thought of what happened in my office had my cock nearly springing to life again. Despite having tried to relieve that urge twice already.

Nothing, I was starting to see, was going to make it go away but getting inside of her, fucking through the connection that had grown between us.

If only fucking work would let up for two minutes.

“So, there should be two guys walking around Brooklyn pretty fucked up right now,” Renzo concluded.

“Yeah. I mean, unless they have the good sense to lie low.”

“If they’re jumping a Lombardi soldier, I think it’s safe to say they don’t have much in the way of sense.”

“True. I did get word out to the capos about what happened, but I wanted to wait to talk to you before we give them permission to talk to their soldiers or associates.”

To that, Renzo nodded as he took a sip of his coffee. “Let’s tell them to be on the lookout for guys who are fucked up. We don’t have to tell them all the details. Tell Coal to take a few days off at home to recover. But the more eyes on the street, the better. We need to find these fucks and see who they are working for. If anyone.”

That was what I was thinking too.

It was why Renzo put so much work on my shoulders. We’d been working side-by-side for so long we practically shared a brain.

“Anything else going on that I need to know about?”

“I put out that fire with Cage,” I said. He was another of Renzo’s pet projects. The spoiled, fucked-up son of a previous capo, Cage had gotten himself into all sorts of shit before Renzo got his hands on him, dusted him off, cleaned him up, and put him to work.

Since then, he’d been a pretty reliable soldier. Not our biggest earner, but doing good work. It was a job he was working on that went sideways, making him step on the toes of a local crew who was pissed off about the interference. It only required a little smoothing over. But I had to relocate Cage to a different neighborhood to avoid any future altercations.

“Good. Alright. Well, let me know if you hear anything before I do about the shit with Coal.”

“Will do,” I agreed.

“How’s business?” he asked.

“Good. The slight price hike is still less than a lot of the stores in the area, so people aren’t bitching. You got some money you need to pass through?” I asked.

Like any money laundering operation, I had two sets of books. The ones I’d show the IRS if they came looking, cooked to inflate certain expenses, and the ones that showed me how much money I was washing through the business and sending back into pockets. Mostly just mine and Renzo’s. It was everyone else’s job to figure out how to wash their cash.

“Yeah,” Renzo said, heading into his office and coming back with a backpack. “Twenty-five grand, give or take,” he told me. “Too much at once?”

“I can make it work with all the renovations. Got the new slicers and TVs and shit from the backs of trucks, more or less. It’ll all shake out.”

“Good. Thanks.”

“Renzo, where did you put my book?” Lore, Renzo’s wife, called from upstairs.

“You, ah, knocked it off of the nightstand last night, remember?” Renzo called, a smirk tugging at his lips.

“I’ll let you get back to your girl,” I said, slinging the backpack strap over my shoulder, then making my way to the door.

I couldn’t help it; my mind drifted back to Kick in the office yet again.

I never gave much thought to relationships in the past. Maybe it was the members of my family starting to shack up that made me stop to consider the possibility for my own future.

Renzo with Lore. Cinna and Dav. Elian and Elizabeth. I was one of the few of the OG guys who hadn’t started considering rings and kids and shit like that.

A handful of interactions with Kick and I was suddenly envisioning that shit. Things came to mind that I’d never considered before. Like how my apartment with its one spare bedroom wouldn’t be big enough if I decided to have kids. And that it was a logistical nightmare from a safety standpoint if I were looking to protect anyone aside from myself.

“Christ,” I said, raking a hand down my face as I moved out of the elevator and walked out of Renzo’s building.

I made my way back to the meat shop then, not wanting to be walking around with that much cash on me.

I stored it in the safe behind a picture in my office that I’d had installed during the renovations, keeping the dirty money separated from the clean cash that was in the safe under my desk.

There was no rush in getting to balancing the books, but with nothing else to do to occupy my time meaning that all I would do was think about Kick and what we started before Coal interrupted the night before. So I sat down and got to work.

When I emerged hours later, shit wasn’t adding up.

I mean, it was just a couple grand off of where my figures said shit should have been. But there was the possibility that Renzo had given me less than he’d said. Or maybe my math wasn’t mathing.

It wasn’t enough that I was going to sweat about it. But the next time I balanced the books, I was going to pay closer attention to make sure it wasn’t a trend.

“Ma, the fuck’d you do to yourself now?” I heard Ricky ask as I made my way out front, mind on something to eat before I hit the streets along with the rest of the family to see if I could track down the assholes who’d jumped Coal.

“I wasn’t being careful when I was cleaning the meat slicer,” Kick’s voice reached me even before stepping into the front of the shop.

“Fuck, girl,” Ricky said, hissing. “Did you lose part of your finger?”

“No, thank God. It’s just a deep slice. I have butterfly closures on it.”

“So, Kick is off of sandwiches for a bit,” I said, watching as Kick’s head whipped over toward me. For a second, her eyes brightened. But way too quickly, the light faded and something darker took its place.

“Yeah, no big deal. I can handle that. Always plenty of stocking or cleaning to do,” Ricky said. He was a good manager because he was so ready to roll with the punches.

“I’m sorry to be a nuisance again,” Kick said, wincing at Ricky.

“Nah, don’t say that. We all have mishaps.”

“Oh! Speaking of,” Kick said, pressing a hand to her heart. “How is your son?”

“He’s good. Fell off his skateboard. Broke his arm. But the wife was scared shitless that he had a bad head injury. He was bleeding all over. Turns out his helmet sliced his head. Saved his brain, but did a little damage of its own.”

“I’m glad he’s okay,” Kick said.

“Kids’ll turn your hair white,” Ricky warned, waving at the streaks starting to weave through his hair at the temples. “You planning on having any?”

“Oh, I haven’t really given that a lot of thought,” Kick admitted.

“Eh, you’re young still. Good to get all the crazy out before you settle down. The kids will take up that mantle in due time. Yo, Marcus, you owe me fifty bucks on that game last night,” Ricky called as another employee came in the front door. “Can you believe that shit?” he asked, the two men starting to talk about the game as Kick tried to busy herself, doing everything she could, it seemed, to avoid looking at me.

“How’s the finger feeling?” I asked.

“It’s okay. I had a hell of a time trying to wash my hair one-handed this morning, but the splint definitely helps avoid hitting it too much. Though, Evander has taken it as a personal attack against him.”

“That cat’s a piece of work.”

“He definitely has a lot of character,” she agreed. And, again, the light that grew got tamped down by a strange sadness.

“Did you get some sleep?” I asked.

“Some,” she said, but the bags under her eyes told a different story.

“Hey,” I said, moving closer, towering over her. “What’s going on?” I asked.

“What?” she squeaked. “Nothing,” she insisted, but it took a second for her eyes not to seem so wide and worried.

“Babe, come on…”

“I’m just all off because of the insomnia,” she said, shrugging it off.

I wanted to press.

But the other workers were filing in. And, well, trying to get information out of a woman who didn’t want to give it to me wasn’t exactly a skill in my wheelhouse.

“You need anything from me?” I asked as I passed Ricky.

“Nah, man. This is a well-oiled machine.”

“Alright. I’ll be back later. One of my guys will be out front if anything seems fishy.”

With that, I headed out, thinking that with a little space, I might think about Kick less.

Which, of course, backfired.

Leading me back to the meat shop right at closing time, intent on finishing what we started in my office, figuring that if we finally acted on the need between us, maybe we could put all of this behind us and get back to normal.

Before I could even go in, though, I saw her coming out of the front door with Marcus, who turned to lock the door then pull down the security gate.

“See ya’,” Marcus said to Kick before turning to walk off in the opposite direction.

I shook my head, annoyed that he hadn’t offered to walk her home. Even if, prior to things getting less than professional between us, I hadn’t exactly offered to see her home at night either.

I was a few feet away. She hadn’t spotted me yet. So I got to watch as she pulled her hood up against the cold wind whipping down the streets then looked side to side. Almost as if she was looking for someone, expecting someone.

The jealousy reared up, sudden and unexpected, a twisting, burning sensation in the gut as I imagined some other guy walking her home, going into her apartment with her, taking her to bed.

Before I realized, a low, almost growling sound escaped me, making Kick’s head whip in my direction.

Where I was standing, I must have been cast in shadow, because I watched as her posture went stiff, then she turned, and started to power walk away.

“Kick!” I called, jogging toward her. “Wait up.”

“Rico?” she asked, her hand flying to her chest as she turned back toward me.

“Didn’t mean to scare you,” I said. “Gonna walk you home,” I said. Then I saw her face fall. “You have other plans?” I asked, bothered more than I should have been at her reaction.

“No,” she said, shaking off the look. “No, of course not. Okay. Thanks.”