Page 1 of Keep Him Like Secrets

CHAPTER ONE

Saff

“This better be good,” I said, slamming the door to the boss’s penthouse with more force than necessary, making it rattle the jamb as I stalked inward. “Kalinda was just about to disembowel the man who’d terrorized her as a kid.”

“Who the fuck is Kalinda?” Renzo, my boss, asked the other capos gathered around.

“And then,” I went on, “presumably, she and Link are going to fuck in the man’s blood for a solid twenty pages. And you’re keeping me from that.”

“You’re upset about a book?” Renzo asked.

“Not just any book. This has been the slowest of slow burns I’ve ever read. Six books.Sixfor them to get to this point. And I waited a year for this one to come out. So, yes, I’m upset about a book. So this better be worth my time.”

“This is probably the part where I’m supposed to remind you that I’m the boss and you work for me,” Renzo said, reaching up to rub the back of his neck. “But (A) I know that won’t work on you, and (B) my wife would probably side with you and remind me that she once forbade me to speak to her for a full sixteen hours while she binge-read that orc book.”

“What I’m hearing is you’re going to make this quick. And what the hell are these two doing here?” I asked, nodding my chin toward Serano and Bastian. An unlikely duo to be gathered. The former, a loner with almost no social skills who didn’t like to work jobs with other people. The latter, Rico’s cousin, still pretty fresh out of prison and learning the ropes around the new family structure.

“A shining example of restraint and respect for your chain of command as always, Saff,” Renzo said, shooting me a smirk.

“I once threw a pool ball at your head, and you’re expecting decorum from me?”

“Fair enough. Anyway, I have a job.”

“For me?”

I’d been around long enough that I generally created my own jobs.

“No, for the fucking ficus behind you. Yes, for you.”

“And you want me to work with those two?”

“Nice to see you too, Saff,” Bastian said, sending a wink in my direction.

For almost any woman eighteen to eighty in the tristate area, that little wink would have had panties melting and legs spreading. Bass had always been kind of hot. But he’d clearly put his years behind bars to good use, taking his body from the scrawny guy he’d been when he’d gone in to a chiseled god in just a few years’ time. He had one of those angular faces with the granite jaw and dark brown eyes with lashes that made a woman forget she had morals. Or a husband.

That said, the wink did nothing for me.

Because as hot as every damn capo in the Lombardi family was, the fact that they were my coworkers made them one of those male dolls with no package to speak of, if you catch my drift.

Sure, Cinna—the other female capo—had managed to sleep with one of the guys and not lose her standing in the family. But I couldn’t help but think that no matter how “modern” these guys thought they were for working alongside women in a career that almost exclusively catered to men, letting them slip it in would change their feelings about me.

“Bass. Glad to see you could claw yourself out from under a pile of women to join us,” I said, seeing a smear of blush on his white shirt and a black mascara smudge lower down near where his shirt tucked into his slacks.

“You know I’d never miss a chance to see you, Saff. Your charm really lights up a room,” he drawled, his eyes dancing.

“Like a Molotov cocktail,” Serano mumbled under his breath.

Serano, like Bastian, was undeniably hot. He had one of those strong, square jaws and golden eyes that suggested a warmth I’d never really gleaned from him.

Also like Bass, Serano had been away from the family for a long time, coming back when he was eighteen, all surly, standoffish, and menacing.

I was pretty sure the only time you could find any sort of emotion in the man was when you offered him a home-cooked meal.

And I didn’t cook.

“Serano, chatty as ever, I see.”

“Christ, you three are going to be a pain in the ass,” Renzo declared.

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