Page 114 of Keep Him Like Secrets

I expected there to be more grief for her at stepping back from the world and the job she worked so hard on for so many years. Maybe there would be eventually. But we’d done little but discuss the future once we had sex and I finished making breakfast the day before. All I saw from her was excitement and planning. She was already talking about other clubs, expanding, taking a more direct role in the planning and running of them.

She’d even come up with the perfect name for our current project.

The tongue-in-cheekAlibi.

Once her capo position was handed off to someone new—she suspected Bastian—she would be fully, officially, out of the family. While still retaining a professional connection and her close relationships.

I couldn’t help but love the idea of her being out of any direct mafia role. Her hard life had prepared her for such a hard job. But I wanted to give her a soft future. Luxury and comfort and safety. She deserved that after all she’d been through.

“Sheila on two,” Teresa called, pulling me out of my swirling thoughts.

I picked up the phone and informed Sheila that Alen was no longer her client. She’d been relieved at that information because she said his case wasn’t winnable.

It was all over.

Years of being indebted to a man who had become increasingly unhinged, of being forced to funnel his money through my clubs, to pay for his attorney, to worry he might expose me at any point.

Sure, there was a chance that he could still run his mouth in prison. But no one was going to believe him. And, I imagined, if he got too loud, both the Lombardi and Esposito families had people on the inside to silence him.

I was free.

Saff was free.

And we could build a future together.

Even if that meant throwing out my nutmeg.

Saff - 4 weeks

I had clothes in Soren’s closet.

My toothbrush was in his drawer.

My books were piling up all over the surfaces of the apartment.

I’d all but moved in without actually moving in.

It was strange to go from ‘no back-to-backs’ to going a full week without heading back to my apartment.

Little by little, Soren’s place started to feel more like home than my own.

Each time thoughts like that rose up, there was an immediate clenching in my stomach—my old traumas trying to come to the surface.

I had to actively remind myself that I was safe, that he was safe, that there was nothing to be afraid of.

Just because I was staying at his place didn’t mean that I was giving up something. If anything, it meant I was building something better.

“Your Chinese place is fancy,” I called as I walked out of the elevator with the bag. “There weren’t any pictures on the wall behind the counter. Where are you?”

I dropped the bag on the kitchen island, then heard a slamming sound and a curse coming from upstairs.

I didn’t stop to think.

I reached into the knife drawer, drew out the biggest chef’s knife that I knew Soren kept scalpel sharp, kicked off my shoes, then rushed up the steps in my socks.

My heart was hammering as I turned away from the primary bedroom and toward the other two bedrooms.

They were both empty spaces, save for Soren’s luggage. He said he pictured a kid or two in the future, and wanted space for them.

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