Page 90 of Savage King

But then Antonio looks at me over her shoulder, and my mind returns to his question. And I remember who we are and how we met, and I straighten myself. "As soon as Carlos is in jail," I say.

Antonio's face lights up with pride. He mouths,I love you.

And I mouth it to him right back.

Three days later…

Mine!

Every morning I wake, every night I go to sleep, I pull Scarlet close to me. Mine! Never has acquiring something I wanted felt this fucking good. This passerotta will stay with me until the end of our days. Fuck, I never thought loving someone this much could happen this quickly or feel this all consuming. Or frightening. Now that she is my wife, she has a target on her back simply because she ismywife. I've already increased security at the house, but sooner or later, I will need to allow her out of her cage, no matter how happy I am to keep her safely inside it.

I'm not that guy.

But that won't mean I won't freak out anytime she's out of my sight, and I'm mentally preparing myself for it. Right now, the Carlos case still has us occupied, but as soon as it's over, there will be other problems. Edoardo, the Venezuelans, there's always going to be something. So as much as I want to, I can't keep Scarlet locked up any more than I could Gigi. Both women deserve to live their lives.

Not yet, though. Thank God. I stare at the monitors. The entire court case has been moved behind closed doors. I have video and audio feed from one of the security guards, of course, but that's not helping. Lambert looks like shit, the jurors aren't much better, and Kevin appears to have lost a few pounds. The only one gloating is Carlos. Fucking pig.

Three days. Three fucking days, and I'm no closer to finding out who the compromised jurors are than I was before. Lambert calls every evening after he closes the case for the day. Scarlet is a champ, pleading with him, but she isn't making any headway, either. Lambert just keeps telling her over and over how sorry he is.

I've full reports on every single juror, but I’ve no way to reach them to hand over bribes or threats. None of their family members do, either. They're allowed a call a day if they have small children—that's it—supervised calls.

I'm not above making threats to their families, but there is no sense in it if the jurors don't know.

"Just get one of the family members killed; that'll pull the juror out, and we can question him or her," Igio suggests.

I glare at him. "We don't kill innocent civilians. And we have no clue which juror is on Carlos' payroll."

My phone rings. Surprised, I looked at the caller's name: Marcello.

"What's up, Marcello?" I ask in lieu of a greeting, putting him on speaker. Vito and Igio both shut up and listen in.

"I figured out what my dad has on the judge," Marcello announces.

"I'm all ears." I wave Vito and Igio out of the room, and Marcello fills me in. Fuck. I should have demanded an explanation from Scarlet after what I read in her journal. I don't know why she wrote that she killed her mom, but what Marcello tells me is bad enough. I don't like that he knows about this one bit.

"You have proof of this?" I finally ask, keeping my voice neutral so as not to alert Marcello to how close I am to the judge's daughter. Fuck close. That I'm married to her!

"I'll send it to your computer. That should help get him back on your side. I made sure this is the only existing copy, and I'll destroy what I have on my end."

I would have never thought my next words possible, but here we are. "Thank you, Marcello. I'll owe you one."

"Your debt will be paid after my father is in jail," he responds.

Making me wonder if he knows about the Russians. But no. There is no way he can. Still, my respect for the future head of the Orsi family just grew.

"I'm on my way to meet Matías; let's see if we can get this Venezuelan clusterfuck unfucked," Marcello fills me in, sounding like he truly wants all of us to be the kind of mafia family we're supposed to be again, keeping each other in the loop. Making me kind of feel bad about the Russians, his dad,and brother. Not enough to lose sleep over. Or to miss a meal. Yeah, I don't feelthatbad.

My eyes move to the ceiling, where I know Scarlet is in our bedroom. Doc took the stitches out today and declared she needed some rest. I don't like what I have to do and wish I could wait a little longer with the bad news, but we're already running out of time. My only hope is that Scarlet is as strong as I think she is, because this conversation won't be easy.

Taking two steps at a time, I make my way up and find her in the bathroom in front of the mirror, playing with the makeup Gigi bought for her.

"Oh, I didn't know you were home already," she says, jumping up.

"And I thought you were supposed to be in bed, resting." I scold halfheartedly. She's a vision to behold. The makeup she doesn't need is immaculate; she's wearing the sundress we picked out and is an absolute knockout.

She smiles ruefully. "I've been in bed all day. It gets kind of lonely alone in there, you know." She winks suggestively, and my cock hardens at the unspoken challenge. I try to rein it in. Now is not the time. "So I decided to make myself pretty for you," she twirls, and the skirt lifts, baring her long, slim legs to my admiring eyes. "What do you think?"

Not. The. Time.

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