26. Nokia brick

TWENTY-SIX

It's closing in on the end of May, spring getting ready to trade places with summer, and all I keep hearing about is Winter.

I didn't realize how big of a problem this guy is. Most of that has to do with Damien trying to treat me like Genevieve, pretending as if he doesn't deal in drugs, blood, and bullets. He wants us both to have this idealized version of him, not understanding that I learned more than my fair share about what he does during prison, then after I got out and made him my target.

That means my husband keeps trying to keep his ‘business' life separate from his ‘personal' life, and because it's easier for me to accept this new life I found myself living when he does that, I usually let him.

But it's harder for him to do that these days. And I guess one part of being a mafia leader's wife is being there for him when he doesn't have the bandwidth to continue to hide the realities of who Damien Libellula really is from me.

And that means I keep hearing about Jimmy Winter.

Jimmy Winter is a wannabe gangster who seemed to come out of nowhere. Damien is sure this guy is being bankrolled by someone even bigger for him to infiltrate as much as Springfield as he has, and it bothers him that he can't squash him like a cockroach. Even when he does get his hands on a member of Winter's crew, another takes his place, and he's no closer to extinguishing the head of the gang.

I try not to smirk and point out that I know exactly what he means, though I don't often manage it. On the plus side, he doesn't mind my sass—and I'm becoming a fan of letting him spank me to get out some of his frustration.

Like earlier tonight.

He got a phone call while we were getting ready for bed. Because the Dragonflies usually speak in a code when they don't want anyone to understand what they're discussing, he doesn't leave the room if he has to answer and we're together.

Lately, he hasn't been using the code as much as he has been. That makes sense to me for a few reasons. One: because most of his discussion had been about getting my new supplement store off the ground and, now that he's showed it to me, he doesn't have to keep it a secret any longer. And, most importantly, two: because now that I have no desire to kill him, he trusts me enough to speak more openly about Dragonfly biz.

Of course, his innate overprotective nature means that he wants to keep me as coddled as Gen. Instead of confining me to the house so that he can keep his eye on me—or Vin's—he doesn't want me to leave because I might be in danger.

And we have Jimmy fucking Winter to blame.

I never understood why Damien seemed so obsessed with the snowflake that was marked on the bottom of the gun I bought from the pawn shop. I finally admitted where I got it from after another disastrous morning at the gun range, and while I accepted I'll never be a marksman and my former fantasy of putting a bullet through Damien's skull was just that, he was more interested in the weapon itself.

I have no use for it. Since Damien gave me his stiletto, I've worn the holster he gave me on my hip whenever I'm dressed.

I'm naked now, curled up on his chest. He seems a lot more relaxed now, though I've learned that my older husband has quite the stamina. He'll be ready to fuck me again before we turn in for the night, but for the moment, he's content to stroke my hair as he confesses to me what the earlier call was about.

Turns out, two soldiers caught a pair of Winter's men sneaking around Il Sogno. They tried to act like they were down for some Italian, but they were caught with a kilo of cocaine on them. Damien didn't hesitate while he was on the phone. He gave the order to send an enforcer.

In his Family, enforcers are the sly assassins who kill on Damien's orders. He doesn't have that many, and he prizes the ones he has. The night I met him, he'd lost one to his rivals on the West Side of Springfield. Of course, then I realized the man was killed because he'd beaten that poor blonde girl half-to-death and I understood why Damien didn't retaliate.

He did, however, enlist Oliver to be his next enforcer. But Oliver, it seems, disappeared after he was dispatched.

Whether he was killed, poached, or just decided not to be a syndicate murderer anymore, Damien doesn't know—but it bothers him that one of his men went missing and he can't track him.

I lay my head on his chest, listening to his heart beat. "I don't know why you can't," I muse. "Don't you have all of your guys chipped like me? You said I wasn't the only one."

"You're not, but the technology was too expensive to insist on it being a requirement to join the Family. Only a few of my most trusted men have it."

Really? Sitting up so that I'm next to Damien, I gaze down at his face. "Like who?"

"Vin, for one. Christopher. As part of the truce, I have Lincoln Crewes's code. Tony accepted. So did Gio. A couple of my lieutenants said they were willing to test out the tech, too. But that's all." He pauses for a moment. "I have one, too, but the only one who has the code is Devil."

"Because of the truce."

"Mm-hmm."

"Not Gen, though?" I ask. Then, thinking better about what I asked, I answer my own question. "No. She'd never let you do that. And she'd probably kick you right in the balls if you ever did that without her permission. You know that, too, so you wouldn't. You wouldn't do anything to push your sister away."

Damien chuckles. "Very perceptive."

I shrug. "I guess."

I don't mean to sound so forlorn all of a sudden. Now that I don't pretend to use the Southern drawl anymore around Damien, I rarely police my tone, but that came out on its own.

Worse, he noticed.

"Savannah? Amore… what's wrong."

I shake my head. "Nothing."

"Cara mia…"

I've learned that the more Damien slips into Italian, the harder I find it to resist him.

"Fine. It's just… you just told me Oliver went missing. If the only one who can track you is your rival?—"

"We have a truce," he reminds me.

And it could easily be broken one day. "What if something happens to you? What if he won't give up your location? What if I can't find you and you're gone like Oliver?"

Damien grips the side of my face lightly, stroking my upper cheek. "You would care? If one of my enemies came after me… and in the unlikely circumstance they managed to overpower me… you would care?"

I could lie. I could pretend that I didn't give a shit about him… but why? Ever since he told me that I could expect him to be honest no matter what, he has, for the good and the bad. I've tried to do the same. If I couldn't tell the truth, I kept my mouth shut.

I could do that now. I could say nothing, allowing Damien to come to his own conclusions. I could?—

"I would."

Another brush of his thumb on my skin before Damien grips the comforter, tossing it away from us. He slides across the sheet, the motion seeming to echo in the dark bedroom, before his bare feet lands on the floor.

I watch his sculpted back and gorgeous ass move across the room to reach the pants he shucked off earlier. Digging around inside of it, he pulls out two phones. He glances at them both, then tucks one back into his pocket.

The other stays in his grip as he joins me back in bed.

Once I'm snuggled up against him again, he shows it to me.

"I always keep an extra burner around in case I need it. I got the idea from Lincoln Crewes years ago when I saw he always had two phones on him. If I needed to lose one, I wasn't without another. Here. Take it. You can have it."

"Aren't you afraid I could call someone? Tell them I need help?"

"You could. That's a risk I'll have to take. But you've been no contact with your parents for years, you have no siblings, and I'm sure you wouldn't want to drag any friends you might have into tis life, hmm?"

I'd have to have friends first… "What about 911?"

In the shadows of our bedroom, he gives me that crooked half-smile I can't help but adore. "Tell Deb I said ‘hi'. Or Shannon. It's usually one of those two who field calls on the East End as the dispatcher."

Why am I not surprised that he has 911 in his pocket, too?

Whatever. It wasn't worth bluffing anyway when we both know that I won't do that. Not now. Not anymore.

"Why are you giving me this phone?"

"Two reasons. One: my number is programmed into this. I should've thought about this before, but if you need me and don't want to ask Gen or Vin or Frankie to get in touch with me, you won't have to. You can call me yourself."

That's a good thing to be able to do if I want to start accepting that I'm his wife and not his prisoner. "Okay. And the second reason?"

"There's an app on here. Look. This blue one. If you click it, then click on my name, you can track me down wherever I go."

Wow.

I… I'm touched. I'm fucking touched.

The head Dragonfly himself, who guards his location so fiercely that only one other soul has it, just offered it to me because I accidentally made it obvious that I'd feel much better if I knew where he was—and not because it would be easier to ambush him and kill him?

Oh, how the tables have turned. All those weeks ago, I never would've expected it, and a part of me is still struggling to accept how much our relationship has changed.

"What if I decide to do, like social media? Go online with my old accounts. Call some old friends who might want to hear from me?"

"Please, Savannah. This phone is completely clean. I had yours erased and tossed right after our wedding. In order to do that, you'll need to know your usernames, passwords, and contacts." He gooses my side. "Do you?"

Asshole, I think, and there's actually a hint of affection to it. "What about you? You're ten years older than me. You're memory must be going, babe. You're telling me you remember yours."

"Most of them."

"Bullshit."

"Not at all, wife. As you so kindly mentioned, I am older than you. That means I remember a time before cellphones. When, if I wanted to call someone, I had to memorize the number and hoped they answered." Damien drops a kiss to my lips, tasting my smile. "I didn't even get my first phone until I was twenty and I stole it. I remember it, too. A blue Nokia brick, and I bashed in a guy's head with it without even denting the thing."

I giggle. "That image shouldn't be as sexy as it is."

"That's only because, deep down, you're as violent as I am. But that's okay, ragna mia. I like that about you." Then, before I can make a comment to his fairly apt assessment of Savannah, he asks, "What about you? How old were you when you got your first phone.

Oof. Most of the time, I don't notice the age gap between us. But when he asks something like that…

"Nine," I admit.

"Nine! With a phone?"

"I had soccer practice, okay?"

Damien sucks in a breath. "Soccer? Oh, amore…" His shoulder moves, arm sliding until he has his hand on my thigh. Tugging me closer with his other hand, he uses the first one to caress as much of my leg as I can reach. "Is that where you got these gorgeous legs? Mm… so strong. So powerful. So delicious, especially when they're wrapped around your husband."

His fingers guide upward, finding their way to my pussy. Like Damien, I'm still naked from earlier. Naked and, when he dips his finger inside of me, testing to see how wet I am, fucking soaked.

"Ah…" His breath is warm on my skin as he exhales. "I have an idea. Let's see if this old man can show his young wife how my generation entertained ourselves before smartphones took over. What do you think?"

I let the phone Damien gave me slip out of my hand, falling to the other side of me as he eases me to my back.

"I think that sounds like a great idea…"