Pierce followed me into the house. I adjusted my own clothing as I walked, but I stopped short inside the door. Ten of Pierce’s crew milled around, shuffling papers, talking on phones.

My husband closed the door and tossed his clothes in a pile on the floor. I could only offer an…“Uh…”

“What?” he asked.

I held up my hands, hoping they explained why I stood there gawking. “This is not a military operations center. If it were, I’d have much hotter men to look at.”

“Hey,” came a disgruntled shout from the corner of the dining room.

Pierce grasped my upper arm and gently propelled me into the thankfully empty kitchen. In a rough whisper, he said, “We need to ascertain if the attack came from my side or yours?”

I yanked from his tightened grip. My short fuse inches from ignition. “What do you mean my side?” I asked, careful and slow.

“We need to know if the attack came from one of the families, or if outside of it all. That’s what the crew is doing now.”

The ground shifted slightly underneath me, and I caught myself on the edge of the counter. Suddenly, I felt woefully out of my depth here. I’d only ever dealt with a physical attack once, and my job involved laying in a hospital bed while I pressed a morphine administration button. “Should I call people, do something?”

He scanned my face and traced the edges of my lips with his thumbs. “If you want to call someone, you can. Otherwise, I’ve got this.”

I reached up to cup his fingers in mine, but he pulled away and put the length of the kitchen between us. “I think it’s time we both lay our cards on the table. I trust you, Kat. Do you trust me?”

I’d always been aware we didn’t go into much details about our lives, or our families. We knew the basics about each other and kept it that way. Not out of distrust. I’d always trusted him, through the games, the lies, the manipulation. Not a second passed where I felt he might harm me.

Hurt me…yes.

He ripped me open more times than I could track. But irreparably, physically, no, never. “I trust you.”

He ducked his chin and realized he purposefully hid his eyes from mine. A tactic I depended on more times than I cared to admit.

“Are you ashamed?” I asked.

At first, he only shook his head but then he finally dragged his gaze to mine and held it. “Most of the syndicates assume my family runs drugs. Or that we are involved with drugs in some capacity.”

Basically my assessment all these years. Further queries into what he did were never necessary. How could I have used him for his attention, his time, his body for so many years without knowing. It seemed foolish now.

“We don’t do anything involving drugs. We actually take care of women.” He continued.

I leaned down and unzipped my black knee high boots. They were too stiff around the ankle and this conversation would require comfort. I had a feeling this might take a turn into flying obscenities. “I don’t know what that means.”

He cleared his throat and crossed his arms over his chest. Again, not meeting my eyes, but reluctantly looking up before he spoke. “My family takes care of prostitutes.”

It took me a second to wrap my brain around what he said. “You’re a pimp?”

He surged forward hands raised. “No, the opposite actually. We keep the girls who want that kind of life safe. We help them stay clean, avoid cops, find housing or hotels. They make all their own choices.”

“And you take their money to perform this service?” My insides felt fuzzy. Warm and room temperature like a pot not quite boiling but not cold either. Disgust, disbelief, and downright and dirty fear crept under my skin. Not all at once, tiny slivers containing bits and pieces of memories which should have led me to this conclusion a long time ago.

He took another step forward, and I retreated bumping into the knobs on the stove. Two of them dug into my back.

“Kat, calm down. I can see your mind whirring. We don’t take their money. The money we get comes from the client. They pay for what they want, and they get willing, happy, participating women. The clients who go to our girls are politicians, teachers, regular people who want companionship and don’t want the seedy element.”

“What do you call this?” I waved my hands at the all the men occupying the bursting front rooms. “We almost got shot, and you are trying to say your work doesn’t have a seedy element?”

Someone slipped between us, handed Pierce a phone, and retreated quickly. “What is it now?”

Pierce handed me the phone. I scanned the screen. The man Fox picked up wasn’t hired by anyone on Pierce’s side. One of the five families put a hit out on me and Bianca. And worse, that same man killed my father.

I didn’t realize I’d sank to the floor until the cold tile on my bare ankle jolted me to awareness. The phone had slipped out of my hand and clattered somewhere near the wall. The world cut through my vision on a movie reel. Each clip barely pasted to the previous, so I caught glimpses of the white screen in the middle.

Pierce picked me up and carried me into our bedroom. I didn’t know how I felt from his revelation, so I held on tight and let him lay me on the soft gray bedding. He sat down beside me and held my hand. “Are you okay?”

Once I took a few deep breaths, I could focus again and sat up. Pierce handed me a water bottle and cracked the lid for me. I took a swig more out of politeness than necessity. “I’m fine. Really. Everything just caught up at once there. And what you said, and then the attack. I always thought my father well-respected. The bastard didn’t deserve their respect, but the families never question his leadership. I’m in charge for a month, and they are trying to kill me. Where did I falter? How did I already fail at a job I’ve been trained my entire life to do?”

I didn’t like how my ascension as the head of the five could be put into jeopardy so easily. “Does this have to do with rejecting Bianca’s marriage offers? Or are they looking for an excuse because they think I’m weak?” My voice started to raise as I spoke. “The only reason they can think me weaker than my father is because I’m a woman.”

Pierce took the bottle from me, screwed on the lid, and sat it on the bedside table. “You’re not weak, and we will show them. It might be a good time to tell me what the five do…I think I have a handle on your family, although you can confirm.”

“Import and export. We also oversee the other families. Make sure no one is making trouble or drawing too much attention. We’re the public face of the five, the ones with the political contacts and the donation accounts.”

He nodded and gripped my hand gently. I continued. “Aristo handles drugs. Usually high end designer drugs, mostly sold here in New York and in Hollywood. Cambio specializes in assassinations. Specialty bodyguard work as well. Litio does weapons, and Biondello is…” I trailed off trying to think how to explain the Biondello family.

“They what?”

“We don’t see them often. They keep to themselves. That family is only called upon when needed. They handle things on a heavier scale. Think warfare, famine, the apocalypse. The head of their branch is Prospero Biondello. Sometimes he’s called The Red Death.”

Pierce snorted, and I resisted the urge to cross myself. “The Red Death? Are you joking?”

His smile dimmed when I didn’t join in the humor.

“I’m serious. I met him at my father’s funeral. He’s my age and offered the same courtesy as any other attendant. But, everyone gave him a wide clearance when he neared.”

He started running his thumb over the top of my knuckles. “Is that it?”

“Off the top of my head, yeah. In my opinion, this world doesn’t have bad guys or good guys. Everyone exists in shades of gray. Your choices reflect where you land on that scale. As far as we’re concerned, we stick to our business and try to keep people from getting hurt.”

“I’m not judging you.”

I pulled from his grasp. “Why not? You just basically admitted your gang actually isn’t really bad. You help women on a certain career path. Illegal yes, immoral, I don’t think so. But, it doesn’t explain why you want to be with me. While I’ve never killed a man, I’m not an innocent in this life.”

Pierce leaned in and pressed his forehead to mine. “If it’s not obvious to you by now why I’ve put up with you for all these years, then nothing I can say will clarify it. You see what you want to see and believe what you want to believe. And one day, you’ll understand.”

I swallowed against the lump squeezing up my throat like a rock in an air-less balloon.

He handed me back the water, and I took another swig.

“What if I admit I’m scared, or that I don’t have any idea what I’m doing sometimes.”

Another snort escaped him before he covered it with a fake cough. “I know that about you already, Kat. You can bullshit your way through a situation like a pro. Best I’ve ever seen, and I’ve witnessed some smooth talkers.”

Was he trying to make me feel better? His words still rang in my ears. He loved me. I knew he loved me. And, even if I never said the words out loud, I hoped he knew how I felt for him too. We fought more than we did anything else, but I couldn’t imagine our relationship without throwing things at him, or the way he dropped to his knees and pressed his face to the outside of my hip when he sincerely apologized.

I straightened my spine and looked him dead in the eye. “So what do we do now? I don’t know how to secure my place in the five. Earn the respect my father had and kill whatever little rebellion has seemed to crop up before he died.”

He shook his head slowly. “I don’t know, to be honest. I don’t understand all the rules and showmanship your family deals with. In my family, we just say what we mean and then do it. Yours is more about presentation than actual follow through.”

“I should take Bianca out of school. What if something happens to her?” The thought alone enough to pit my heart against my ribcage and start a line for bets.

His warm hand settled on my back, and he rubbed slowly. “Fox is with her. Nothing will happen while he’s there.”

“But he’ll have to sleep, and eat, and pee…or whatever.”

“Then I’ll send another of the crew to back him up, and tomorrow, we will hunt down these assassin Italians and hire her a bodyguard who can Liam Niesen her ass if something happens. If they were party to the attack, I’d assume they would have succeeded, which tells me it’s one of the five making a move, not the collective.”

I chuckled against my will, tears I’d been fighting barely restrained. He reached out and caught one threatening to fall from the edge of my lower lashes. “I won’t let anything happen to you or your sister.”

A cold hard rock settled low in my belly, and I tried to keep my voice even as I asked, “But what if something happens to you?”