Submission Specialist(Still a Bad Boy #2)(40)

What would he want me to do, under the circumstances? He’d put his neck out for me, defying his brother, my dad, and vouching for me at NHBFC, all so I could make a life for myself. Given how much effort he’d spent trying to help me escape the past, would he want me stuck in it?

“You don’t have to, you know…” said Austin, after waiting as long as he could for an answer.

“No… I mean, yes. Yes, I’ll move in,” I said as fast as I could before I changed my mind.

Austin took a stab at the source of my reluctance. “If your uncle turns up, we can get him a better place than that apartment. OK?”

I gave a tight-lipped smile and nodded.

“OK?” Austin repeated, and tickled me just below the ribcage.

I giggled and squirmed, fighting the impossible fight against the submission specialist. “Ahhh! OK! Stop! OK! OK!”

My husband pulled me close and whispered in my ear. “Now, the first thing you do when you move in, is you get down on your knees and you suck. My. Cock.”

“I’m listening,” I said.

My facial expression wavered between scandalized and ecstatic as he gave some very specific instructions. It sure sounded like the first steps to a happy home to me.





Chapter 20

Austin

Fucking Bertolini cocksuckers.

I was driving around a heavy industrial district of New Ashby I wasn’t overly familiar with, looking for the depot of some shitty construction company that nobody, least of all me, gave a fuck about. Why? Because Enrico Bertolini had called me in for a meeting.

This should have been all settled the last time they visited Ross’ gym. I knocked out Sanchez in the third for free, and they were supposed to back me to win against Brenton Southgate. Having another talk could mean only one thing: they were fucking around with the arrangement again.

I wouldn’t have been surprised if there was a dark cloud hovering over my car as I drove along. Bending down to look up at the street sign, I spotted the one I was looking for and turned the steering wheel to the right.

“At fucking last,” I said to nobody, because Ross wasn’t invited to this little get-together.

There was no obvious parking lot near the gates of Bulgarelli and Sons Construction. I pulled up in a clear space in the stock yard near a few other cars. They were all parked at odd angles near a little building that announced itself as ‘Office’ via an old sign with peeling paint that looked about as shitty as the rest of the place.

Two guys who looked like they couldn’t build a sandcastle, let alone any kind of large-scale project, sat on a stack of prize-winning rust-farms that used to be heavy steel I-beams, eating their lunch. One of them would probably win employee of the month, because I couldn’t see anybody else doing anything.

As I stepped out of my car, a mob guy in a suit that looked completely out of place in a dump like this came out of the office. He held the door open as I approached. Somehow, I resisted the urge to run my keys along the immaculate black paint of the car parked next to mine.

I gave the guy a dirty look as I passed. To his credit, he seemed unfazed despite the massive size difference between us, and piled as much contempt as he could into his own expression. He was obviously old school mafia who had seen a lot in his time.

He followed me in and closed the door. Counting him, there were five guys in cluttered little office and I had only met one of them before.

Two of them were ratty-looking wiseguys flanking the desk to either side. Leaning by the window was some guy about my age dressed a lot more casually, who looked like he could be recruited as an offensive tackle in college football if he could ever pass the drug tests.

He puffed himself up as much as possible when I walked in, muscles twitching as if he was on edge. If they thought he was big enough to impress me, they were sorely mistaken. That was the joy of being at the top of my game. If he was any good at fighting, I would have heard about him already.

You had to be more than just big to stand a chance with me. If he wanted to find out what it felt like to have a broken leg, then he could try his luck.

Still, the very presence of somebody like him, like the guy now standing behind me by the door, and the lack of Enrico Bertolini was definitely concerning. Sitting behind the desk itself, looking smug as fuck, was the one person I recognized. Renato Picolli.

“Nice place you’ve got here. Where’s Enrico?”

“Thanks. It may not look like much now, but it’s about to win some very lucrative contracts from the city. Amazing how things can change so quickly, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Where’s Enrico?”

“Why don’t you take a seat?” Renato gestured at the chair in front of the desk.