With a dad like my dad and thinking everyone should have a dad like my dad, his words made my heart bleed. I’d hate that. And obviously Ren hated it, too.

I leaned closer, squeezed his thigh harder, and whispered, “Ren, honey.”

His jaw got tight before he said, “He lied to her. Brought her into the life and didn’t say dick. You don’t do that to a woman. Not with that life. Not with any f**kin’ life. You don’t hold shit back. Ever.”

I sure was glad he thought like that.

I nodded. “I get it.”

“What I also got is hooked to a woman whose father and brother are cops.”

This surprised me so much I leaned back and took in a sharp breath.

“Yeah,” he stated, still watching me intently. “So Vito’s mutterin’ about me makin’ inroads into the other side of the business, my ma will lose her mind if I take over and the woman I was fallin’ in love with is tangled up in blue.”

“Tangled up in blue?” I asked.

“Cop blue,” he answered.

“Right,” I mumbled.

“So what do I do?” he queried.

“I don’t know, honey. What do you do?”

“It’s not what do I do. It’s what I did do. And what I did was told Vito we’re movin’ the whole thing to legit. He eventually bows out, Dom tows my line or he gets another job, and we’re done with the business.”

Holy shit!

I knew my mouth had dropped open, and I knew Ren didn’t miss it because he was still watching me closely, but he ignored my reaction and kept going.

“That didn’t go over too well.”

Oh man.

I bet it didn’t.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Vito lost his shit is what happened,” he answered.

I pressed my lips together.

“The good news is, he loves me. I get out of the life, he won’t order a hit on me.”

Oh my God!

A hit?

“The bad news is, he’s all over me to change my mind, and if I don’t, I’m excommunicated.”

Okay, that was bad news. But a hit was a whole lot worse.

“I know you’re tight with your family, Ren, but is that really a bad thing?” I asked hesitantly.

“Yeah, honey, because I’m tight with my family. But it’s better than dead.”

It totally was.

“But, even with this and all the shit before, bottom line, Vito has been good to me, my sisters, my ma. He’s the only father I ever had, Ally. He’s f**ked up along the way, like now, bein’ stubborn and tryin’ to bend me to his will. But mostly, he’s been a good one. I don’t wanna lose him and it looks like he’s givin’ me no choice.” He paused then finished, “It also means I got no job.”

Oh man!

“That isn’t good,” I noted, again cautiously.

“No. We do well, Ally. When I say that, I pull down high six figures,” he told me.

Yowza!

High six figures?

I made eight hours of a couple bucks above minimum wage and fifty dollars from the tip jar the day before yesterday.

I couldn’t wrap my mind around high six figures.

No wonder he drove a Jag, had a gardener and a kickass pad in Cheesman Park.

“So I got some put away, and we’re good in a live-real-good type of way for a while. We’re good for a live-content type of way for a longer while. I’m just not the kind of man who golfs.”

Thank God.

Nothing against golf. I was just not the-man-who-golfed-being-my-man type of woman.

“So what’re you thinking of doing?” I asked.

“I know what I’m doing. I’m settin’ up with Marcus.”

I blinked and my voice squeaked when I asked, “What?”

“This is not popular with Vito either,” Ren noted.

I didn’t understand.

“So, let me get this straight. You’re going out of the family business, but staying in the business?”

He shook his head. “No. Marcus has been pullin’ back for a while now. He has one thing on this earth he gives a shit about, and that’s his wife. I don’t have to tell you she had a tough life. They got together, with his social set, she had a tough go. She hasn’t had anything solid, anything at all, not her whole life, except Marcus…” he grabbed my hand, “and the Rock Chicks.”

I knew this.

“Chavez hates him because of what he does,” Ren continued, letting my hand go and taking a sip of coffee before he went on, “Hank also wouldn’t hesitate to take him down if given the opportunity. Marcus feels that tension. The truces made to deal with Rock Chick shit are tentative, baby. And that also means with my family. You women settle in, focus will shift. And when it does, it will not be good. So that Marcus can give Daisy what she needs, the family that comes with the Rock Chicks, without that tension or any shit hangin’ over their heads, he’s been growin’ the legit side of things, lettin’ go of the other. He’s almost there. The thing is, his talents lie in the other. But my talents lie with the legit.”

I had also always liked Marcus.

Now I liked him more.

Suddenly, I smiled huge.

“Perfect fit,” I decreed.

He smiled back. “Yeah.”

Just as suddenly, I was again confused.

“Was this what you were talking with Lee about after my apartment exploded?”

“Yeah,” he confirmed.

“This isn’t bad, so why were you in each other’s faces?”

“Because I was with you and Lee suspected where that was going, which is where it is now, and he wasn’t pleased with the pace the other shit was going.”

Yep, that was Lee.

“You go at whatever pace you wanna go, honey,” I told him.

“I intend to, baby,” he said on a grin.

I took a sip of coffee and asked, “How does Dom feel about all this?”

Ren shook his head, but replied, “He’s calmed his shit since all that went down with Ava and Sissy, but he’s still a f**kup. It’s just that now, he knows it.”

“And that means?”

“That means he doesn’t want to be at the helm, because Vito’s gonna retire but still be up in his face all the time. He also doesn’t want the helm because he’s got a wife and kid, his wife got roughed up in some bad business, and he doesn’t want any of that shit ever to touch his family again.”

I didn’t get a good feeling about this.