“Okay, old man. I’ll take what you said to heart. Thank you.”
“I’m always an open ear for you, Saxon, you know this. Now, tell me more about this woman who’s tamed you.”
Laughing, I shook my head, a huge smile coming over my face. Over the next thirty minutes, I told Pops all about Loren, Jude, and the men who’d somehow managed to become part of our family in the past month.
“You know, that’s what the mafia was meant to be before it became the criminal underground. Family. It’s not as crazy as you think that you’ve found yourself in this type of relationship. If she’s as magnificent as you say, and I have no doubt about that, then it bears to reason Atticus and others would take notice too. It’s smart. A woman in the mafia has a harder path ahead of her, but with all of you… she’ll blossom into the mafia queen our family needs. I thought at one time that Shayna would be that, but that was before Dayton got his paws on her.”
He sighed, shaking his head, but I didn’t miss what he said. Sitting up straighter, I placed my forearms on the desk, staring straight at him.
“Tell me everything you know about Shayna Costa.”
Pops smiled like he was happy I’d finally asked the right question. When I left his shop an hour later, my heart felt better, but my mind swirled with everything I’d just learned, and I wondered if some secrets were better staying buried.
But Atticus and I didn’t work that way; no matter how hard it might be to hear, he deserved to know. I just wished I wasn’t the one having to tell him.