Buttons and Grace (Buttons 6)

“Fine.”

“What about your ribs?”

“Hardly feel them anymore.” It took me a while to get back on my feet. I still hadn’t started running because I didn’t want to push it, but I was finally able to get around the house and go back to work.

“Good.” She kissed me again. “I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

“Enough about me.” I turned slightly and looked over my shoulder at my small wife. Over a foot shorter than me with beautiful brown hair and a sexy curve to her hips, she was perfect. I’d been with women from all over the world, but not a single one compared to her. Button was perfect in so many ways that existed underneath the skin. She was the strongest person I knew, absolutely fearless, and she would do anything to protect me—just the way I would for her. “The only thing we need to be thinking about is Little Barsetti.” My hand moved to her stomach over her shirt.

“Little Barsetti is fine, so we don’t need to worry there. And is that what we’re going to keep calling them?”

“Yeah.”

She smiled. “It’s cute. Do you have any real names in mind?”

“No.” I’d only just grasped the idea that, in a few months, it wouldn’t be just the two of us anymore. I imagined a baby, not necessarily a boy or a girl. I was going to be a father, and that meant my paranoia would reach new heights. “Do you?”

“Actually, yes. If it’s a girl…Vanessa.”

I stilled at her words, feeling her fingertips still touching me. The name brushed over my skin and elicited memories I would never forget. Cane and I teased Vanessa all the time when we were growing up, but we were also immensely protective of her. On her first date, we’d threatened to rip the guy’s throat out and then dig out everything else. Sometimes I thought about her, and it was always with a twinge of sadness. I missed her.

I slowly turned the rest of the way around and came face-to-face with Button. “Vanessa, huh?”

“What do you think?” she whispered. “Would be a nice way to keep her around…”

My fingers moved underneath her chin, and I directed her gaze higher, making her lock eyes with me. “You would do that?” I was certain Button had different names she loved, but she knew how important my sister was to me—even if I never mentioned her. It shouldn’t surprise me that Button would offer something like this. She did a lot for me—things I took for granted.

“Of course. I think it would be nice. Do you like it?”

“I love it.” My palm moved to her cheek, feeling the soft and delicate skin. A hint of blush was in her face, contrasting against those pretty blue eyes.

“Then it’s settled. All you need to do is check with Cane.”

“Why would I check with him?”

“Maybe he was planning on naming his daughter Vanessa.”

“Let’s not jump the gun. I wouldn’t be surprised if he never had kids.”

“There’s hope…”

“There’s always hope. But that doesn’t mean it’ll happen.”

* * *

I sat in my study and went through the files left on my computer. My client list was still up to date from the weapons business. I had every name, rendezvous point, and unlimited details about the people I did business with. It didn’t make sense keeping it all, so I considered deleting it.

But that wasn’t so easy.

I wasn’t as attached to the business as Cane was. I was only a partner because he asked me to be one. It was a monster too big for a single person to tackle, so having both of us made it a lot easier. But I didn’t like the association it had with my father.

I didn’t hate my father, but I didn’t exactly respect him either.

I never cared that he made his money in criminal ways. It was the reason I had clothes on my back and food on the table. It was the reason I lived in a three-story mansion surrounded by vineyards and countryside.

But I cared about the way he’d treated my mother. He screwed other women on his own time, took advantage of women who didn’t have any rights. My mother knew about the cheating, but that never stopped my father.

He betrayed his family.

That was why I didn’t respect him.

No matter what obstacles would come our way, I would never do that to my wife. I would never take another woman and rip her apart. Button was my life, and she deserved nothing but my full commitment. Occasionally, I wanted something darker, to make marks on her skin with my whip, but I certainly wouldn’t run off and get it somewhere else.

Saying goodbye to this business wasn’t difficult for me.

It was time for it to come to an end.

It was time for Cane and me to make our own legacy, to make the Barsetti name mean something new. I was starting a family, and now I was living a civilian life with civilian rules. I still had guns stashed around the house, and I would never stop looking over my shoulder, but everything needed to change.