by Krista Holt
I swallow past the lump in my throat, hastily wiping back tears as guilt threatens to drown me. He’s right. No matter my tame intentions, I did this. I’m responsible. And despite Simmons’s look of triumph, for me, there’s no sweeping sense of righteousness, no smugness at justice being served. I just feel guilty. Because it suddenly becomes clear that Nic isn’t the biggest monster in all this. I am. I’m the one who knew what he was all along. I’m the one who used how he felt for me against him. I’m the one that gave the FBI what they needed to burn his life to the ground. I’m to blame.
Simmons sits back down, looking sickeningly pleased with himself. “Thanks to you, Nic Selvaggio will be spending the rest of his days locked up in a federal prison.” He pauses, and his eyes meet mine. “And if I have my way, he’ll get the death penalty.”
The death penalty.
My throat burns and a hollow ache crushes every inch of my body. Pain, guilt, and sorrow rip at my soul, tearing it into a million and one pieces. I can’t breathe. Harsh sobs shake my frame as I gasp for air.
Oh my God, what have I done?
CHAPTER 18
Nic
THE BURNER PHONE VIBRATES IN my jacket pocket, dragging my attention from the glass of scotch in my hand.
My mother sits across the room, staring out the window at nothing. It doesn’t seem to matter that the outside world is covered in a blanket of black. She just stares, occasionally fighting tears.
Less than a handful of words have been spoken since he returned. I followed a few paces behind as he walked up the drive and went into the house. I stood in the doorway and watched him enter the study without acknowledging my mother or me. Which was best.
However, since then, I’ve been sitting in this chair, slowly pouring the life out of an insanely expensive bottle of scotch, one glass at a time. My focus split between my mother and the bottle. The bottle and my mother.
The burner goes off again, rattling against my chest. Ignoring it, I lift the glass to my lips, and take a long sip.
“Nicola?”
I meet her stare, brows rising.
“Today was horrible, for all of us. But, I believe that out of all of us, she’ll be the happiest, because she’s free now.”
Raising the glass again, I swallow down more of the amber liquid. It burns my throat, and I close my eyes, leaning my head back.
“When did this family get so screwed up?” I shake my head. “I can’t tell if we’ve always been like this and I’m finally old enough to notice it now, or if it’s gotten worse in the last couple of years. But, damn, I hate it. I hate being here.”
My mother shifts in her seat, and shame casts a shadow over her features. “I never wanted this for you, Nicola. This was never my intention.”
I wave her concern away, because, really, what can be done about it now? That’s right, nothing. Not a damn thing. We’ve all made our beds, and now we must lie in them. Maybe even die in them.
“I’m not looking for an apology,” I say, and I must be a little drunk, because I can’t imagine voicing my next thoughts if I were sober. “Why did you ever marry him? He’s a bastard.”
She tucks her head, twisting her hands in her lap as she struggles to find an answer. “I was young. Young and naive.”
She rises from her seat and plucks the glass from my fist. She takes a drink and then coughs into her hand, eyes watering.
“If you can believe it, he wasn’t always this way.” A sad smile pulls at her lips. “He was funny and charismatic. Charming even. Much like you when you’re happy.”
Her hand cups the side of my face. I pull it away. Pitching forward, I rest my forearms on my thighs and grit my teeth.
“Don’t ever compare me to him.”
“I didn’t mean it like that, Nicola. You are very different men. You’re very different from him in so many ways.” She rests a tentative hand on my shoulder, squeezing lightly. “I worry about you, but I don’t worry about you losing your way, like he did. You’re stronger than him.”
I take the glass back from her, and pour some down my throat.
“Son, I love you. But, I worry about your happiness.”
I snort in derision. “That seems like such a petty thing to be worried about right now. Besides, I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. You’re angry and I’ll accept my part in that, in keeping you around him. I should have left him when I was younger. Took you and your sister and ran, but I didn’t know how. And I’m not sure I would have been able to protect you if he had come after us.”
She wouldn’t have. He would have found her, and if anything, her escape would have made her life a million times harder.
“I don’t want to talk about this, if it’s all the same to you.”
She nods, her eyes full of sorrow. I instantly feel like an ungrateful shit. Because even though she married him, raised kids with him, she’s protected me more times than I can count. I’m sure she’s saved my sister and me from things I don’t even know about.
“I’m sorry.” I reach for her hand. “After today, I’m…I’m not myself. That’s all.”
“It’s fine, son.” Leaning down, she presses a kiss to my temple. “I love you and your sister more than my life. Someday, when you’re a father, you’ll understand the depth of that love. How you would do anything for that little person, move any mountain. That’s how I know your sister will be fine. She’ll fight for her baby, for her new life.”
My eyes search her face, wanting to memorize every detail. “You think Gabriella will be fine?”
“Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not in a few weeks, but eventually, with enough good memories to outweigh the bad, she will be.”
Relief starts to uncoil the tight muscles in my back and neck. Don’t get me wrong, my anger is still boiling beneath this forced facade, and if my father were to show his face and push me too far, I’d have no qualms about killing him.
But, part of me is relieved to hear her words. Not only for Gabriella, but also for Reagan. That with time, and enough good memories, she’ll be able to move past what I did that night. I want to be the one by her side when she does. I want to be the one to give her those good memories.
“Goodnight, son.”
Her words push me from my scotched thoughts. “Are you…” My eyes travel to the stairs that lead to the bedrooms upstairs. Surely she’s not staying with him tonight.
She shakes her head, reading my thoughts. “I’m going to stay in your sister’s room,” she clarifies. “Don’t worry about me.”
“I will always worry about you.” I push to my feet and envelop her in a hug. “I know I’ve never said it, but thank you for everything you did to protect me, to protect Gabriella. You were—are—a great mom.”
Her shoulders shake against my chest, and her tears soak through my shirt. I don’t speak. I don’t rush her. I just stand there, trying to comfort my mother. She lost a daughter today, at the hands of her own husband, and I can’t imagine her grief.
When she pulls away, she reaches up to touch my cheek. “Goodnight, Nicola.”
“Night, Ma.”
I follow her into the hallway, waiting until I hear the door to Gabriella’s room shut softly to exhale. I can see light leaking under the study door from here. Part of me knows I should go in there and maneuver myself back into his good graces, apologize for planting my fist in his face. The problem is, I can’t even stomach the thought of hearing him breathe.
The burner phone goes off again, and I groan. “For shit’s sake. What is so damn important?”
I stare at the screen, counting five missed calls and a text from Garrett. I tap open the text, and a shiver races up my spine.
Get out of there. NOW!
Adrenaline slams through me. I run out the front door, heading for the Mercedes as fast as I can. I start the engine and jam it into drive, stomping my foot down on the gas, narrowly missing the large stone fountain in the middle of the circle drive as I accelerate hard enough to mak
e the back end fishtail.
Gravel pings against the undercarriage as I near the guardhouse. But it’s too late. A massive armored vehicle rams into the gate with enough force that the metal frames fly open. I hit the brakes and the Benz slams to a stop, flinging my body into the seatbelt. I groan loudly, my ribs protesting the harsh treatment.
I frantically scan the scene in front of me. Every one of my father’s guards are lying face down in the snow, hands behind their backs, being handcuffed en masse by multiple bodies dressed in navy blue windbreakers emblazoned with the letters FBI in fluorescent yellow. They caught us off guard.
Flinging the car into reverse, I turn around. Heading to the other side of the property, and the only other way out of here, I lean into the gas a little more, white knuckling the wheel as it skids on a patch of ice, almost throwing the Benz off the road.
I take the last corner and then, BANG! The windshield explodes in front of me. I snap forward, using the dash for cover, trying to shield my face from the shards of glass flying through the air like stars in the night sky. Cranking the wheel to the left, I slam on the brakes. The car skids around, almost making a perfect circle until the back tires hit some more ice, and I lose traction on all four wheels.
Like on a slip-and-slide, the car grazes the ground but doesn’t connect with it until the back end collides with something, cracking the rear window. My head smacks into the side window, and pain explodes before my eyes in the form of little bursts of light. The car stops spinning. The engine hisses, still running. Someone is shouting something, but I can’t make out the words. All I can hear is my heart pounding in my ears. All I can feel is the raging pain in my chest, and the soreness already taking over my body.
I shake my head, trying to clear the ringing in my ears. A cough overtakes me, ripping a roar from my throat when my injured rib pokes into soft tissue.
“Put your hands where we can see them! Right now!” a harsh voice yells over the chaos. “Slowly! Do it now!”
I glance around the wrecked car, unable to find the burner in the mess of glass.
“You have ten seconds to put your hands through the side window, open the door from the outside, and slowly exit the car. Starting now! Ten…Nine…”
The voice drones on, continuing to count down as my mind jumps through a thousand different scenarios. Every single one of them ends the same way—me, getting shot, because I didn’t get out of the damn car when they told me to.
Still, I’m not going to make this easy on them.
The voice gets louder, closer. A dark shadow moves in my peripheral, but I don’t turn around. “Three…two…one!”
Slowly, I reach through the window, and flip them the bird. A half a second later, the back window shatters. A black cylinder hits the dashboard and then bounces to the floor, emitting a string of green haze.
My eyes water from the chemical spreading through the air, and I start coughing. Someone rips open my door and grabs the back of my neck. They try to throw me on the ground, but the seatbelt stops them, slapping my exhausted body back into the leather seat. I yell in pain, punching whoever it was in the face.
“Seatbelt, you ass-clown.” My hand fumbles for the belt release. It quickly retracts, and then, I’m ripped from the car and shoved onto the ground, face first.
The icy cold gravel bites into my skin, cutting it in places. I’m still coughing, trying to get a lungful of clean air. My rib is killing me, and that doesn’t even factor in the two-hundred-pound man with his knee digging into my back as he snaps my arms behind me. Cold metal encircles my wrists and latches closed with a click.
“Get off me!” I growl. “My rib’s cracked.”
“Ask me if I give a shit,” the agent snaps, digging his knee into my back even harder.
“Asshole.”
“Mafia scum.”
“Your mother doesn’t seem to mind,” I retort.
“What did you say?” He gets off me, only to replace his knee with his foot, pinning me to the ground.
“I didn’t stutter, you deaf prick,” I cough.
“Bradford,” another voice rips through the air. “Get off him, and put him on his feet.”
I glare over my shoulder at him. “Yeah, Bradford, do as you’re told.”
He tells me to go screw myself as he jerks me upright.
“Isn’t anybody going to read me my Miranda rights?” I taunt. “I want my lawyer.”
“Shut up. You don’t even know what you’re being charged with.” He pushes me forward, and I stumble.
“That’s assault. And you better be charging me with something, otherwise I’m going to sue your ass for excessive force.”
“I’m real worried.” He marches me a few more steps before he opens up the back door of a lighted cop car and tells me to get in.
“Or what?” I ask, like an asshole, trying to distract myself from the pain. My head hurts. My chest aches. My whole body feels like it’s been beat to shit. But I’m not about to go down without being as big of a nuisance to the boys in blue as I can. “Huh, what are you going to do?”
“I’ll tase you,” he answers calmly, placing his hand on my head as he guides me inside the back seat and then slams the door.
My shoulders cramp with the strain of having my hands locked up at my back as I watch the stooges in FBI windbreakers descend upon my car, pulling doors open and searching the trunk. They won’t find anything, because I don’t keep anything incriminating in there, but still—this is bad.
This is really, really bad.
CHAPTER 19
THEY PERP WALK ME THROUGH the FBI building.
People stop what they’re doing and stare. Phones dangle from hands. Coffee spills over the rim of full cups, and someone chokes on the donut they were shoving into their mouth.
It’s funny, they look so damn surprised. Surprised. Like they didn’t think they would catch me. Like there was always a chance I’d be able to slip through their hands. Their only job is to catch guys like me and from the look on all of their faces, apparently, they weren’t sure they were up to the task.
They take my fingerprints and my picture before Agent Sunshine pushes me into a rather bleak looking interrogation room. A shiny metal table and two chairs wait inside.
“Sit down,” the agent barks, pushing me toward the chair.
“Don’t shove me,” I growl, sitting down.
Rather ungently, Sunshine unlocks the cuffs from one wrist, letting me straighten my arms and work out the kinks before he tells me to place my hands on the table.
“Why? You want to rap me on the knuckles with a ruler? Is that what passes for punishment at the Bureau nowadays?”
He knocks my shoulder, smirking smugly when I grit my teeth in pain.
“You mob types, I swear…” He jerks me forward by the arm still caught in the cuffs. “Every single one of you has got a mouth on you, and none of you ever know when to shut up.” He threads the cuffs through the metal loop on the table, gesturing for my other hand.
“If I did what I was told, you’d consider me a law-abiding citizen.” I place my free wrist on the table and let him fasten the cuff again. “Happy?”
Bradford makes an annoyed sound in the back of his throat, muttering something under his breath.
“Now, I want a phone call.”
“And I want a date with Kate Upton, but you don’t see me whining about something that’s never gonna happen.”
“Upton? Really? I don’t see her taking the trip down to Dunkin with you and splurging on a sprinkle donut. But, hey, who am I to judge your fantasy?”
He kicks the legs on my chair, causing it to skid a few inches. “Shut the hell up.”
“So anyway…” I look around the room, ignoring his request. “How long is this gonna take? I have plans later.”
“Unless your plans are with some hillbilly named Bobby for a game of soap on a rope, I don’t see you making it.”
I snort. “I want my lawyer. I want a phone call. A
nd don’t tell me about your adolescent daydream again, it’s pathetic.”
He steps toward me, and one meaty hand clenches into a fist.
I smirk, realizing I’m getting to him. “Do it.” I lift my chin arrogantly. “Pop me a good one. I’d love to tell the judge all about it—and hey, tell me, what do allegations of police brutality do to an agent’s career in this day and age?”
“You arrogant dick.”
“Guilty as charged,” I retort. “Well, to that charge anyway. Not to the other ones I don’t know anything about, seeing as you haven’t called my lawyer yet. I don’t want to tell you how to do your job, but I’ve asked nicely, three times now. One more time, and I’m gonna file an official complaint.”
He grins at me, full of ugly superiority. “Wait right here.”
“Where am I gonna go?”
He yanks the door open and steps outside, slamming it closed. The second the outside lock engages, I slump forward, resting my head on the table.
With him gone, there’s no need for my wise-guy routine. My body aches like it’s been put through a meat grinder. Blood is slowly drying on the side of my head, making my skin itch, and I probably need to see a doctor about the rib, cause the pain is getting worse.
I close my eyes, struggling to embrace the silence for a second. But, unfortunately, my mind doesn’t get the memo. Thoughts keep bouncing around, taking up space.
Why am I here?
What do they have on me?
And why does it warrant a full-scale raid? On the house, of all places?
It seems like an awful lot of hoops to jump through for just me. I mean, they could have waited until I was back in D.C., and grabbed me off the street. That’s what I’d do. It’s what I did to Reagan.
Oh, Reagan. I bet she wouldn’t even be surprised to find me in this room. Would she feel bad? Or would she think I deserved it? I don’t know.
I need some painkillers. The grating feeling of bone rubbing against bone is walking that fine line between nausea and lightheadedness. If it doesn’t ease up soon, Agent Sunshine is gonna have to clean my vomit up off the floor.
