Nico

by Sarah Castille

  He had taken off his jacket and tie and rolled up his shirtsleeves. Mia remembered how distracted she had been looking at his forearms when he helped her fix the car. She had never imagined that all her fantasies about him that day would come true. Or all her nightmares.

  After he ended the call, he stayed at the far end of the room, staring out the window. For a man who was constantly in motion, his stillness alarmed her. She could see the stress etched in the lines on his face, the set of his jaw, and the lift of his shoulders. She could feel his pain. “Is everything all right?”

  “It’s business.”

  Her heart ached at his dismissive tone. She hoped she wouldn’t add to his problems with what she had come here to do, although if she were honest with herself, it was just an excuse to see him.

  “I came to return this.” She pulled off the ring and placed it on his desk beside his silver pen as he turned to face her. “I don’t feel right keeping it. And frankly, I’m relieved. It was so huge I felt like I was going to be jumped any minute by someone with a chain saw prepared to cut off my hand to get it.”

  She saw the faintest quiver of a smile, and then his face went blank again. “It was temporary. Something I had lying around.”

  “Yeah, I have fifty-thousand-dollar engagement rings lying around my house, too, although I can’t find them under the pizza boxes.” Mia forced a laugh, although she could barely breathe for the tension in the room. Why the hell had she come? Jules had pumped her up with her rah rah speech, but now that she was sitting in front of the man who felt betrayed by her choices, she could see it was a huge mistake. She hadn’t expected him to forgive her, and he clearly wasn’t happy to have her here.

  “I guess I’d better go. Jules is outside, probably causing trouble.” She stood and walked to the door.

  “If I’d had the chance, I would have picked something different for you,” Nico said into the silence. “Platinum, not gold.”

  “Maybe some skulls on it?” she suggested, as a glimmer of hope flickered in her chest.

  “Something unconventional. A bit of a steampunk design, with a black diamond in the center and pink ones on either side.”

  Emotion welled up in her throat. “Sounds very specific.”

  “It was.”

  “Well, now you can buy a dozen rings.” She stared at the ring on the desk, already missing the connection it represented.

  He crossed the floor to the desk, and picked up the pen. “I only need one.”

  “For your fiancée?” Embarrassed she put up her hand. “Don’t answer that. It’s not my business. I just came to return the ring and to tell you I’m sorry. I didn’t get a chance to tell you before. But I am deeply sorry. It was an impossible choice. My brother isn’t a good person. He’s weak and self-centered and cruel, and he did you a terrible, unspeakable, unforgiveable wrong that hurts my heart just thinking about it. But he is my brother, and although I think he should pay for what he did, I couldn’t just offer him up to you on a silver platter. You said you were willing to put aside the vendetta against my father; I hoped you would extend that forgiveness to Dante. Death isn’t the only way to get justice.”

  Nico flipped the pen around his thumb. “You didn’t give me the choice.”

  “I know. And you deserved to have that choice. But I couldn’t take the risk. I hope one day you can forgive me.”

  “You didn’t trust me.” He picked up the ring and put it in his pocket.

  “I trusted you with me. I don’t think you would ever hurt me. But no, I didn’t trust you with Dante’s life. Your reputation precedes you.”

  “So loyal.” He stared at her intently as the pen twirled. “I wouldn’t need an alliance if all my men were as loyal as you.”

  “They are.” She gave him a quizzical look. “From what I’ve seen and heard, they admire and respect you, and they are proud to be part of your crew.”

  “Apparently not all of them.” His corded throat tightened when he swallowed. “I have my own impossible choice to make.”

  Mia had never seen him so conflicted. She ached to hold him, but he’d taken the ring and made it clear that what they had was over. Giving him physical comfort wasn’t the right thing to do. He wasn’t hers any more. And she wasn’t his. “I’m sorry, Nico.”

  “So the fuck am I.”

  She pulled a real estate brochure from her purse and dropped it on his desk, her far-reaching attempt to make good the damage she had done. “Here’s something that might cheer you up. The Desert Dream is going up for sale.”

  When he didn’t respond, she pushed it toward him. “It was one of the Rat Pack’s favorite hotels and one of the last old Vegas-meets-Hollywood hotels left.”

  His jaw tightened. “I know what it is.”

  “It’s going up for auction.” She hesitated, waited for him to fill in the blanks, but he said nothing. Just stared at her as if she were trying to memorize everything about her, as she was trying to memorize him. After all, she didn’t know if she would ever see him again.

  “I know the realtor because his daughter is in my coding class,” she continued. “It would be a shame if someone bought it and tore it down. It’s Dante’s favorite place to game. He’s got a bit of a gambling problem. My father used to get so angry. Dante isn’t very good with numbers and he would lose big. Really big. At one point he was so heavily indebted to one of Tony’s bookies, my father had to whack the bookie to clear the debt before Tony found out. That’s when he hired Rev. He said it was to guard Dante, but really, it was to keep him away from the tables. He was afraid Dante would ruin the family.”

  Silence.

  Mia gritted her teeth. Either he wasn’t understanding what she was trying to say, or he was still determined to put a bullet through Dante’s heart. She didn’t know what else she could do aside from spelling it out for him. Old Vegas hotel. Real estate deal. A casino. Dante’s big weakness. A way to avenge his father without spilling blood. Justice. Everything he could want in one neat package. And Dante, although he didn’t deserve it and would pay a heavy price, would be saved.

  “I’d better go.” She walked to the door and looked back over her shoulder. “It’s a closed-bid auction. Apparently, the bids are submitted electronically and the computer spits out a winner.”

  There. She couldn’t be clearer than that. He knew what she did for a living. She could hack the system and tell him the highest bid and he could bid higher. If he owned the casino he could let Dante run up his credit until the amount he owed was so high, Nico could take over his assets. He could ruin him financially. Maybe even the family, too. It wasn’t black-hat hacking she was offering to do for him, just a shade of gray.

  *

  “Vito, get me a meeting with the realtor who’s dealing with the sale of the Desert Dream Hotel.” Nico stalked through his casino, barking orders at Vito over his shoulder.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Book it at Il Tavolino. Tell Lennie we’ll be coming.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Louis reported a huge increase in the number of low-level drug dealers coming into the casino. Any idea what’s attracting them? Or who?”

  “No, sir, but I’ll ask around.” Vito pulled out a dove-gray handkerchief and mopped his brow. Nico had never seen Vito sweat. He’d never seen him ruffled or flustered in any way. He was always impeccably, albeit oddly, dressed in his silver-and gray suits, his hair perfectly coiffed, gray shoes polished to a shine. Maybe Nico was asking too much of him. Working him too hard. He had been an associate with Nico’s crew for six years and a good casino manager, although Nico didn’t think he had what it took to become a made man

  “Are you sending any associates to deal with them?” Vito ran the handkerchief around the back of his neck.

  Ah. That was it. Vito already had a heavy workload, and policing the low-level dealers would stretch him too thin. Nico made a mental note to hire an assistant to give Vito a hand. “I’ll send a few, but we need to find the source
of the problem. And we need to find it before I buy the Desert Dream. I don’t want any carry over.”

  Although Nico understood that Mia was willing to hack the realtor’s database to find the highest offer, there was no way he was letting a woman get involved in family business. And especially not his woman. It was his job to protect her. He had ways of getting information that didn’t involve his wife putting herself at risk or crossing a line she never wanted to cross. He hadn’t decided if he would play Dante the way she suggested, but he certainly wasn’t giving up the opportunity to purchase an iconic hotel.

  “Where are Frankie and Luca?”

  “Craps table, sir.” Vito pointed out Frankie and Luca, who were at the center of a big crowd. No doubt Luca was on a roll again. He had a lucky streak when it came to dice. Nico just wished he would play that lucky streak somewhere else.

  He groaned inwardly when he saw Luca’s rack of chips. Every time he got lucky he threw his cash around like it was going out of style. One day he was going to attract the wrong kind of attention and he and Frankie wouldn’t be there to save him.

  After discussing more issues with Vito, he joined the crowd at the craps table. Frankie was playing it out on the pass-line bet, a safe strategy and one that had the best odds to win.

  “What’s happening with the capos?” he asked quietly.

  Frankie stepped back, away from the crowd. “We’ve got five capos who are gonna vote between you and Tony on Sunday after church. You also get a vote, and Charlie Nails breaks a tie. We got four for you and one against if you can bring the Cordano alliance to the table.”

  A cheer rose up and the dealer pushed a stack of chips in Luca’s direction.

  “What if I don’t bring the alliance?” Nico had been mulling over the alliance for the last few days. His personal issues aside, the Cordanos were not a good fit with the Toscanis, at least not the way Nico wanted to run things. They were heavily into the drug trade and he was determined not to go down that road. It was an easy temptation, his father had said, but easy money came with big risks.

  Frankie lifted an eyebrow. “Without the alliance then you’ve got one vote for sure, maybe two on your side. The drug operation is a big earner and the kickbacks are gonna be hard for the capos to give up.”

  “If the vote doesn’t go our way, I may have to break with the family,” he said. “I’m not getting involved in the drug trade. There are too many players—triads, cartels, street gangs, Russians, Albanians—everyone wanting a piece of the pie. The feds will be all over us. And the risks of a long jail sentence will tear the family apart. You tell a guy he’s got a choice of twenty years in lock-up or ratting out his crew, guess which road he’s gonna take?”

  He’d thought long and hard about his position after finding out the entire administration of the Las Vegas faction of the Cordano family had no honor. Nico had a solid crew. Loyal men—all but one. And a growing empire that now boasted fifty percent legitimate enterprise. Yes, he still thirsted for vengeance, but Mia had made him see how empty his life had become in the pursuit of that goal, and how tradition could be at once a comfort and burden. He could look ahead and not back, forge a new path. And if that meant breaking with the family to save them, then that’s what he would do.

  “Where you go, I go,” Frankie said. “You need someone at your back even when you don’t know you need someone at your back.”

  They shared a glance, and Nico felt a tightening in his chest. He still had to deal with Big Joe. And he couldn’t put it off much longer. Damn Frankie and his over-protective nature.

  Frankie had gone off the record and given Big Joe a contract to whack Rev. It was meant to be a pre-emptive strike to protect Nico. Frankie had heard rumblings in the underground that Don Cordano had a contract out on Nico, and Rev was his first choice for the job.

  But Big Joe had fucked it up, freezing when he should have pulled the trigger. Rev got away but not before calling Big Joe out as a cop. Big Joe had an easy explanation—the cover he’d given his ex, now Rev’s girlfriend, to get her off his back—but the whole situation didn’t sit right with Nico. He needed to call Big Joe in to get to the bottom of it, but part of him didn’t want to know if it was true.

  He liked Big Joe. Trusted him. Considered him a friend. Before talking to him, he needed to have settled in his mind what he would do if Big Joe was a cop. Don Cordano clearly had no compunction ordering the traditional Cosa Nostra punishment for the Wolf, and over the years, Nico had handed out his fair of Sicilian neckties. But ten years of pursuing vengeance for his father had almost cost Nico his soul. What would it cost him to have to punish one of his closest friends, too?

  After another ten painful minutes watching Luca rake in more chips to the adulation of the drunken crowd, Nico left the casino. He drove aimlessly up and down the streets of Vegas, heading anywhere but the cold, austere hotel penthouse he called home. When he finally wound up outside Mia’s apartment, he realized this was where he’d been going all along. Despite everything that had happened, he needed her. Despite the pain he felt, he wanted her. She moved his soul and filled his heart and gave meaning to a life he had lost to revenge.

  For ten years, Nico had buried his needs beneath layers of self-control. But Mia had stripped those layers one by one, laying him bare. Open. Vulnerable. Able to love.

  He needed her support and her strength. Her caring and compassion. He needed the connection that calmed the beast, and made him feel whole. He needed to forgive and forget so he could see a clear path when it came time to face betrayal again.

  He loved her. And he needed her to know.

  *

  Mia woke to a hand over her mouth. She drew in a deep breath to scream, and Nico murmured in her ear.

  “Shh, bella. It’s me.”

  Heart pounding, she clawed his hand away, trying to make out his face in the semi-darkness. With her mind still hazy from sleep, she had a split second of terror, wondering if he had come to punish her for betraying him. But when he stretched out on the bed, gently pulled her into his arms, she knew it wasn’t pain he had come to give her.

  “Kat is sleeping on the couch,” she whispered. “The walls are so thin she’ll be able to hear everything.”

  “Ho bisogno di te—I need you,” he whispered.

  He needed her. Nico Toscani—ruthless mobster, fearsome warrior, powerful capo—needed her. “I’m here for you, Mr. Mob Boss.”

  Mia rested her head on his chest, listened to the steady thump of his heart beneath the soft cotton of his T-shirt, breathed in the familiar scent of his cologne, and soaked up the warmth of the man who had been her husband for three short days.

  He stroked his hand through her hair, down her back to the edge of her nightshirt, and then up again. Outside, she could hear the occasional rumble of a truck driving past, the bang of a car door, and the faint sound of music from one of the apartments downstairs.

  Up and down. Up and down. Always to the edge of her nightshirt where it curled over her ass, pausing for a moment, and back again, as if he were trying to make a decision.

  “The day my father died, we went to Prezzo for lunch,” he said softly. “He ordered so much food, but he only ate the pasta alla norma and the caponata. He loved eggplant. I could never understand it. There is no vegetable I detest more. But we shared a sweet tooth and we finished a plate of cannoli between us.”

  Wary of interrupting, Mia relaxed against him, not wanting to push him further than he was ready to go.

  “He showed me his pen and he told me the history of how it had passed down through our family from father to son when the son became a made man. He told me he knew one day the pen would come to me. He said it represented a commitment to honor tradition and to protect the family, and that a good leader, a good man, was one who could put his duty to his family above desire. There was nothing in life I wanted more than to please him. There was nobody I respected and admired more. But always in the back of my mind, I wondered if the price of ho
lding that pen was too high, because after my mother died, he wasn’t the same man.”

  Finally, his hand dipped lower, stroked the curve of her ass, and then up again. Her heart skipped a beat, anticipation or fear, she wasn’t sure which.

  “After he died, I thought of nothing but the weight of his body in my arms, and the warmth of his blood as it ran over my hands. Revenge sustained me. It was the only reason I got up in the morning; it helped me make it through every day; it gave me something to live for. But I didn’t realize it was all I lived for. Not until I met you.”

  Mia’s breath hitched. She had never imagined a man like Nico could bare his very soul. Or that he would trust her with such a precious gift.

  “Sei tutto per me—You are everything to me,” he murmured, his Italian rolling over her in a soft caress. “I’m willing to put down that burden to be with you. I will find another way to restore the family honor.” This time he tugged the nightshirt up, his hand smoothing over her skin, in and out of her curves, beneath the elastic of her panties.

  Need heated her blood like a fever. She stretched and nuzzled his neck, tasting the salt on his skin, moaned softly in his ear.

  “Shhh.” He helped her slide the nightshirt over her head, and drew her down again until she lay on top of him. She shivered as her taut nipples brushed against his T-shirt, her hips pressed against the sharp edges of his belt, his hard length nestled firmly between her thighs.

  She pushed herself up and stared at him, lost herself in the darkness of his eyes. Gently, she grazed his lower lip with the edge of her teeth. With a low groan, he brought his mouth up to hers, hard and hungry, his tongue thrusting inside.

  He tasted strongly of the Johnnie Walker he loved to drink, sweet and spicy, dry and bitter, and she drew him in deeper, tangling her tongue with his, meeting each one of his strokes with her own. She’d missed him. Kissing him was like tasting him all over again.

  He was bold, demanding, his fingers in her hair holding her in place, his tongue sweeping her mouth, claiming every inch with the ruthlessness of the mob boss he was.