~ Chapter 14 ~
Nico
“Nothing to report, Nico,” Rocco says to me as I roll up to his window Wednesday morning.
“Good. Thanks, Rocco. You’re relieved for the day. But be back again tonight at ten.”
“Got it.” He nods and pulls away from the curb while I pull into her driveway.
I’ve had Rocco watching over Cassie’s house every night to make sure no one comes as a surprise to her or her brother. I know those he owes money to wouldn’t be stupid enough to come during the day in a neighborhood like this. It’s at night that no one wants to look out their windows.
I knock on her door, and when she answers a few seconds later, I take note of how tired she looks.
“I should’ve let you sleep longer.”
“Why?” she asks, confused.
“You look tired. I’m sure you have a lot of work to do with this being your last semester.”
“Are you saying I look bad?” she teases, popping her hip out with her hand on her waist.
“Never,” I say quickly. “That’s not what I meant. I just…you know what? Never mind.” I shake my head at my own stupidity. “Are you ready? I have breakfast in the car.”
“Good, I’m starving.”
“I’m going to take you to my favorite spot I like to go to when I’m here.”
“Okay,” she says softly, grabbing her coat from the hook and her keys and small wallet from the dish on the side table to place in her pockets.
I open the passenger door for her and she gifts me with a small smile that I accept as the prize I know it to be.
For as much as I love her sassy and spicy side, I want her to feel safe to show me her soft side, too. It’s the ultimate sign of trust.
“I got you a coffee. Hazelnut with a splash of cream.”
“How did you…?” she starts to ask, a hint of wonder in her voice.
“I have a good memory. I listened when you ordered room service last month. And in case it ever comes up for you, I like my coffee black.”
“That’s easy to remember.”
“But if you want to get specific, I like a really nice Ethiopian blend.”
She laughs and I look over to catch her beautiful smile.
Fuck me. How is she even real?
“Okay. I’ll keep that in mind,” she tells me, then picks up her cup. She blows on the small opening before taking a tentative sip. “Mmm, it’s good.”
“It’s from The Aces. I had them make us a little something for breakfast, too. Of course, if you wake up with me again in my room, then you can order as much of the coffee as you want.”
“Are you trying to bribe me with the best coffee I’ve ever had in exchange for sex?”
“Bribery? Sex? Wow, what a dirty mind you have,” I tease. “I just meant wake up with me. I never said anything about sex.”
“Oh, please,” she draws out, rolling her eyes. “Don’t act like you’re so chaste or clever.”
“Alright, you caught me. I was picturing you drinking coffee in my room in nothing but a robe after a marathon night of fucking. Then your robe happens to slip open and shows me–”
“Okay,” she says, cutting me off. “I get it.”
I look over at her and see her hiding her smile into the lid of her cup as she continues to drink her coffee.
Damn, she’s gorgeous.
I went to her Monday night to talk to her and get her to talk to me about everything I found out from Stefano. But of course, I was distracted by her right away, and my plan flew out the window. Not that I minded. I mean, Jesus, she suffocated me with her pussy and thighs, and had I died, I would’ve died a very happy man.
She keeps letting me do to her what comes to mind, and doesn’t pause to question me. I fucking love that. She’s adventurous and just as desperately horny for me as I am for her.
We drive in comfortable silence for a few minutes as we leave Atlantic City’s limits and continue down towards the southern point of the island through Ventnor, Margate, and Longport.
“I’ve wanted to buy a house down here for a long time,” I tell her as we drive along the stretch of road that borders the water.
“They’re all beautiful,” she says wistfully. “I’ve admired these houses for years. My aunt used to take Sean and I for drives and I’d daydream about living in one of these big houses on the water. I always thought life would be perfect if I did. I mean, what could be better?”
“A nice house doesn’t mean a perfect life.”
She sighs. “I know. It was just a daydream. I used to live in a nice house in Boston. I mean, it certainly wasn’t like these, but my dad, brother, and I were happy. My mom died during childbirth with Sean when I was four, so I only remember bits and pieces of her.”
“I’m so sorry, Cassie.” I reach over and place my hand on her leg, and she covers it with hers.
“Thank you.” She looks up at me and then back out the window. “I became a mom to Sean as we were growing up, and then after our dad was uh…” – she pauses – “died, I tried to be both parents to him.”
“What about your aunt? Wasn’t she there?”
“She was, I guess. She worked a lot. It’s a change for anyone who was single and free to then have two kids to take care of, so I tried my best to help her, and made sure Sean and I were never too much of a burden.”
“That shouldn’t have been your load to bear,” I tell her, and she shrugs and takes a sip of coffee.
“It is what it is. That might be why I went a little wild when I got to college. I mean, I still lived here, but Sean was older and able to stay home alone without me, which meant I got to have a little freedom for the first time.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that. You deserve to have fun, Cassie. Everyone does. We only have this one life, and if we don’t enjoy it when we have the opportunities to, then what’s the point?”
“I guess. But if I had been there for Sean more the past few years, maybe then he…” She doesn’t finish her thought, but I know what she’s thinking. Maybe then he wouldn’t have a gambling problem.
“Maybe, what?”
“Nothing. Just, maybe he would be surer of who he is and know what he wants in life.”
“He’s eighteen. He has time.”
“How do you–? Oh, right, you looked into me.”
“Don’t make it sound so sinister.”
“Sinister?” She chuckles. “No, but I’ve never had a man look into me, so it’s new.”
“I’m different, is what you’re saying?”
“That’s one way of putting it. I can say with certainty that I’ve never met a man like you.”
My chest swells with pride. Whether she meant it as a compliment or not, I’m going to take it as one. “Thank you.”
“You really will take just about anything I say as a compliment, won’t you?”
“From you? Yes, I will. Because it means I’m on your mind.”
I can feel her eyes on me, and when I look over at her, I see the amusement in them despite her straight face.
“On my mind. You could say that.”
“What else could you say?”
“Are we almost there?”
“Yes. Just a few minutes.”
“Are we going to the point?”
“We are. I should have assumed you knew it since you’ve lived here for ten years.”
“It’s my favorite place, too,” she tells me, giving me another of her soft smiles. “My brother and I used to see who could go out farther onto the jetty before the other got scared. I always won, of course. Until he got older, that is, and entered his fearless phase, while I couldn’t help picturing myself slipping and getting stuck between the rocks as the waves washed over me.”
“I’m glad you had that common sense.”
“Yeah, but then I always owed Sean five dollars when he won.” I can see her smile in the reflection of the window, but then her face falls. “That’s where he got his first taste of betting, I suppose. He has a gambling problem.”
“Is that why he looks the way he does?”
Cassie clears her throat. “He got into a little trouble, but I took care of it.”
A little trouble? If it was a little trouble, she wouldn’t have had to sell the car I got her.
“If I can do anything, let me know.”
Her head whips back towards me. “I don’t need help. It’s a family thing and I’m going to take care of it.”
“I thought you said you already did.”
“Don’t twist my words. You know what? This was a bad idea.” She sits up in her seat and crosses her arms.
I blow out a silent breath and think of how I can salvage the morning. She just put her guard back up and firmly in place, and I don’t get much time to think, because once I park at the point, she unbuckles her seatbelt and gets out.
“Cassie!” I call after her, but it gets swallowed with the wind as she slams the door.
Jesus fucking Christ, Nico. Piss her off some more. Because that’s worked so well for you so far at bringing her closer to you.
Grunting, I chase after her. Damn, she’s quick. She’s already out on the jetty. Luckily, just a few rocks deep.
It’s freezing, and the wind whips her hair all around her, making her look like an ethereal warrior surveying her kingdom before she goes to battle. The deep red against the blue backdrop is like blood in the water. And if I’m not careful, it’ll be my blood.
Cassie has the power to cut me deep if I keep getting too far ahead of myself with her. I know she wants me, but I think she’s afraid. And I understand why, I do. But she’ll never understand me if she continues to keep her guard up when we’re together.
Cassie also has the power to make me cut everyone who’s ever cut her. I’d be her hero if she’d let me. Not the hero who saves, though. No, I’d be the avenging hero who gets rid of everyone who already has, and would dare, hurt my girl.
So, perhaps I’ll be the villain with good intentions.
It’s the most unlike me thing I could possibly do. I thought Leo and everyone in the family was crazy for wanting to burn the world for one single person, but I guess the view is all rose-colored from where I’m standing now, because it makes perfect fucking sense to me in this moment.
Approaching Cassie, I shove my hands in my coat pockets and plant my feet right behind her.
“You keep pushing me away,” I say just loud enough for her to hear me above the wind.
“I know.” She nods. Taking a deep breath, she lets it out and turns around to face me, tucking her wild strands behind her ears. “It’s been engrained in me since I was a kid. Family secrets stay within the family.”
“I was taught something very similar.”
“I figured.” Cassie’s eyes hold mine, and I can see the battle she’s waging on whether to tell me what I can sense she wants to finally let go of. “I don’t talk about my family, Nico. To anyone. Not Lexi, who I trust implicitly, and not even my brother. It’s not for lack of trying, though. I want to tell you. I’ve wanted to tell you a few times now, but each time it got stuck on the tip of my tongue.”
“I told you I’m here.” I cup her face – rubbing my thumbs back and forth across her cold cheeks. “Your secrets are my secrets, Cassandra. I want you to trust me with them, but I won’t force you.”
“I know. You’re good like that.”
The wind picks up and Cassie’s chin starts to quiver. “Come on. Let’s get back to the warmth of the car and we’ll talk. You’re freezing.”
I take her hand and lead her back off the rocks and across the strip of sand until we’re once again enveloped in warmth.
We both reach for our coffees, but they’re lukewarm now.
“We can get fresh ones if you’d like.”
“No, it’s okay. Maybe later. You mentioned breakfast, though?”
“Yes.” I reach back and grab the insulated bag the hotel kitchen gave me and pull out two wrapped sandwiches. “Bacon, egg, and cheese on a sesame bagel?”
“Can you read minds?”
“I wish. Then I’d get to hear all the dirty things you think about doing with me.” I watch her cheeks heat and her eyes twinkle like I just caught her thinking dirty thoughts. “Are you right now?”
“No,” she says too quickly. “Maybe,” she corrects. “Stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?” I ask, lowering my voice to an octave I know makes her pussy wet.
“Like you are now,” she huffs, stealing the sandwich from my hand and ripping it open. She takes a big bite from one half and her eyes close. “So good,” she mumbles after swallowing. “Do you have any ketchup in there?”
“I do.” I hold the bag out for her and she reaches in for a ramekin of ketchup to dip her sandwich in.
I start in on mine and stare out at the water, letting Cassie gather her thoughts. I know not to push her. She’ll talk when she’s ready.
“My dad was high-up in the McLaughlin family in Boston. I don’t know the details of his position because I was still sort of young when he was killed, but I know he was important. We were never without what we needed and people seemed to both fear and respect my father wherever we went. I thought it was cool.” She scoffs, shaking her head.
“He wasn’t a great dad,” she continues. “He had a short temper, drank a lot, and wasn’t around to help with homework or show up for Sean and I when we had something that was remotely important to us. Like my dance recitals or even a single soccer game of mine or Sean’s.” Cassie takes another bite of her bagel. “But he tried to be more of a dad in the end, which is why he was killed. The three of us were under FBI protection at some motel outside of Boston, and when my dad and two of the agents were on their way to the FBI offices, they were all killed.”
“I’m sorry, Cassie. You shouldn’t have had to go through that.”
“He was going to flip on the family and we were going into witness protection. It was either that or prison. He told me not to trust anyone in the McLaughlin family from that moment forward, and to never open my mouth about them either. He told me everyone knew the feds were close to making a case on the boss for one thing or another, so they planted evidence on my dad that would make him the fall guy.”
Cassie wraps the other half of her sandwich up and tosses it onto the dashboard. She tucks her feet up onto the seat and covers her face with her delicate hands, then runs her fingers through her hair.
I don’t dare say anything.
I don’t dare correct her, either.
She has it so incredibly wrong. Her dad lied to her.
“He was just trying to keep us together,” she says. “He knew we’d be alone if he went to prison and didn’t want anyone else raising us. It was nice to feel like he was putting his own family first for once, and not the McLaughlins.”
“I can understand that.”
“I grew up surrounded by people I considered family. People who turned their backs on us without a second thought. How can that be? You can trust people with your life one day, but then cut off, kill, and abandon in the blink of an eye the next.”
“Cassie.” I want to say something comforting, but that’s how it goes. If the boss gives an order, you follow it. Of course, Leo would never give an order like that. I don’t even think his dad would’ve. Leo would never use someone else to save his own ass if he was caught doing something.
I don’t even want to get into the fact that he would never be doing any of the dirty work himself that would cause him to have a case made on him anyhow.
“I know,” she says, nodding her head, as if she heard my unspoken thoughts. “I know that’s just how things are. My world was going to crumble around me no matter what, I guess. It’s why I’ve tried to stay away from you. Not very successfully, but I tried.” Cassie finally looks at me. “I know your world, Nico. I grew up in it, and I was cast out of it.”
“Cassie,” I say carefully. “I say this with all due respect to your late father, but me and my family aren’t like the McLaughlins. We are a family. We have an oath. We have an understanding. We have trust. We don’t plant evidence on family members so they take the fall, and we don’t turn our backs on each other unless we’re given an indisputable reason to.”
“Nico, it’s all the same. You’re all the same. Money, family, loyalty, respect, blah, blah, blah. It doesn’t matter if it’s the Irish mob or the Italian mafia. Hell, even the Bratva or Yakuza. You’re all the same.”
“From the outside, it may be that simple, but it isn’t. And you choosing to lump me in with people who you used to know…” I rub the bridge of my nose, needing to keep my words under control. She doesn’t know what she’s saying. I know we’re not all the same. Angela Cicariello, Luca’s girl, could tell Cassie not every family is the same, because we’re nothing like the animals she used to be related to. “Do you trust me? Even a little bit?”
“What does that have to do with what I’m saying?”
“Either you trust me or you don’t. What you’re saying might be true to some extent, but there’s one huge difference you’re missing.”
“And what’s that?”
“I would never break your trust, Cassie. When you’re with me, you’re mine. You’re under my protection. And with that, comes the protection of every single member of my family and every soldier in our organization. You’d be at the top of the priority list for everyone. I’d be there for you. Same goes for Lexi now that she’s with Vinny. You can ask her.”
“It’s not protection I care about. I can take care of myself.”
“You should care about it, because you have people from the McLaughlin family on your brother’s back right now and I doubt you can take care of yourself against an entire family. Your brother thought he could get in with the family again, but he got in way over his head.”
Cassie’s shoulders sag. “You looked deeper, didn’t you? Even when I said not to.”
“I did. I knew you were in trouble, and you weren’t telling me anything. I didn’t want you getting hurt in the crossfire of whatever your brother got involved in.”
“That’s not your business,” she says angrily, her eyes spitting fire. “You’ll tell yourself anything to justify getting what you want. You were mad I wouldn’t tell you everything about myself right away, so you went and found out for yourself and pretended you didn’t already know.” Her eyes narrow. “You knew about my mother and father already, didn’t you? For how long? You let me sit here just now and tell you my closest kept secret while you pretended to not know and feigned sympathy. You’re a good actor. Maybe you should switch career paths.”
“Cassie, please be reasonable,” I beg, and immediately know that was the wrong thing to say.
“Be reasonable?” she balks. “Are you serious? That’s all you have to say?”
“No, it’s not. I just don’t know any other way to go about a problem. I dig into it and find a solution.”
“I’m not a problem for you to fix, Nico.”
“I know that.”
“No, you don’t. You literally just said that’s how you go about a problem. My life isn’t yours to sort through and solve.”
Scrubbing my hands down my face, I look out at the calm water and wish that I felt the same way. Instead, I created a storm inside this car.
She’s not done chewing me out, either.
“You’ve only known me a short time, Nico. You can’t just show up and expect me to spill my life to you in a day. I’ve spent every night and day since meeting you, wondering about you and wishing I could know everything about you, and I hoped one day I’d get my answers. I know there’s a time and place for everything, though. You know no boundaries. We’ve had sex, Nico. Lots of crazy hot sex that has been the best of my life, but we can’t be more. I can’t trust you if I’m always going to be questioning your motives and if you promise one thing to my face and go and do another behind my back.”
Her words are fucking killing me. They’re a hot knife moving through me, searing me in half. And the worst part is that she’s right. I lied to her and she caught me.
“Cassandra–”
“Don’t call me that. No one calls me that.”
“You’ve never corrected me before.”
“I am now.”
She’s pushing me away again.
I know she loves when I use her full name, so I know this is just her way of building that thick wall back up around herself I was finally able to crack open.
“I’m sorry I lied to you. I know my reasoning behind it doesn’t make it better, but I also can’t promise you I won’t overstep again. I can only promise to be upfront about it.”
“Take me home,” she says, putting on her seatbelt and looking out the window.
Rubbing my forehead, I go through a million and one things I could say to try and fix what I broke, but I know none of them will work. She’s stubborn, and getting her to open up even a little was a miracle.
I need to think. I need to be the rational Nico everyone knows me to be and find a solution that doesn’t involve repeating myself until I’m blue in the face, or us yelling at each other to try and get through.
I drive her home and neither of us says anything. Cassie keeps her eyes on the world outside the window while my hands grip the steering wheel tighter than necessary as I curse myself out internally.
When I pull into her driveway, she tries to make a clean escape, but I grab her wrist when she goes to unbuckle her seatbelt.
She tries to shake me off, but freezes when I say her name. Her eyes close on a deep breath, bracing herself before she meets my eyes with a controlled veil over hers. I know that game well. She can show me nothing all she wants, but the longer I hold her gaze, the more her veil falters.
“We’re not done, Cassandra. Not even a little bit. Not even close. In fact, I don’t ever see myself being done with you. So, when you’re thinking of all the ways you can push me all the way out of your life while trying to convince yourself I’m not the one for you, just know that I’m not going anywhere.”
Her eyes drop their guard and I’m shown everything she refuses admit, and it’s all I need.
I cup her face. “A presto, la miarossa piccante.”