CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
AINSLEY
M y head is pounding, thigh throbbing, brain fuzzy, but none of that compares to the thrashing of my heart against my sternum. Sweat coats my palms, and my nostrils itch.
God, I hate that fucking smell.
The pizzelle is an Italian staple, a cookie that belongs at any holiday gathering. There are a lot of flavors, but anise is a popular one. It was once simply the treat I passed over on my way to snatch some cannoli or a slice of tiramisu. Until it haunted me.
The first time it made me sick was when I was pregnant. And after that, the smell of anise always rendered me nauseous. My mother kept them out of our house once she noticed. She didn’t champion me in most ways, but she’d seen me throw up from them enough times to be sympathetic.
Then I married Nick, and he moved in with us. He brought them home once or twice, and I kept my mouth shut about it. His mother and sisters-in-law made them, so I figured it would only cause problems to complain. But after a couple of years, I confided in him. He already knew about the pregnancy, knew that my father had been holding the baby over my head. The Morelli administration role meant enough to him to overlook that, but he clearly resented me for it.
Once Josh died—or I believed he did—I decided I should try to bond with Nick, make the best of the marriage, thinking maybe he’d eventually aid the search for my son. It was a long shot, but I was desperate. And so I unveiled the vulnerable tidbit in the hopes he’d view it as an olive branch since I had always been so closed off.
That backfired. Colossally. To an outsider, the way he manipulated me with that knowledge might’ve seemed minor. That’s what made his abuse so masterful. It was quiet and calculated. Invisible shackles. Even my mother made a flippant comment about his controlling methods being far better than alternatives.
But for me, those pizzelles were the symbol of my cage. He told me that since smell was the sense tied strongest to memory, he felt it was a useful reminder of how poisonous my past relationship and illegitimate baby were. He filled our home with pizzelles. When he was really pissed at me, I’d wake up to a basket of them beside my bed.
Just like this.
“Someone find out where they fucking came from,” Gage demands, his jaw sharp like steel, eyes fuming. But then he plants those ambers on me, and they gleam with tender devotion.
Ty breezes out into the hallway, probably to investigate.
I don’t want to think about Nick. I just want Gage to hold me and to bask in the realization that they’ve all been here. Waiting. For me.
“Talk to me, baby. You said you were sure he was gone.” Gage arches his brow, silently cautioning me to speak vaguely.
My mind might be hazy, but I’ve been trained well in the art of never uttering anything incriminating. Although I haven’t followed that rule famously with him.
“He definitely was.” My voice is still froggy, but I widen my eyes as much as I can to express my certainty.
Because I am certain. There was blood everywhere. A bullet in his head. He was gone. I’m sure of it.
My gaze roams around the room, searching for something that will help me make sense of this, when it docks on the Scrabble tiles on the overbed table that are next to a completed puzzle. The table is swung out, so in all the chaos with the doctor and the family crowded in here, I didn’t notice. But now, those tiles—or more precisely, the three words they spell out—practically stop my heart.
“You love me?” I croak, my lungs melting into my back.
Gage cups my cheeks and pecks my nose, his captivating ambers meandering all over my face. “Of course I love you. More than anything, Wicked. I’ve never been so fucking scared …”
My breath hitches, tears cascading over my cheeks, and the ugliest cry-frown imaginable tugs the corners of my lips down. “I love you too.”
He thumbs the streams away, his forehead pinched in concern for my fervid emotion, even though the doctor warned us that was possible. “We’re going to get through this, and then I’m going to spoil you rotten so you never have to question how much I love you. But right now, we need to figure out who’s fucking with you, okay?”
“Okay,” I breathe.
“Who else could know the time of what happened?” Wells presses. “Anyone you can think of? Levi?”
“No,” I mutter, exhausted, defeated, scared. “I didn’t see him for ten to fifteen minutes after. He’d know the ballpark time, but …”
“Okay.” He strokes his forehead, stressed but also so clearly concerned about me, which fills me with that warmth of belonging. And the fear that it will all be ripped away.
“Trust your gut.” Celeste’s brown eyes are compassionate. She’s perched at the end of my bed, rubbing my calf. Her ankle is sprained, but thankfully, she’s otherwise okay. “You have good instincts,” she encourages. “Sometimes, that trumps what we believe are facts.”
“She sure does, Ace.” Liam looms behind her, eyes flitting from his wife to me. “So, your reaction to the pizzelles …”
“Yeah.” I rack my brain, trying to make sense of it while my whole body throbs. “It doesn’t feel like a coincidence.”
“It’s not,” Ty says, tromping back into the room. “The kitchen isn’t serving pizzelles.” He pulls apart the food tray, tearing into all the small pieces of packaging, searching. Eventually, he lifts the decorative white paper that lined the small cookie tray and shows us the writing on it, but he reads it himself. “ Don’t die, darling. It’s time to come home .”
“That’s freaking creepy.” Rena feigns an all-over chill, and I feel every bit of that skitter up my spine.
“No shit,” Ivy hisses, her fierce-badass alter ego raging. “This is enough. We’re not going to cut a deal with someone terrorizing her. Everything else is on hold until we find that bastard.”
As comforted as I am to be on the receiving end of her loyalty, the truth illuminated in that note crashes into me. I wish I could tap into my own outrage, but the room spins, my limbs and tongue growing heavy. “It’s not Nick. It’s his brother Tony.”
“How do you know?” Gage asks.
I rub the spot on my hip—the burn that did far more than scorch my flesh. It seared a hopelessness into my bones. My husband sat idly by, watching his brother brand me, among other things, all for the sake of some deal. Nick smoked a cigar across the room with his oldest brother, Theo, both of them calling me a good girl for servicing Tony.
Maybe that’s another reason for my newfound exhibitionist kink, my need to reclaim that with Gage. What they used to violate me, he uses to worship me.
Fuck. I’ve tried so hard to block that night out, but the smell of the pizzelles and that term of endearment have me dizzy.
“There was a night when … Nick made some deal with his brothers and loaned me to them—well, to Tony. I mean, Theo was there, and Nick was there too … He stayed, but …” I can’t seem to muster the strength to expand on that, but I think they get the gist.
“Tony’s the one who burned you,” Gage growls, every visible vein pulsing with fury. It’s less of a question and more of a conclusion.
So, right before I vomit on the floor beside my bed, I nod and say, “He called me darling when he did it.”