Chapter 29 Nikolai
NIKOLAI
Islept for several hours and woke up starving. I ate the protein bar Lorenzo had left me and quickly downed the whole bottle of water. Once I felt like I was awake enough, I put on some joggers and a T-shirt I found in my backpack and stepped down into the living room.
Lorenzo was in the kitchen. He looked hot as hell in a simple T-shirt and faded jeans. I hadn’t known he could cook, but he was by the stove, tossing something in a sizzling pan.
“You cook too?”
He smiled. “I sure do. I’m making us stir-fry for dinner. Do you want to see if Alina wants some?”
I felt my cheeks heat. “I don’t know.”
“You’re going to have to see her sometime. She doesn’t care, and maybe she didn’t hear anything on her side.”
He was right. I knocked on Alina’s door. No answer. I knocked again. Still no answer. “You’re sure she’s in there?”
“She better be. Open it.” The concern in his voice sent a shiver through me. I turned the knob and swung the door open.
Alina was sitting cross-legged on her bed, typing away on a laptop, but she jumped up, and suddenly, there was a knife in her hand.
I held up my hands. “It’s just me. I knocked and called you.”
She set the knife down and pointed to her ears. “Headphones.”
So she was fine. She just hadn’t heard me. “I came to see if you wanted some dinner.”
She shook her head. “I made myself a sandwich a little while ago.”
“Lorenzo is making stir-fry. It smells really good.”
“Hmm,” she said. “That sounds good, but maybe I’ll eat some later. I’m trying to hack into my father’s security cameras, and I’m close.”
“Wait, how did you learn to be a hacker?”
“Some connections I made back home, videos on the internet, a little bit of innate computer skills. I thought it would be a useful skill.”
“That’s incredible. You must be as good as a professional if you can break into your father’s cameras.”
She shrugged. “Maybe. If I could’ve figured out a way to get paid and my father not suspect anything, I would have. But no, so far, I’ve only done this for myself.”
I realized Lorenzo was standing behind me when he said, “If you’re that good, then we might have a job for you when all this is over.”
She smiled. “We’ll see what happens. Now, go. I’ll let you know if I get in.” She shooed us out of the room.
The stir-fry Lorenzo made with chicken, broccoli, and peppers was as delicious as it smelled, and I was thrilled at the idea of Lorenzo cooking for us in different circumstances. If things worked out. If we all survived. If Lorenzo didn’t die while trying to protect me.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I’m just thinking about what’s going to happen when we leave here.”
“I’ll handle it.”
“But how?” I wanted to believe he would, but no one crossed Remington Theriot and lived to tell about it.
“Don’t worry about that right now. I need to clean up, but then we’ll have to find something to do.” His salacious smile told me he already knew what he wanted to do. I loved the idea of more time in bed with him, but I was exhausted.
“I’m still tired from before.”
“We’ll see if you revive.”
He’d already come twice. “What kind of stamina level do you have?”
“Around you? Superhuman.”
I insisted on helping Lorenzo clean the kitchen. He said if I was really too tired for anything else, we could watch a movie.
When we were seated on the couch, I reached out, took the remote from him, and set it back on the tiny coffee table.
“You said you chose to come here with me instead of staying. Does that mean Remington didn’t send you?”
“At first, he expected me to stay and attack Ivanov with him, but after Alina showed up, he decided it was actually better for me to go with you. Ultimately though, it was still my choice.”
“You could’ve stayed with your brothers. I know how much you worry about them.”
“I could have, but they insisted they don’t need me protecting them. And you do.”
I felt a flutter in my chest. He’d chosen me. “I do.”
We sat in silence for a few moments. I could tell Lorenzo wanted to say something, but he was hesitating. “What is it?”
“I told you Remington ordered me to stay away from you and that he wants you sent away as soon as our operation ended.”
I nodded. “You did.”
“My brothers think I should’ve just told him no, and so does Alina, but there’s another reason that I was hesitant to let you stay with me.”
My stomach flip-flopped as my heart rate skyrocketed. “What is it?”
“Before you decide what you want for your future, you need to know about my past, about why I’m so adamant that I’m responsible for my brothers. After you hear my story, you can decide if you still want to trust me or not.”
My fear subsided a little. “Lorenzo, I don’t think there’s anything you’re going to tell me that would make me not trust you.” He was willing to die to defend me. How much more could he do to prove that to me?
“Just listen to my story.”
I nodded, though I didn’t think I could change my mind. A shiver of fear ran through me. What had he done?
“Seven years ago, I was doing some reconnaissance work for Bébé, Remington’s father. That was before he retired from running the family business. I needed to make contact with the Russians. I needed an inside source. So, being very sure of myself, I seduced one of your grandfather’s guards.”
So far, the only thing disturbing about his story was the idea of him giving someone else the same pleasure he’d given me.
“We spent a lot of time together, a lot more time than was needed for me to learn what I wanted to learn. I was having fun. So much fun that I lost my head. I should’ve seen the signs, but I didn’t. I wasn’t really the one getting information. He was.”
I tried to imagine a younger Lorenzo falling for lies told by an older man. I hoped the man who’d betrayed him died a painful death.
“I made plans for him to let me into your grandfather’s house.
He said he was going to help me place bugs in the office.
Bébé had already started to doubt whether the information I was getting was legitimate.
He must’ve realized I’d gotten too deep with this guy, so he sent one of my distant cousins with me.
“It should’ve been a one-man job. My cousin shouldn’t have been there.
But as Bébé had suspected, my informant betrayed us.
As soon as we stepped on the property, their guards were waiting for us.
They shot my cousin through the heart. I watched him fall to the ground as blood spread out under him.
I managed to escape, but I was out of my mind with grief, knowing it was my fault my cousin was dead, and wild with anger at myself for being too stupid to realize I was being used. ”
I moved closer to Lorenzo and laid my hand on his thigh. “I’m so sorry. You should never have been in that position.”
He covered my hand with his and continued.
“I went on a rampage, fighting my way through bars, destroying property, making a mess after mess that had to be paid for by my family. Finally, I tracked down my betrayer at a bar where he was enjoying the reward of a night off. I beat him almost to death, then pulled out my gun. I was ready to kill him right in the middle of a fucking restaurant, but someone had called the cops, and they showed up before I followed through.”
I supposed that was for the best, but the man had deserved to die for what he’d done.
“I went to prison for two years. Rafe was eighteen. I’d taken care of him for years, and that was what he saw of me.”
“But that’s not who you are now.”
He closed his eyes and let his head fall back on the couch. “Isn’t it? Isn’t that man inside me?”
“A man who is passionate. Who defends his family. Who cares. Yes.”
“Look what I did to you. I just showed up and told you I—”
“No. You saved me.”
He shook his head. “I left you there.”
“You left me there because it wasn’t safe for you to take me. How do your brothers feel? Do they resent you? Do they blame you?”
Lorenzo shook his head. “No. They say it wasn’t my fault. That the man betrayed my trust, that he was evil.”
“They’re right.”
He sat back up and looked at me. “Niko, it’s okay to be angry with me.”
“But I’m not. I’m angry with my grandfather and my father. I’m angry with Ivanov. Not with you. Not unless you’re going to be an idiot now.”
“What kind of idiot?”
“The kind that decides that they need to be noble and send me away.”
“Niko, I won’t send you away, but I also won’t force you to stay. You have to understand you’re always going to be in danger. I’m going to always be in danger. My family… sure, we do some good things, but we’re not the good guys.”
“If you think I’m strong, then why wouldn’t I be able to handle being with your family?”
He sighed. “You deserve a real life.”
“Just because Dante wanted out doesn’t mean I do.” Why couldn’t he understand that?
“But you could have a regular life with someone else.”
“Not after what I’ve been through, the way I was raised, the things I know. I don’t think that’s possible. Did it work for Dante?”
“I keep pulling him back into this life because I need him.”
“Would he have come back if he really didn’t want to?”
“Maybe. No. I don’t know.” He let out a long breath, then held out his hand. “Come here.” I scooted even closer, and Lorenzo pulled me over his lap so I was straddling him. “If I had my way, I’d never stop touching you. I’d hold you against me all the time.”
I sighed and laid my head on his shoulder as he wrapped his arms around me. Nothing had changed for me after his confession. In Lorenzo’s arms, I still felt safe, relaxed, and cared for in a way I never had.