Chapter 21
CHAPTER 21
Nero
“ I s everything set?” I ask Davide four days later as I sheath my knives into my boots.
“Yes boss,” his voice comes in through the phone. “By the way, I managed to locate Kirsten’s family, and I put her on a plane with my girlfriend this morning. She will make sure Kirsten gets back to her parents.”
“Who?”
He sighs. “The girl Tony had on his boat. She’s been asking about you.”
“Davide, focus ,” I bite out. I’m relieved the girl is safe, but I have bigger fish to fry than her whereabouts. After four days of checking and double-checking that all my ducks are in row, it’s finally time to strike.
The past few days have been hell, and not because of my extensive preparations, but because I haven’t spoken to Sofia since I walked out of her room that night.
The night where she had told me quite clearly that she can’t choose me. Even before she had opened her mouth, I had seen the hesitation in her eyes, and it had cut at me. Did she care about that asshole? The thought alone is enough to drive me crazy with rage, and rage isn’t welcome anywhere near me right now.
I can’t afford to make any move fueled by rage, because I know one wrong step, and all of this will come crumbling down. The way Sebastian has been all over her hasn’t helped to douse my wrath, either.
But even though she’s showed me where her loyalties lie, I still find myself worried about her. Worried that she’ll get hurt in the aftermath, and that thought is somehow worse than me failing entirely.
“I need a favor,” I find myself saying.
“Anything,” he replies.
I’m a fool. A big, bumbling moron. “I want you to get Sofia out of here. Far away from here when everything starts going down.”
There’s a pause on the other end of the line, and I squeeze my eyes closed. “Davide?”
“You mean Mrs. Lucchese? Sofia Lucchese? Sebastian’s wife?”
“She’s not his ,” I snarl, fists clenching. “Can you do it? Or do I need to find someone else?” He’s the only one I trust with a task like this. Davide is the closest thing to a friend I have, has been since he saved me from almost getting killed in a robbery gone wrong when I was eighteen.
“Yes, boss.”
“And no matter how things turn out?—”
“Nothing will go wrong,” he insists. “We are covered on all fronts, and Lucchese has no idea what’s coming.”
I drag a hand through my hair. “Do it anyway. Get her out of here, Davide.”
He hesitates. “Yes, boss.”
When I hang up, I feel the first sense of relief since I made up my mind to strike today. My men have surrounded the docks, and I have a backup team at the ready. The other Capos on my side are ready to start snatching up Lucchese’s businesses and clubs as soon as he goes down.
By the end of the day, nothing will remain of Lucchese’s legacy. I already have people waiting on standby to pick up his relatives. My initial plan was to wipe them out too, but that plan feels too cold-blooded for me all of a sudden.
Damn it all to hell, I don’t even recognize myself anymore.
I reach for the handle of my bedroom door at the same time it flies open. I leap backward and reach for my Glock tucked into the back of my pants.
“Nero,” a soft voice whispers, and I release the handle of the gun.
“Sofia,” I say. “What are you doing here?”
“I had to see you before you left.” She moves into the room fully and shuts the door behind her, pulse fluttering at her throat.
My eyebrows fly up at her appearance. Except for the times when she’s gasping under me in pleasure, Sofia always looks impeccable. Not a wrinkle on her cloth in sight. The woman that is standing before me at the moment looks harried, wrecked.
Her hair is in a single braid down one side of her neck, several strands hanging around her face. Her face is clean of makeup, mouth looking bitten and raw. The brown pants she has on are severely creased and so is the white shirt.
My eyes fly down her body and finally land on her bare feet. “Where are your shoes?”
“I came to speak to you.”
I will never admit it, but I’m too much of a coward at the moment to hear what she has to say. My biggest fear is that she’s about to beg me to stop my plan. If she begs for Lucchese’ life, I don’t know what I will do.
“That’s not what I asked,” I drawl. “Do you make it a habit of walking around barefoot, or does your husband not set out enough of a budget for shoes?”
Her mouth tightens and she steps forward. The way her hand is worrying and creasing at her pants is a clear indication of her nervousness, no matter how much of a brave font she’s trying to put up.
“Can you shut up for a second?” she snaps.
I freeze, gaping at her. Did she just tell me to shut up, or am I hallucinating?
“Excuse me?” I blink at her.
She fists her hands in her hair. “I haven’t seen you in days. And yeah, I know that we have passed each other in the hallways, and we live in the same house, but it’s not enough.”
“Sofia—”
“Allow me to say this, Nero.” Her green eyes flash at me. “Four days ago in my bedroom, I was trying to talk, and you wouldn’t listen. You just heard exactly what you wanted to hear and then put the other words together from your own head and decided that I want to be with Sebastian.”
My heart gives a painful thud against my chest. “You don’t?”
Her breath shudders out of her and her hands drop to her sides, shoulders drooping.
“No, I don’t. I knew from an age that was far too young that, like every other woman in our world, I was going to be used as a way to join a family, or seal a business deal, or as a bargaining chip. I’ve always just been something . But I have dreams too. I am a person. Beyond being a wife and a mafia princess. Did you know that I’ve always wanted to be a vet?”
“A vet? Like a veterinary doctor?” I ask to clarify.
Sofia giggles. “Yeah. I love animals. Even Cat. I spent so long imagining it, fantasizing about it even though I knew it could never happen. That has always been me, wanting things and then allowing every other person around me to tell me what I’m supposed to want and then pushing me into whatever role they want for me.”
She raises her pert chin into the air, lips pursed. “I want more for myself, Nero. You’ve made me want more. Made me believe that I can get more.”
“What are you trying to say?” There is something rumbling inside of me, warning me to retreat.
“Isn’t it obvious?” she laughs. “Isn’t it so obvious by the way I can’t stay a minute away from you without feeling like a part of me is missing? Isn’t it obvious by the fact that I’m right here giving you permission to wreck my entire life? I love you, Nero Castello. I’m in love with you, and I know that my timing is horrible, but I don’t know when else I could have said this. I’ve been such a coward, and I?—”
“Sofia, please stop,” I rasp.
Her lips part, eyes full of such hope that I hate myself a little. I hate myself for what I’m about to do, but I know it’s the right thing. From day one, all I’ve done is get her in trouble.
I touched her knowing the consequences she would face if she was ever caught. I very nearly ruined her life, and here she is again, offering me the remaining pieces of it for me to destroy.
Clearing my throat, I stare down at her steadily. “Whatever it is you’re offering, I don’t want it. We are done.”
Her mouth drops open. “I don’t understand. I—I thought?—”
“I think you should leave,” I tell her. I’m doing the right thing for the first time since I met her. Once she leaves here now, Davide will pick her up, take her somewhere else, somewhere safe, and if something happens and I don’t come back, she can be free to start a life far from all of this. Be a vet, perhaps. She can even keep Cat.
And even if I do come back, she won’t be obligated to stay with me because I’m the victor of the story.
I want Sofia to have options. I don’t want to be yet another man that has snatched her options from her hand.
“Leave,” she repeats the word like it’s foreign. “You don’t want me?”
I want you more than I know what to do with. I want you too much for my own sanity. “I need to focus on my mission.”
“That’s not what I asked!”
“What do you want from me?” I roar. “You want me to say how much I adore you, pour my heart out and tell you that I don’t want to destroy everything I’ve been planning for years because you sudden realize you love me? I won’t stop my revenge because of you.”
She huffs in disbelief. “ You thick headed idiot! I’m not asking you to!”
“Then what exactly are you asking me now? And why now of all times? Four days ago, I asked you to come with me, to choose me?—”
“I did choose you!” Sofia throws up her hands in the air. “I chose you from the first moment I scrubbed my skin of my husband’s touch and ran down to that greenhouse to wait for you. I chose you when I continued to wait for you there for days even after I lost hope. I’ve chosen you every day since then. But you expected me to just decide on a whim to put my family at risk, and I couldn’t do that.”
Her chest is heaving, and her eyes are narrowed in anger, and the only thing I can think of is kissing her. I want to plunder that mouth and make it soft and pliable under mine. I want to show her with words I can’t say that I’m tumbling into uncharted waters right along with her.
“And if I don’t win today?” I ask slowly, carefully. “Are you saying that you will watch your entire life go down the drain and still love me? We will be fugitives. Is that what you want?”
“I just want you, Nero.” Her voice breaks. “I don’t even care about my lifelong dreams, or anything I have here. No, that’s wrong. I have nothing here. Yeah, I know, it’s pathetic, but it’s the truth. I want you, anyway I can get you. That’s what it means to love someone.”
I scoff. “And how would you know that? You’re not exactly a glowing study on love.”
She flinches and I immediately wish I could take the words back. The hope in her eyes fizzles away until there’s nothing left but sorrow, that familiar, weighty sorrow I saw her in her eyes the first night at the greenhouse. And suddenly I realize I’ve taken it too far and become like every other man I’ve been trying to protect her from.
“You’re right, I’m not.” She tries to smile but it’s brittle at best. “And you’re also right that I should leave.”
“Sofia.” Her name is dragged out of my throat, a plea, a prayer, and a demand all at once.
Ignoring me, she turns sharply on her knees, shoulders hunched up to almost her ears. I did that. I’m no better than her asshole husband.
I realize at that moment that I never want to put that look on her face ever again. I never want to watch the light leave her eyes, and I never want to look at her and read heartbreak in her body language.
I reach for her before her hand can close around the doorknob, roughly spinning her around. She lets out a surprised squeal as I push her up against the door, and I swallow the sound, as greedy for it as I am for the rest of her.
“I’m going to fix it,” I whisper into her mouth. “I’m going to fix this. I’m going to fix everything.”
And she kisses me back like she’s drowning and I’m her lifeline.