8. Niko
CHAPTER 8
The tail caught my eye about three miles out, so I drove the long way back to my father’s just to waste their time. I consider pulling over and shooting them to send a message to Domalachego, but an irrational show of anger will reveal my hand just as surely as racing back to Gianna would. But I resent the added time I need to be away from her.
My drive back to my father's house is just long and boring enough for me to get a sliver of petty enjoyment, though my anger hasn’t cooled completely. I’m not sure if Domalachego considers me an insecure fool who would bring him straight to her, or if he’s pressing me to see where I’ll draw the line. Based on what I know about his and Gemelli’s history, I tend to think it's the latter. He’ll learn soon I’m not nearly so forgiving as Stefan was. Gianna is my line.
I park next to Pax’s car, which hasn’t moved since before he murdered our father over dinner. Getting out of my car, I watch the black sedan pull away in the distance, giving a brief wave. If their surveillance is worth anything, they saw.
If they happen to come back here looking for Gianna, Pax has been given his instructions. I've never looked forward to seeing just how ruthlessly he can kill someone before, but the prospect of someone trying to take Gianna makes me more bloodthirsty than normal. Unlike my brother, I don’t really enjoy killing, most of the time.
Speaking of my nutjob brother and the ever-growing similarities I'm noticing between the two of us, I need to talk to him about everything that’s happening. Maybe he can be more useful than I’ve previously thought. The idea of having a brother I can count on is so appealing I’m not being entirely rational about my daydreams as I head into the house.
I’m surprised and relieved to see there's no blood splatter. I don't have any desire to clean up another murder, and this seems like proof things can work.
“Pax?” I call, but don’t get an answer. I walk through the house, until I catch him staring off into space in the dining room, where the altercation began.
“I wanted to talk to you.” That foolish overconfidence is thick in my voice, but he doesn’t look up when I speak.
He's not wearing his usual tightly cut wool suit. This may be the first time I’ve ever seen him in jeans and a T-shirt. His hair is frizz rather than his normal sleek curls. I realize he’s staring at himself in the mirror at the end of the room. I’m not sure what he’s seeing, but he looks nothing like the man he killed.
The scene hasn't changed since the night before, except that it's crustier and is starting to smell. The housekeeper really should have cleaned up by now. Oh fuck.
“Pax? What happened to Elisabetta?”
He still doesn't answer me. Even as I walk across the room, he doesn’t look up. This is exactly why I’m worried about someone killing him; getting the jump on him is easy. I lay a hand on his shoulder to get his attention, shake him slightly, my plans to talk to him loosening rapidly.
"Pax, Dad's housekeeper, where is she?"
He finally looks at me.
“Oh, in her room, I think. Why do you ask?”
“If she’s fine and in her room, why hasn’t she cleaned all this up?” Please don’t let her be dead too. A fresh murder is one thing, but I don’t do day-olds—except when they look like Gianna and I have to fake her death.
“She saw me kill Dad, so I locked her in her bedroom.”
“Is she alive in her room, Pax?”
“I don't think I killed her, guess she’s still there. She has a bathroom, right? She shouldn’t be too messed up with access to water. It’s not like I’ve checked on her.”
His green eyes nearly glow with the thin red lines carving through his sclera, and I doubt he’s slept at all since he killed Dad. The dream of having a brother I can depend on never really existed at all but the loss of it still hurts. It’s going to take a lot of effort to get him back into shape. No one will believe he’s my dangerous and controlled dog right now. He doesn’t even look like a groomed one.
“Fucking Christ, Pax,” I chastise him as I leave to free the twenty-year-old illegal immigrant my father has been fucking and using like a slave since she was seventeen. Her life has been hard enough without my brother's additional help, but I'm selfishly glad he did it. It was just the kick in the ass I needed to remind me how terrible an idea confiding in Pax on any level would be. The less he knows, the better, and there’s no way I can tell him about Gianna.
The lamp narrowly misses my head and smashes against the wall behind me when I finally unlock the door. Luckily, her aim isn’t great and I have the presence of self to step out of the way. Elisabetta shakes as she clutches her weapon, waiting to strike again. Blue eyes lock with mine, and she stops swinging. Her blond hair sits in a messy bun, her nose runs, and her eyes shine bright red.
“Mister, Mr. Bouchard?” She sniffles.
“Yeah, you’re safe. Everything is okay,” I reassure her with my hands raised.
A second later, she starts crying in Bulgarian, and I step around the mess and into the room to make sure she doesn’t hurt herself on the broken shards. She’s shaking, and much like I did with Pax, I pat her on her shoulder to try to calm her. She jumps into my arms, and I catch her on instinct but seriously consider dropping her. I really don’t want to touch another woman for any reason with Gianna at home. But I know she wouldn’t want me to hurt a scared girl for fear of making her jealous. She’s a better person than I am.
I put her down gently and take a step back. “I can’t understand you.”
Elisabetta switches to English and tells me how scared she was, first of my father and then of Pax. I don't bother to tell her she didn't need to be afraid of either, as it's just not true, and we both know it.
“I’ll give you a great severance package, or I can give you work at my vineyard,” I tell her when she’s recounted her whole story.
“I’ll take the work, please.” I’m surprised by the choice, but I’m fine with it.
“Are you sure that’s what you want? It would also come with a good recommendation.” I really can’t imagine why she wouldn’t want to put that distance between herself and my family, but then she looks down at her stomach, which does show the slightest swelling. Oh fuck.
“So long as I don't have to see your brother, ever.” She pats her stomach, confirming my suspicion.
“Is it his?” I ask, and she knows I don’t mean Pax.
She nods. “They’re your little brother or sister.”
“Deal,” I agree because I have no fucking clue how to handle becoming a brother again, especially now that Dad is dead, but I’m sure I’m responsible somehow. At least this particular issue won’t present for several more months.
I make Elisabetta promise she won’t tell anyone my father is dead for now or that she’s pregnant as it will only put her in danger. I explain that it will only be five days and then I’ll be able to get my brother out of trouble and her into a situation befitting a pregnant woman. I don’t give her any more details than that, but she seems to understand our situation better than I thought she would. She asks about Pax’s neck, and I realize he might not have needed to lock her up at all if she saw what led up to the killing.
She proves my instincts correct a few minutes later when she says, “He was always choking. He didn’t like something, he choked. I didn’t tell him about the baby…” And she shows me the bruises on her neck. “I don’t know if he would have stopped if I had. I hated him so much. I'm glad he's dead.”
“Me too," I confide in her. “I’m sorry I didn’t do something about him sooner.” Maybe she wouldn’t be a twenty-year-old single-mother-to-be if I had.
She waves off my concerns with a sad smile. “Everything happens for a reason. You were a good son, and that's important. It’s not your fault you had an awful father. Your brother isn’t a good son. But it’s also his fault he no longer has an awful father. I’m hoping my own child will fare better for him being dead.”
“They will,” I promise.
We part ways, but I think about her words long after I’m gone.
After another circuitous drive to make sure I’m not being followed, I roll back up to the vineyard. From what I can see, everything has gone well. Gianna isn't out in the yard making a scene. The employees are setting up nicely for the weddings. I haven't gotten any calls to say that Gianna made an escape attempt. For once in my life, everything appears to be in order. When I step out of my car, Jean Paul steps up to greet me.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Bouchard. A lot has been happening around the property. If you're ready, I'll give you an update." He's one of my father's men, and he’s not really here for me, rather to report on me to my father. In fairness, he's been useful since his appointment as my in-house fixer.
"Later," I cut him off, and his brow furrows in surprise.
We don’t have the typical boss-employee energy between us, given he doesn’t see me as his boss but rather an errant kid to report on. I have more important things to deal with at the moment, and he’ll learn soon enough that leadership has changed. My concern for Gianna nags me intensely, and now that I'm this close to her, it’s even stronger.
"Some of it's important." He runs a hand through his golden-blond hair just once.
"An hour," I insist as I turn away from him and walk up the steps. I’m not sure how to deal with him once word of my father’s death gets out. Where do the lines of loyalty and money rest, and how much will it take to buy off his?
The side door that leads to the kitchen is locked up tight just like every other exit. There's no way Gianna got out, but I’m still nervous as hell as I wait for him to leave.
Jean Paul doesn't argue any further and heads off, presumably to deal with whatever important issues we needed to discuss. I pull the key out of my pocket and open the door, freezing at the scene in front of me. This couldn’t be what Jean Paul was talking about. He wouldn’t have walked away.
I think I’ve stepped through a portal into another dimension. The distinct shift in reality nearly knocks me over as I enter a gruesome crime scene.
Blood covers the floor in a thick puddle, running out of the kitchen. Splashes of it stain the white paint around the entry. The horror scene I presumed I’d find at my father’s house is simply here instead.
Fuck, where’s Gianna?
My heart pounds out of my chest. Is that her blood? Whoever it came from is dead or will be very soon.
Upon immediate inspection, I find enough blood to be sure whoever it came from didn't survive. Am I having a panic attack? My vision blurs, and it's hard to breathe.
I head to the kitchen, stepping around the blood as it thickens. Did I really waste my entire life for my piece-of-shit father and only get one teenage month and a single day with the woman I love because of it? I'm seriously considering blowing my brains out when I find the source of all that blood, and it's not my princess.
The relief is a bomb in my head, but that doesn’t mean she’s okay, just that it’s not her blood.
My father's second, Antonine, lays on the floor with his gun clutched in his blood-soaked arms. Did he point it at her? The idea turns my panic to rage. I should have killed him myself. It doesn't appear he fired the weapon. There's no blood spray on the walls or across the floor. All these bleeds are arterial.
“Gianna, I’m back! Where the fuck are you?”
Antonine's eviscerated arm leaves no question where the stains came from. A long, jagged slice reveals the muscle and fascia of his arm as well as flashes of the bone. What the fuck was he doing here, and how did this happen? I use the toe of my shoe to see if he has any other injuries, but he doesn't. He bled out.
“Gianna!”
As I'm inspecting the scene, I notice a small, bloody set of footprints leading away, and I abandon the dead fuck I’m going to feed to the pigs later.
As I follow them through the house, they grow lighter rather than heavier, and I see no signs she’s injured. I'm tracking my princess like a wild animal, but I take my gun out of my pocket just to be sure no one gets the jump on me. Someone else may be here holding her hostage. I have a hard time believing she did all that.
I climb the stairs to the second floor. The footprints are light enough now that I struggle to follow them. I’m planning to check her room when I notice bloody fingerprints on the wall. She ran her hand down the entire hallway. Oh fuck, what was she doing?
My fears are confirmed as I approach my office—a hidden room with an equally hidden door that I've dreamed about since I was a kid. How the hell could she know? I wasn't stupid enough to tell her how I planned to hide the door, was I?
Just like she was stupid enough to bring me to her parents’ vacation home and show me how to get in undetected. My stomach drops at the impression of her bloody little handprint on the pressure panel that reveals my office, with the door hanging wide open.