18. Niko
CHAPTER 18
I go into the bathroom and grab Gianna a wet towel to wash her face off. She takes it without a word, but I don’t miss the way her hand shakes. She’s so beautiful. She’s my wife. I’m not sure if I’m lucky or not, as I have so much to lose. Maybe it was easier when I was nothing but my father’s hand in the world. Easier but not better, I decide.
I am sorry, though apologies aren’t something I’ve ever received and have a very hard time giving. It’s not a lack of sincerity she feels but my own discomfort, my own feeling of failure that implicitly comes with being wrong.
I return to her side, and she won’t look at me. Her pointed little chin aims toward the other side of the room, and I want to kiss along her jaw so badly. She’s so beautiful. I hate upsetting her, but there’s this determination in her when she’s angry that I can’t help but gravitate toward.
“Here, Gi.” I hand it to her, and she takes it. I would have cleaned her, but it seems like the time to give her some space. In the interest of doing that, I take up the armchair about ten feet away. She looks at me with anger, confusion, and if I’m not imagining things, a trace of longing, like she wanted me near her even after my outburst. She carefully cleans off her face and ties up her hair.
“I need another shower already.” She slides me a suffering look, and I do my best impression of sheepish.
“I’ll wash your hair,” I offer, secretly wanting to do just that. I’ve always loved her hair and wanted to touch and play with it.
“Don’t flirt with me. Tell me what you promised you would, and I’ll consider forgiving you for making me a cannibal and holding me down and force-feeding me.”
I would smile at how adorable she is if not for what I have to tell her. How can she be so principled about certain things but have such forgiving stances on others? She’s a hypocrite but a sweet, wonderful one. I wonder if the full truth of her father will finally put some of that to rest.
“I take no pleasure in hurting you,” I tell her as a preemptive measure to doing exactly that.
“After you just held me down and force-fed me?” she demands. For a moment, I think she might hop off the bed and attack me, and maybe I want her to because how dare she question how I feel about her.
“That didn’t hurt you. It pissed you off and grossed you out, but most importantly, it disrespected you. For all those reasons, I am fucking sorry, but don’t pretend that I ‘hurt’ you.”
I open and close my hands on my knees to keep from getting in her space. Staying away from her those three days was only possible because I thought she hated me and things were unsalvageable. She will never get that kind of distance from me again. I shout it at her with my stance and the way I stare into her eyes.
“Fine!” she shouts, slapping the bed.
“Fine what?”
“Fine, you're sorry. I believe you. Okay?” She says it with the utmost sarcasm, like it means nothing, but I let out a breath. She’s still clearly pissed and not making any move to come near me but believing the apology is the first step to accepting it. “Just tell me what happened to my brother.”
And since there’s no way to avoid it, I do exactly that.
“Dante was out running guns for your father. It was one of the standard runs from what I’ve heard, but it was with new clients.”
“Guns?” She gasps, interrupting me.
Her eyes widen, and her hand flies to her throat. She makes the sign of the cross with the other, and I do everything I can not to roll my eyes. She can believe in whatever she wants and now’s not the time to argue philosophy.
“My brother never ran guns for anyone, especially not my father.” True anger lines her expression. “They didn’t do things like that.”
My brow furrows. What is she talking about? The Gemellis were huge in arms dealings. This makes even less sense than that damn prison of an apartment Stefan sent her to. I’ve looked into the place, and it wasn’t even a residential building. She wasn’t supposed to be living there.
“Of course they did. What do you think they sold?”
She stutters as she speaks. I’ve never heard her sound so unsure of herself. “Imported oil, illegal cheeses and alcohol, immigrants, mostly.”
Not for the first time, I wish I could raise Stefan from the dead and kill him slower. How did he let her go more than thirty years without understanding the truth of her world and the danger aimed at her?
“You’re not an olive oil princess, sweetness. Your empire is built on ammo.”
“I would know,” she says, but she sounds more like she’s trying to convince herself than me. “I-I’m thirty-two years old. I wasn’t that deeply in the dark.”
“Yeah, Gianna, you were. They specialized in guns, military-grade explosives, heavy-duty shit. You didn’t know?”
“I did.” The lie is stupid at this point, and we both know it, but she’s spiraling.
Her reputation as an out-of-touch princess is well-known. Personally, I never found her anywhere near as clueless or spoiled as people would like to paint her. Her family keeping her out of the loop is a given. They kept her away, but not to even clue her in on what their major business is? People get killed a lot less often for olive oil and cheese than they do for guns. She should have understood the danger she was in.
“Do you want me to keep going, or was that revelation enough for one evening?”
“Fuck you, Niko.”
I consider doing just that, but she’s lashing out at me because she’s hurt, and I haven’t even gotten to the worst of it. I choose to be the bigger person for once and just take it. It’s not like I don’t deserve her ire for other reasons.
“Do you want me to leave?” I ask, not trying to be an asshole but rather do what she wants me to for once. We got fucking married today, and despite what she seems to think, all I want in the world is to keep her safe and happy.
She’s quiet for a minute, then the anger melts to sadness, a single tear falls, and she shakes her head.
“I’m sorry. Please tell me what happened.”
“Dante was meeting with…” I hesitate, trying to think of the most diplomatic way to say it. There’s no good way.
“Who the fuck was he meeting, Niko?! Who the fuck was my big brother selling guns and military-grade explosives to?” More tears follow the leader.
“The Russians.”
“The Russians who my father traded me to?” Again, she’s got that sarcastic, disbelieving tone. She wants me to say punk, psych, anything else, but I just can’t do that this time.
“I’m not sure that Domalachego was there when your brother died, but they were his men. They were bringing the weapons back to him. It was his money paying for them.”
The air leaves her lungs, and she doesn’t take a full breath for so long that I start to worry. I get out of the chair to be near her, but she holds up her hands.
“Just, just tell me what happened.”
I want to touch her so badly, bridge this gap between us, comfort her, hold my goddamn wife. There’s only one way she’s going to allow that.
“I wasn’t there, so I don’t know for sure, but by the time your brother's truck exploded, there wasn’t enough of him to bury.”
“An explosion? You’re telling me my brother was blown up?”
Her brows furrow. She’s thinking so hard it looks painful.
“That’s not possible.”
“How did you think he died?”
“A gun, maybe?” So many people in our business are shot. It’s not an unlikely solution, and it would leave Stefan open to pretending he didn’t know what happened. So many people could have a gun, and I have even more questions for the man.
“Why was there no body to bury then, Gianna?”
She’s crying in earnest now, even though she’s silent, and something about the noiseless tears tracking down her cheeks makes it that much harder to bear. She puts her face in her hands.
“How could my father not know what happened?”
I don’t say he did because I don’t think she’s asking me, just mourning the truth of who her father was. I stay silent as she tries to digest it.
“Are you sure it was the Russians?” She wipes her eyes on her sleeves, a frenzied excitement lighting her eyes that I’ll have to promptly kill. “Are you sure they killed my brother? They could have been meeting someone else, maybe faulty wiring in the truck.”
Her desperate innocence is a knife in my heart. I’m not sure how he managed it, but I blame every bit of this on Stefan. My life has been stunted under my father’s thumb, but I’ve lived. I’m starting to see that she hasn’t at all. Why didn’t she work after college? Why were her friends and boyfriends few and far between when she’s beautiful and funny?
“I’m sure, Gi. They bragged about it. Though I doubt the circumstances they painted were accurate, having known Dante well enough. Rather than proving a point by killing him, I think they were trying to be tough, firing a warning shot, and it ignited the goods they paid for.”
Stupid, sloppy, dangerous. Exactly why I want the Bratva out of this area and fast.
“What did my father do?” The certainty in her voice slays me. “He didn’t tell me anything, fine, I was a moron. What did he do once he found out what happened to my brother?”
Why should I have to keep plunging knives into her heart? Didn’t I do enough when I killed this bastard?
“Nothing, Gianna. Absolutely nothing. And I never could figure out why, but I have my suspicions now.”
He had money but fewer men by the day. Dante was his only son, but he was also a hot head with a coke problem, and they were constantly at odds the way Gianna was with her mother. Their family was always fucked up, and I say that having been raised by Alexandre and having Pax for a brother.
“And what are your suspicions, Niko?”
I might be wrong for suggesting something so awful when I have no way to prove the truth, but Domalachego waiting in the burned-out hull of the building makes a lot more sense under these circumstances.
“I am of the impression that he made that deal with Domalachego a lot longer ago than you were led to believe. Five years ago, when your brother died, your father did nothing, and the Russians suddenly backed off.”
“You think Domalachego would wait that long? That he would agree to back off for five years and wait all that time to collect?”
If the deal was good enough, I do.
“If you were intended for someone other than him. It’s very possible.”
“Like whom?”
“One of his sons. They’re both near your age, and Domalachego was old enough and had two heirs. He was married, so he didn’t need you for himself.”
She slaps her thighs again, and I don’t know what I’ve done to upset her now.
“He has two sons?”
“Yes.”
“Then why the hell would he need between three and eight children with me?”
The world tilts on its axis at the mere suggestion of her bearing someone else’s children. I want to rip into his throat with my bare teeth at the thought.
“He wouldn’t,” I insist.
“That was part of the deal. My father told me.”
“Then I feel confident saying Domalachego never intended to marry you himself. Though whether your father knew the truth or not is a separate matter.”
“There’s no way he made a deal to marry me off five years ago.”
“I am truly sorry, Gianna.” So much more so than I was over holding you down and force-feeding you when you’re obviously hungry.
“My mother. My mother can’t know, couldn’t have known,” she corrects herself, choking on her tears. “She loved him so much. He was her favorite. She, she wouldn’t let my father—” Her sob cuts her words off. She falls to her side, rolling face-first into the mattress and letting the duvet take her tears.
“I don’t know, Gi. I really don’t know her part in all of it, but you’re probably right. She didn’t know.”
I have to leave her something to hang on to whether or not I believe it. I can’t keep my distance anymore. I’m at her side, touching her back, and she leans into it instead of shying away, which alone fills me with selfish happiness.
She rolls onto her side, looking at me through tearstained lashes.
“My father has barely looked at me since Dante died, barely spoken to me. I’ve been practically alone for five years. Why? Why did he do this to me?”
I sigh, unable to keep my frustration in because I think I know, but I can’t stand hurting her more.
“I assumed it was out of weakness and guilt,” I tell her, hoping to leave it at that.
“Assumed?”
“I have a different opinion now.”
“And what the fuck is that, Niko? Please don’t be shy now that there’s no food to force down my throat.” I remind myself she’s picking at me because she’s hurting, and keep telling her what she thinks she wants to know.
“I think he was cutting his losses.”
“Maybe he was just too scared to retaliate and too ashamed to face me.”
“That’s possible, though I now regret not asking Domalachego more about it. Even his denials might have told us a lot about your father’s scheming.”
“Why do you say it like that? My father wasn’t some kind of disloyal—” She sounds offended, but she can’t even finish her own defense of him because that’s exactly what he was.
“I worry there may be more traps laid for us to stumble into. We don’t know the full extent of the promises he made in your name. There may be more than just Domalachego out there.”
An intense look of pain or fear flashes across her face. I grab her wrist, pull her closer, and gather her in my arms.
“What's wrong?” I tip her face until she has to look at me, but what I see in her eyes brings me no comfort. “Tell me, I’ll keep you safe.”
But she doesn’t, and she doesn’t say anything as I help her into her pajamas and lay beside her. I don’t try to fuck her again, even if I’d like to. Whatever is going on inside her right now needs to have room to play itself out.
She lies beside me, her back tucked into my front, and my nose rests in her hair.
“Don’t be afraid, Gi. I’ll protect you.” Instead of relaxing into me, her body just tightens up more. Something is terribly wrong, and for some reason I can’t explain, I don’t think this is about her brother.