Chapter 7
A demon was screeching in his foyer.
That was the only explanation Nico could come up with for what he was hearing. So, the relieved look on River’s face when she heard the demon and got up to race toward it confused him.
When she threw the door to his office open, Enzo was on the other side, looking more bedraggled than Nico had ever seen him look.
And he was holding up a huge pink cage that housed the screaming demon.
“Help!” the thing wailed. “Stranger danger! Momma, help!”
River took the cage from Enzo with a grateful smile and set it down on the corner of Nico’s desk. “It’s OK, baby,” she cooed. “Momma’s here.”
Enzo shoved a hand through his hair. “That thing hasn’t stopped screaming since I opened the door at your apartment.”
She cringed. “Yeah. I probably should have told you she doesn’t really like men.”
Squawk. “Bad man,” it said in a low, shaky voice, rubbing its head on the finger River stuck in its cage. “Bad man.” Squawk. “Big bad man.”
“No, sweetheart,” she said. “You’re safe. Enzo is our friend.”
“The fuck I am,” Enzo muttered.
She shushed him. “Do you want her to start screaming again?”
Nico pointed to the cage. “That’s a bird.”
“She’s an African parrot,” River corrected. “A Congo African Grey, to be exact. Her name is Feather Locklear.”
The giant winged rat in the cage cooed happily at the sound of her name on River’s lips.
“It’s wearing a sweater,” he pointed out.
A little red knit sweater with a lopsided pink heart on the chest. Nico didn’t know much about birds, but something told him the sweater wasn’t exactly normal.
River frowned. “She has allergies and is missing some feathers because of them, OK? She’s a little sensitive about it, hence the sweaters. Plus, she loves her sweaters. Style is very important to her.”
He was still perplexed by this turn of events. “Why is it here?”
Enzo shifted his weary gaze to Nico. “It was the first thing on her list. I put everything else in the guest room across from the main suite. May I leave, sir?”
Nico waved him off, and he fled at a speed that was almost humorous. He was surprised there weren’t cartoon skid marks in his wake.
He glanced back at River, who was still cooing at the bird. “You had Enzo bring a bird,” he felt the need to repeat. “Here.”
She pursed her lips. “Yes, I had Enzo bring her here because I couldn’t leave her alone for a few days. Are you ornithophobic or something?”
“No, I’m not afraid of birds. I just…I’m just surprised, is all. It’s an unusual pet.”
“I should’ve checked to make sure it was OK,” she admitted. “Honestly, though? I was afraid you’d say no.”
Given the fact that there was a parrot in his office and he had no intention of getting rid of it proved that denying River anything was beyond him.
Squawk. “A-E-I-O fuck you.” Squawk. “A-E-I-O fuck you.”
Nico lifted a brow at River, whose cheeks colored prettily. “She likes to run through her vowels when she’s upset. It’s how she self-soothes.”
“I don’t recall ‘fuck’ being a vowel.”
“We’re working on her potty mouth,” River said. “She was a rescue. Rescues sometimes have…issues.”
“You went to a shelter to rescue a pet and came out with a cursing parrot?”
She shot him an annoyed glare, and he wished he could say it wasn’t sexy.
It was, though. “Yes, after my divorce, I went to the shelter to look into maybe adopting a cat or dog. But I took one look at Feather and knew we were kindred. Her owner was apparently a sweet old lady who’d become a recluse and who apparently cursed like a sailor.
When she died, her son surrendered Feather to the shelter.
Given the way she reacts to men, I assume he wasn’t kind to her before that happened, though. ”
So, her stupid asshole of an ex made her feel like her kindred spirit was a cursing bird that had been abused by the man in her life?
Nico had already decided to track the son of a bitch down and make him pay for hurting River, but now? He was going to make it slow. And extra painful.
But he saw no need to tell her that. Not now, anyway. She’d already had what was probably the most stressful night of her life.
And it had only just begun.
Enzo stuck his head back in the office. “Boss? He’s here.”
“Thank you, Enzo. Please show him in.” To River, he said, “Can you keep your feathered friend quiet during the meeting?”
She bit her lip. “I can, but I’ll have to let her out of the cage. Are you OK with her sitting on my shoulder?”
The image of her sitting there with a parrot on her shoulder like a pirate queen made him chuckle. “Whatever it takes, fiorellino.”
She rushed to get the bird out of its cage and perched on her shoulder before the Russian entered the office. She’d just settled on the couch when Enzo ushered him in.
If you sat down and conjured a picture in your mind of a Russian mob boss, Alexi Petrov is what you’d see.
Tall, imposing, and stone-faced with military-short black hair, eerie pale green eyes, tattoos circling his neck and covering his knuckles, Petrov looked like he’d been molded from birth for the Bratva.
If Nico had to fight someone, Petrov wouldn’t be his first choice. But Nico wasn’t intimidated. You didn’t become head of the mafia—any mafia—without supreme confidence in your ability to utterly obliterate your opponents if it came to that.
And no one was willing to obliterate an opponent as much as Nico was.
He stood and gestured to the chair in front of his desk.
No point offering his hand. Mafia men didn’t shake hands.
That’d just be weird. Why shake hands with someone you know would shank you for an extra inch of territory if they thought they could get away with it?
“Thank you for coming, Alexi. It’s nice to see you again. ”
It wasn’t. They both knew he was lying. But it’d be rude to tell him the truth, which was that he’d rather throat-punch him than look at him. So, there was that.
Alexi unbuttoned his suit jacket and took the seat he was offered. “Good to see you, too, friend.”
Nico nearly laughed out loud at that. Friend. Fucking right. He glanced over at River, sitting quietly on the loveseat, eyes wide, with her ridiculous pet perched on her shoulder. She looked terrified, and the bird looked like it was about to spout something inappropriate at any moment.
Actually, so did River, now that he thought about it.
Alexi followed his gaze. “There’s a bird in your office,” he said, brow furrowed.
Nico was glad he wasn’t the only one who tended to stupidly state the obvious when it came to River. “Alexi, I’m afraid I haven’t asked you here for social reasons.”
“I assumed as much.”
“A man named Jeremy Lang owes you a significant amount of money, yes?”
“Yes. He does. But he’s in the wind. So, the debt naturally falls to his only living relative.” Alexi shifted his gaze to River before saying, “Which, I assume, is this lovely young woman.”
Nico felt his blood pressure rise a few notches as River squirmed under the Russian’s gaze.
But telling this asshole he didn’t even have the right to think about her wouldn’t serve anyone.
Staying calm and appearing unaffected was necessary, even though he was anything but.
“This is Mr. Lang’s ex-wife, yes. But when she told one of your men she didn’t have any money, they said she could service the debt by delivering one of my men, Ricky LaRusso to a meeting in your territory. Are you aware of that?”
Alexi gave a slight nod. “I was told LaRusso and Lang were acquaintances. They had a plan to pay Lang’s debt.”
Nico narrowed his eyes. “How did they intend to do that?”
“Apparently, Lang had a plan to improve…commerce between our territories. LaRusso was going to be the go-between.”
And since Ricky had been asking him about drugs earlier, Nico assumed commerce in this instance was either heroin or coke. Ricky and Lang probably thought they could do a bunch of backdoor deals with the Russians and skim off the profits. Fucking idiots. “I see.”
“I knew nothing about this until today, of course,” Alexi added. “One of my men took it upon himself to…recruit Ms. Lang here to bring Ricky to him to discuss Lang’s plan. You can understand why he didn’t want to approach your territory himself.”
Because Nico’s men would’ve shot him on sight. “I do. But why didn’t your man bring his concerns to you immediately?”
Alexi’s eyes darkened. “He has been punished for that mistake.”
Meaning he was dead. So, Lang and Ricky were in the wind, and neither Nico nor Alexi knew exactly how deep this little mutiny against them went.
Just fucking great. “Well, I think you know where I stand on this issue. There will be no commerce between our territories. Ricky had no authority to speak for me. He will be dealt with.”
Meaning I’m going to find him, skin him alive, and maybe hang his head on a pike in my garden.
Alexi offered a stiff nod. “I assumed as much. I assure you, I have no designs on your territory. This was all just an unfortunate misunderstanding, I’m afraid. A truly regrettable one.”
“I never doubted you, my friend,” he replied with as much sincerity as he could muster, which, sadly, wasn’t much. “Let’s just put this unpleasantness behind us. Will you stay for a drink?”
Alexi stood and buttoned his suit jacket. “I’m afraid I must return home. I still have some business to attend to.”
The same business Nico would be attending to, he imagined.
Gathering all the trusted members of his inner circle and determining if Ricky and Lang had dragged anyone else into their foolishness.
It would be a time-consuming affair. But at least they’d made it through the meeting without a trade war breaking out.
Nico would happily take the win on that front.
“So,” Alexi went on, “I’ll just take the girl and we’ll be on our way.”
The wheels turning in Nico’s brain ground to a halt when he realized this bastard was talking about River. This stronzo thought he’d be leaving with River.
His River.
Maybe they were going to war tonight after all.
And if that was the case…
So. Fucking. Be. It.
“A-E-I-O Fuck you,” River whispered.