Chapter 27
Nico was actively avoiding talking to her.
The entire time she’d known him, he’d been nothing but open, honest, and communicative. Until tonight.
Since they left the rehearsal dinner, he’d taken two calls, talked to Enzo about his schedule after the wedding, and spent a significant amount of time texting with Van. And none of it sounded important.
So, in between all his other conversations, she’d mouthed to him that they needed to talk. His brow had furrowed, he’d nodded solemnly, and immediately gone back to ignoring her.
Now, she was pissed.
She barely waited for the SUV to stop before she threw the door open and leapt out. Maybe a visit with Feather would get her blood pressure under control and make her not want to murder her fiancé.
Nico called after her, but she ignored him. Payback is a bitch, isn’t it?
He caught her halfway to the aviary. “I need you to come with me.”
She threw her hands wide in frustration. “Oh, so now you want me to talk. After ignoring me for the past hour and a half?”
His chin hit his chest. “I know, and I’m sorry, OK? But I can explain everything. I just need you to come with me. Now.”
She wanted to say no. Just to be contrary and exercise her newly found feistiness. It wouldn’t serve her, though. Not when she wanted to know what was going on more than she wanted her next breath. Crossing her arms over her chest, she grumbled, “Fine.”
But she remained stubbornly silent and refused the hand he offered her going down the basement steps.
She was so busy trying to convey how angry she was with him that it didn’t occur to her until they’d walked down a long hallway into the farthest corner of the house that she’d never been in the basement before.
In fact, she’d had no idea this house even had a basement, let alone an unfinished one like this with concrete floors and walls, lowish ceilings, drains in the floor and…
Two beaten, bloodied and bruised men chained to metal chairs, dirty rags shoved in their mouths. One of them lifted his half-swollen-shut eyes to hers, and she couldn’t hold back a gasp.
“Jeremy,” she whispered.
Her ex yelled something she couldn’t quite decipher behind his makeshift gag. Given how he looked, she imagined he was begging for her help.
River had never seen Jeremy looking like…
this. Even after a night of drinking and gambling (and spending all her money), he’d never looked disheveled and desperate.
Now, his skin was pale (except for the bruises), he seemed to have lost a substantial amount of weight, and his blond hair was dirty and matted with something.
Maybe blood? She wasn’t sure. What she did know was that seeing him suffering like this made her feel…
Nothing.
She felt nothing for him. Not sorrow, not pity, not empathy, not even anger or glee. She simply didn’t care that he was suffering. Especially not when he was willing to stick her with his debt to the Russians that he knew she couldn’t pay off. Not with money, anyway.
Next to him was a man with coloring similar to Nico’s, wearing what was once probably a nice suit. It was now little more than a bloody rag. Ricky LaRusso, she presumed. The man she should’ve kidnapped that night at the club.
“Where have they been hiding?” she asked impassively.
“Off the grid, according to Ren,” Nico said. “In a trailer park on the east side of town.”
“Really? With all the money he stole from me, I figured he’d at least be staying in a nice hotel.”
Nico scoffed. “That money ran through his fingers like water. It was spent before he stole it.”
River gestured to his gag. “Can I talk to him?”
Nico pulled the rag from Jeremy’s mouth, looked him dead in the eye, and said, “If you scream, I don’t care. No one will help you, but I won’t hold it against you. But disrespect her, and I’ll punch a hole through your chest and rip out your spine. Do you understand?”
River shivered. Her fiancé was a walking, talking morally gray hero from a dark romance novel, and when they left this basement, she was totally going to blow him.
Jeremy swallowed hard and nodded. His eyes shifted to River. She waited for him to say something. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected. An apology, maybe? But he remained stubbornly silent.
Typical. Once again, it was up to her to initiate a conversation. The emotional labor she was expected to endure with this asshole was apparently never-ending. “You stole from me.”
His eyes darted to Nico before landing on her again. “We were married. Half of that money was mine.”
She snorted. “You were an unemployed gambling addict. That money was mine, and you know it.”
“I was going to pay you back once I got money from…” he trailed off, his eyes shifting over to Ricky.
“Once you and Ricky were able to betray me, trafficking drugs from the Russians through my territory and skimming off the profits?” Nico supplied.
Ricky squeezed his eyes shut like he was waiting for a killing blow. And since he was still gagged, it was Jeremy who answered, “No one was going to get hurt. It was the best way we could think of to make money fast and pay off my debt to the Russians. It was a win win.”
“That’s what was in it for you,” River said. “But Ricky doesn’t look like he needs money. What was he going to get out of this?”
Jeremy pressed his lips together like he wasn’t going to answer.
Nico slid a knife out of his inside jacket pocket and held it casually to his throat.
“Feel free to stay quiet,” he murmured. “But know that if you’re not talking, you’re of no use to me and you’ll be disposed of like the garbage you are. ”
Jeremy licked his lips nervously. “He was going to use the Russian money we skimmed to buy support and make a play for your job.”
Nico snorted. “Which certainly wasn’t Ricky’s idea, because we all know he’s too fucking stupid to plan something like that. Right, Jeremy?”
“It was my idea,” he admitted quietly. “All of it. I told one of the Russians at the casino about it right after I got Ricky onboard.”
The one Alexi killed for plotting behind his back, River realized.
Jeremy went on to explain that the Russian had been interested, but skeptical.
He’d wanted to speak to Ricky immediately to ensure that Jeremy’s Italian mafia contact was actually going along with the plan.
Jeremy had agreed to arrange a meet-up, but the Russian had gotten impatient and tracked down Jeremy’s last known address. He’d found River instead.
She shook her head. “That guy threatened me, Jeremy. Blackmailed me into luring your idiot friend here out of the club. I could’ve been killed—or worse.”
He had the nerve to narrow his eyes on her. “I knew they wouldn’t hurt you as long as you did what they asked you to. How was I supposed to know you’d screw it up so royally?”
She sputtered. “If Nico hadn’t saved me, anything could’ve happened! Do you even care?”
“Of course I care!” he insisted.
He didn’t, though. That much was abundantly clear. She’d always wondered if he was a sociopath, but now, she was thinking it was simpler than that. He was just a narcissist who was incapable of giving a shit about anyone other than himself.
River wouldn’t lie and say his indifference didn’t piss her off. It did. But mostly, she was mad at herself. She’d married this shallow, petty, conniving little man. She’d been a lousy judge of character. That was on her.
On the flip side, however, if Jeremy had never betrayed her, she wouldn’t have met Nico. So, on some level, maybe she should be thanking this fucker for being the world’s worst husband.
She wouldn’t, though. Because fuck him.
Nico laid his hands on her shoulders and turned her toward him. “What do you want me to do with him?”
She blinked up at him. “What do you mean?”
“He betrayed you. What he did could’ve ended very badly for you. It’s only fair that you decide his punishment. If you want him dead, I’ll happily kill him for you.”
Both Jeremy and Ricky sat up a little straighter. “River—” Jeremy began.
She ignored him. She only had eyes for her future husband.
He meant every word. He would kill for her.
And while she appreciated the sentiment, she didn’t feel right about it.
She had to think that taking human life left marks on a soul, and Nico’s soul was too precious to risk. She couldn’t ask him to kill for her.
River shook her head. “He’s not worth it.”
Jeremy let out a sharp, relieved breath. “Oh, baby, I promise I’m going to make it all up to you. I’ll never—”
She shushed him with a quickness. “Don’t get too comfortable, asshole. I don’t want you dead, but that doesn’t mean you’re off the hook.”
“Definitely not,” Nico said dryly.
“What are you going to do with Ricky?” she asked.
“I promised I’d let Van handle him. He’s always hated this fucker. Enzo said something about a rain barrel and lye in the potting shed, though.” Nico shrugged. “Maybe he’ll go that route.”
Ricky whimpered.
Well, that wouldn’t help her decide what to do with Jeremy. Not unless there were two rain barrels in the potting shed. “Could we frame him for a crime and get him arrested?” she asked.
“I’d rather not. I don’t trust him not to flip and testify against us.”
Hmmm. She hadn’t thought of that. Made sense, though. “Why don’t we just give him to the Russians?” she suggested. “Isn’t that what Alexi wanted all along?”
“Y-you can’t do that!” Jeremy stammered.
Nico nodded. “We could.”
“What will the Russians do to him?”
He shrugged. “It depends. If he’s able to convince Alexi he’s useful, he’ll live. If not, he’ll die. Are you good with that?”
Oddly enough, she was. What did she care if Alexi got a black mark on his soul? That fucker tried to sex traffic her. “I’m comfortable with it.”
Nico called for Van, who appeared out of nowhere and hauled a sputtering Jeremy and a stone-faced Ricky away.
“If their legs somehow got broken in transit, I wouldn’t cry about it,” River grumbled.
The grin Van gave in response made Ricky go pale and a wet spot spread across the front of Jeremy’s pants.
When they were finally alone, River felt like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders.
She was marrying an amazing man who gave her orgasms like it was his damn job, Russians would never show up in her kitchen to sex traffic her, and vengeance against her scumbag ex was hers.
For the first time in a long time, she had hope that everything in her life was finally going to be OK.
That’s when Nico (and his impressively furrowed brow) looked up at her from underneath his thick lashes and said, “There’s no need to go through with the wedding now. You’re finally free, fiorellino.”
Her heart sank into her shoes.
Fucking hope. That hateful bitch got her again.