Chapter 24 Nico
Nico
Monday morning starts with twenty-one missed calls.
I stare at my phone screen in the back of the Mercedes as Indira navigates morning traffic toward Hudson Yards. Twenty-one. From board members, from Paloma, from Dashiell, from Larissa, from donors, from numbers I don’t recognize. My voicemail is full.
Something is very, very wrong.
“Sir.” Callahan half-turns from the passenger seat. His face tells me everything I need to know before he says another word. “There’s been a development. You should check the business news.”
I pull up my browser. The headline knocks the breath out of me.
“Pattern of Manipulation: Rossi CEO’s History of Emotional Coercion.”
No.
No, no, no.
I scan the article while my blood turns to ice water.
The piece details my attempt to blackmail Dom into leaving his now wife Tatiana.
How I tried to pressure my own brother into ending his relationship so I could swoop in like some kind of predatory asshole.
The article quotes “sources familiar with the family” and paints a picture of a man who uses emotional leverage to get what he wants.
But that’s not the worst part.
The worst part is the final paragraph. The one that links past to present with surgical precision.
“Sources say the CEO’s current relationship with employee Briana Dawson raises questions about boundaries and consent.
Dawson, who began as Rossi’s executive secretary earlier this year, has been observed leaving late-night meetings with the billionaire and was recently spotted at his Tribeca residence.
The pattern, insiders suggest, is troubling. ”
Bree.
Martin Hale has dragged Bree into this.
Fuck.
I call my general counsel.
“How bad?” I ask Larissa. My voice sounds like it belongs to someone else.
“Board’s ordered an emergency session at noon. Martin Hale requested it. Donors are calling every line we have. Paloma’s been at the office since six trying to draft a response.”
I close my eyes. The prosthetics business taught me everything about reconstruction. About taking something broken and rebuilding it piece by piece until it functions again. But some damage is beyond repair. Some wounds won’t close no matter how advanced your technology.
This feels like one of those wounds.
“Sources familiar with the family.”
Gabriella.
Has to be Gabriella. Martin Hale’s sister. She’s the only one outside the family who knew the details.
She was there when I was twenty-five and stupid and grieving and I told her everything because I thought she actually gave a damn.
Gabriella.
What have you done?
We pull into the parking garage. I’m out of the car before Indira fully stops, striding toward the executive elevator with Callahan a half-step behind. My phone won’t stop buzzing. I silence it.
The 28th floor feels different when I step out. Quieter. People avoiding eye contact. That particular tension that fills a space when everyone knows something you don’t want them to know.
And there she is.
Bree. She left early, caught an Uber this morning.
She sits at her desk, laptop open, face illuminated by the screen. She’s reading the article. I can see the headline reflected in her glasses, inverted and damning.
She looks up. Our eyes meet.
The expression on her face guts me.
Betrayal and hurt. And recognition, like I’ve just confirmed her worst suspicions about men.
She didn’t know. I never told her. I was going to tell her. I swear to God I was going to tell her, but there was never a right moment.
She stands. Grabs her coat from the back of her chair. Walks past reception without a word to anyone.
I follow.
“Sir.” Paloma intercepts me near reception. “We need to discuss the response strategy. I have—”
“Not now.” I push past her.
“Nico. The board meeting is in three hours.”
“I said not now.” I catch the elevator Bree’s taking before the doors trap us inside.
“Bree,” I begin.
Her eyes are chips of amber ice. “Don’t.”
“Let me explain,” I tell her.
“Explain what, exactly?” Her voice is low. “How you tried to blackmail your own brother into giving up the woman he loved? Explain how you used threats and manipulation to control someone else? Your own brother?”
I hit the stop button on the elevator, and it grinds to a halt. An alarm blares momentarily.
“That was ten years ago,” I tell her. “I was different. I was grieving and angry and I made a terrible fucking choice that I’ve spent a decade trying to make right. Dom and I reconciled. He forgave me. We worked through it. I wasn’t lying about that part.”
“Yes, you said you and your brother had a falling out, but I didn’t think you meant this.” She shakes her head. “When were you planning on telling me?”
The question hangs between us. “I was going to.”
“When? After the board meeting? After the foundation launched? After you’d successfully compartmentalized me into whatever box felt safest? Just like you’re were planning on promoting me but conveniently never got around to it? Because, you know, office gossip?”
“It’s not like that.”
“Then what is it like, Nico?” She steps closer, and I can smell her perfume, that vanilla and jasmine that haunts my dreams. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you let me get close to you while hiding the worst thing you’ve ever done.
You let me trust you. You let me believe I knew who you were. ”
“You do know who I am,” I plead.
“Do I?” Her voice cracks. “Because the man in that article sounds exactly like someone else I trusted once. Someone who made me feel special while he was manipulating everyone around him, including me. Someone who destroyed my reputation and my career because I dared to set a boundary.”
Kendrick.
She has to be talking about Kendrick. The man she named in passing the other day. Ancient history, she’d claimed.
She’s crying now, the silent tears tracking down her cheeks.
“You hid this from me. You had a hundred chances to tell me the truth, and instead you let me find out from a fucking gossip article that’s now calling me your latest victim.
Do you understand what that feels like? To be reduced to that? Again?”
I want to touch her. Want to pull her into my arms and hold her until this nightmare passes. But I don’t have that right anymore.
The elevator intercom crackles to life and a voice comes over it. “This is building security, is everything—”
“This is Nico Rossi,” I interrupt. “I pressed the stop button. Because I felt like it. We’ll be moving again shortly. Until then, some privacy, please.”
“Sorry, Mr. Rossi.” The crackling over the intercom dies.
I turn back to Bree. “I should have told you. I know that. But I was scared.”
“You were scared.” She shakes her head. “The man who stalked me across Manhattan was scared to have a conversation.”
“Yes.” The admission tastes bitter. “Because I knew you’d look at me exactly the way you’re looking at me right now. Like I’m the worst version of myself. Like everything we built was a lie.”
“Wasn’t it?”
“No.” I step toward her. “Everything between us has been the most honest I’ve been with anyone in years.
I fucked up ten years ago. I fucked up not telling you.
But what I feel for you isn’t a manipulation or a strategy or a power play.
It’s real, Bree. You’re the first thing in my life that’s felt real in a long time. ”
She looks at me for a long moment. I can see her processing, weighing, deciding.
“I need time,” she finally says. “Don’t follow me.”
Every instinct screams at me to argue. To chase and fix this the way I fix everything, through sheer force of will and strategic intervention.
But I instead I say, “Callahan will drive you home. Keep you away from the reporters.”
“I don’t need your protection,” she counters.
“I know you don’t. But take it anyway. Please.”
She hesitates. Then nods. I press the button for the underground parking garage, and swipe my card to confirm access.
The elevator starts moving again.
I text Callahan. Bree will be needing an exfil.
Roger that, comes the reply.
Bree had already pressed the lobby button, so when we reach that particular floor, the doors open. Before they shut again, I spot the line-up of reporters already queuing up outside.
Going to be a fun day.
When we reach the parking garage, I watch her walk toward the SUV where Callahan is already waiting. I watch her climb into the back seat without looking back. Watch Indira pull the vehicle out of the garage.
Then I’m alone.
My phone buzzes. The board meeting. Donors panicking. A company burning down around me while the woman I’m falling for drives away believing I’m exactly the kind of scarred monster I’ve spent ten years trying to prove I’m not.