12. Nero
12
NERO
S moke filters into the basement. It isn’t from Eight. That fucker knows my thoughts on the toxins passive smokers face. Also, his drug of choice is more lethal than nicotine, and ten times more fun.
“What the fuck did you do now?” I ask when the cell phone on the table next to me vibrates.
I recognize the number flashing across the screen of Roy’s phone. The face that arrives with the number is unrecognizable, though.
The sad, beaten-down woman snapped by a man who rates beauty by clothing sizes isn’t close to the image that pops up in my head when Miranda enters my thoughts.
She’s beautiful and beaming with life in my flashbacks. She looks like she has nothing to live for in the picture Roy selected to store her number under.
With the blade of my knife, I signal for Roy to remain quiet before I slide my thumb across his phone’s screen, answering Miranda’s call.
“You fucking piece of shit,” she snaps out a second after our call is connected. “Everything I worked for, my house, my business, my baby, you put in your mistress’s name. Why would you do that, Roy? Why would you take everything I have worked for and give it to her?”
Her sniffle as she fights to hold back a sob pisses me off. It also makes me conscious as to why I brought my knife to the basement when I arrived home and has me itching like fuck to use it.
Roy’s balls aren’t big enough to hang off the back of my truck and be noticeable, but they’ll make a nice rearview mirror ornament for Miranda. She can whack them every time she’s pissed off, which is more often than her lungs have sucked in air in the past four days.
“I would have given you half. You didn’t deserve any of it, but I still would have given you half because that’s the right thing to do when you’ve been married for fourteen years.” She stops to breathe through her anger and then comes back stronger than ever. “But now… now you won’t get a single fucking cent. You cheated, Roy. You broke the vows of our marriage. So now you will suffer the consequences of your betrayal.”
Miranda’s scream echoes when it sounds down the line and through the thin walls of my basement. It prompts Roy to the location of his torture chamber and makes him as panicked as fuck.
His nostrils flare when he recalls how I comforted his wife the last time he fucked her over, and the salt it inspires rubs in deep when a second after Miranda ends her call with him, her name pops up on my phone’s screen.
I admire the photo I snapped of her unawares before answering her call. “Hey…”
Even if I hadn’t overheard her one-sided confrontation with Roy, I’d still be able to tell she is upset. Her voice is croaky, and her breaths are coming out fast.
“What’s wrong, butterfly?”
Roy sneers at me, assuming I’m acting worried for a direct route into his wife’s panties.
I backhand him across the face, hard , just for the insinuation.
I’ve watched Miranda from afar for almost a year, so you can be assured this isn’t the first time I’ve asked her those exact words.
It is merely the first time I’ve said them loud enough for her to hear.
“I… ah… I just…” I’ve been used for years, so her struggle to ask for help isn’t unexpected. Her next words, though, sure are. “I think your wife wanted you to find out about the affair.”
I keep my voice calm and collected even though I am anything but. “Why do you say that?”
“It’s just… um…”
She doesn’t want to hurt my feelings, and it makes me like her a little bit more.
“Nothing you can say will shock me, butterfly.”
You shouldn’t be able to hear a smile, but I can.
It radiates down the line and makes my cock throb.
“I just have a weird feeling she wanted you to find out about the affair, so I thought I should share it with you. You said you were wary of her intentions, so perhaps it centers around this?”
“Perhaps,” I echo. “It would make sense as to why they chose that location. You’d have to be pretty airy to check in at your spouse’s hotel and expect him not to find out.”
Miranda breathes a sigh of relief, and I smile like a smug prick.
I’ve only officially been in her life for days, yet she still cares about me more than she cares for the fool seated in front of me with piss-stained pants and a battered face. Her sigh announces this, not to mention her next words. “I should let you go. You’re probably busy. I just wanted to warn you about any possible backlash that may be heading your way.”
“I appreciate the heads-up.”
If my reputation is anything of importance to me, I should leave it there.
Since it isn’t, I continue.
“I’ll also never be too busy for you, butterfly.” I clamp my hand over Roy’s mouth before rocking in my seat, crunching his broken toes on the dirty floor when he dares to sneer at me. “I was just about to take a break. You’re more than welcome to keep me company.”
Roy’s pained breaths stop beading condensation on my palm when I gesture for him to be quiet again before I move to a laptop set up in the corner of the basement.
As he breathes though his nose, his throat too hoarse to uphold my silent warning of retribution, I flick through multiple live surveillance feeds until I find Miranda.
The smoke lingering in the air makes sense when I spot her near a raging fire pit. One of the legs of the bed we broke last night is halfway burned. She has a second leg in her hand, ready to scorch it, but my offer sees her placing it onto the lawn next to a deckchair.
Her action shows she is accepting my offer, but her words say the opposite. “I’m not sure I’ll be the best company.”
“Because?” I ask, shocked.
I usually bolt for the hills before encouraging a conversation. I don’t want to do that this time around. If she’s willing to share the cause of the heavy groove between her brows, I’m willing to listen.
“It’s just… stuff I don’t want to bore you with.”
“Then why don’t we talk about stuff that won’t bore me?”
I hit Roy with a stern finger point, cautioning him to remain quiet when my next question riles him enough to tighten his jaw. I didn’t think he had it in him to go against me two times in a row. I’ll be sure not to make the same mistake twice once I’ve finished calming his wife.
“Like what are you wearing right now?”
I don’t mean to make things sexual between us twenty-four-seven, but tell me one woman who would lack confidence knowing they can make a man as hard as steel by doing nothing but breathing.
My dick leaks pre-cum just at the thought of Miranda’s smile, but words have little effect on a woman who has had them used against her time and time again, so I’d rather show her.
Actions will always speak louder than words, and my logic couldn’t be closer to the truth when Miranda laughs. Her giggles send a current straight to my dick and have my stomach grumbling like I didn’t burn through half her treats in under six hours.
“I’m wearing what I had on when I waved goodbye to you this morning.”
“Ah, yes. I remember. That sexy little red skirt with a flirty see-through blouse.” Her somewhat conscious laugh switches to genuine when I add, “Exactly who were you meeting with, again, and at what location?”
Since she is unaware I know all the details of her meeting and the couple she met with, she tries to subdue my implied jealousy in a noncontroversial way. “I work mostly with couples madly in love.”
Her swallow is audible when I reply, “As do I.” I rarely speak business with anyone not in the business, but the ease of our interaction has me more open than I usually am. “But rarely do they enter my hotels together.”
I watch her fight with herself for almost a minute before she asks, “Does that bother you?”
“No,” I answer honestly. “Because if they’re gonna cheat, they’re gonna cheat. There’s nothing we can do to stop them.”
Only now do I realize she partially blames herself for Roy’s inability to keep his dick in his pants. I can’t say I don’t understand. He beat down her confidence so much over the past fourteen years that anything that requires judgment has her immediately looking in the mirror.
It dawns on me that part of her contemplation was for me when she says, “I just don’t get it. Roy cheated because Tasha is?—”
“Shallow, opinionated, and so far up her own ass her breath smells like shit?”
Miranda’s confidence flourishes on her face and in her voice. “She is also beautiful… and tiny. To some men, that’s all they need.” Before I can remind her that size has nothing to do with beauty, she says, “But what is Tasha’s excuse? Roy is…” Her sigh hurts her soon-to-be ex more than my fists ever could. “He was nice once, but no amount of sheen can hide rotten insides for long. I should have left him years ago.”
“That’s why men like him get their butterflies before they’ve cocooned. Young and optimistic allows them to be weighed down before they learn the full strength of their wings.” The reason behind my nickname comes to light when I say, “That’s why you’ve got to play him at his own game, butterfly. Show him that you can fly even while your wings are damaged.”
“I don’t know if I can,” she whispers, her voice defeated. “He took everything.”
“Everything?” I ask, my glare hot enough to burn as I shift my eyes back to the vermin siphoning the blood from his wife’s veins while she’s still breathing.
I mouth to Roy that I’m going to kill him when Miranda answers, “All my equipment, my catering van. He even sold the ovens we use for catering events like the one I am meant to host this weekend. I have nothing to serve on, so even if I could get suppliers to deliver stock to me on the bad credit I now apparently have, I can’t offer my clients the level of service I promised. It’s over. I have to cancel all my upcoming events, including your business partner’s upcoming nuptials.”
There’s no fear in her voice. No disgust. She knows my warts and doesn’t care about them, which frees me to say, “Did you forget what industry I’m in? I can get you anything you need in less than twenty-four hours. There’s no need to cancel anything.”
Miranda proves she is as smart as she is beautiful, and it triples my obsession faster than I can click my fingers. “The white powder I’m seeking is a little different from what you usually distribute, Nero.”
I thought the depth of my involvement in the Russian mafia syndicate making me rich would have her running scared. I should have known better.
It is easy to soar when you give up everything weighing you down.
I don’t bother continuing to hide who I am. Miranda has seen me at my worst, rampant on vengeance and cloaked with danger, so she can see the real me as well. Her unexpected but highly craved respect has earned the honor.
“If it wasn’t, would you accept it? Would you let a man like me help you?”
She contemplates for barely a moment before answering with a dignity she will never be without if I have it my way. “Yes… for a fair finder’s fee.”
My smile is heard in my words. “Then send me a list so we can skip to swapping services with no funds exchanging hands.”
I don’t need to be paid a finder’s fee. I’ve already found her. She’s mine. No fee needed.
“Nero—”
“Send me a list,” I repeat, not needing her gratitude, but confident that is what she wants to give. “I’ll get everything you need, and then some.”
“Some?”
I let silence speak on my behalf.
Tiny panting breaths have never been more vocal.
“Okay.” Miranda wrangles with her emotions for ten seconds before she blurts out, “I’ll give you a list tonight when you come over.”
“I’m coming over?” When she looks worried, like she didn’t hear my thoughts as accurately as she did, I say, “I’ll see you at eight,” before I disconnect our call.
After dumping my phone onto the table holding my laptop, I reacquaint my fist with Roy’s face.
The brutal collision dots my shirt with blood, meaning I will need to change again before visiting my favorite neighbor, but the crunch of his nose and the split of its bridge makes the sacrifice worthwhile.
I knew I kept this fucker alive for a reason. I just had no clue it would be for Miranda’s benefit as much as it would be mine.
As I wipe Roy’s blood from my knuckles with the gag I’ll stuff back into his mouth once he’s given me what I need, I say, “Address. Now. ”
“I—”
I hit him again, splitting the skin above his eye as effectively as the gash across his nose, before I pull a gun out of the back of my trousers and aim it to my left, right at the pinched pleat between my wife’s brows.
“Address. Now. Or we’re going to learn exactly how close you two became while scheming to play me for a fool.”
Roy folds like a narc, and it reminds me of my true objectives.
None of them are for him.