Nico (The Conti Family #4)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Erica

The dress is the color of sparkling champagne, and it barely qualifies as fabric.

I keep tugging at the hem as if I can convince it to grow another two inches, but it only slides higher on my thighs and reminds me that I’m wearing something designed to make men look at me like a purchase.

Which is… the point.

My hands go still on the silk and I force myself to breathe through my nose.

In. Out. Slow. The mirror above the vanity shows a girl who looks like she belongs in a different life—hair curled too perfectly, mouth painted a deeper red than I ever wear, lashes thick and dark like I’m trying to hide behind them.

My eyes are the same, though. Blue. Wide. Too honest for what I’m about to do.

I turn my face a fraction to the side and study the line of my jaw, the hollow beneath my cheekbone. The makeup artist downstairs called it “soft glam.” I call it armor.

The room they’ve put me in is not a hotel room like any I’ve ever been in before.

It’s a suite with a living area bigger than my apartment, a sitting room with two velvet couches that probably cost more than my car—each—and a bar stocked with crystal decanters that look untouched—like even the alcohol is only there to be on display.

A quiet knock taps at the door to the hallway.

I freeze.

“Five minutes, Erica,” a woman’s voice calls through the wood. Smooth. Businesslike.

My throat tightens. “Okay.”

The sound of her heels fades, sharp against the hardwood. I wait until it’s gone before I let out the breath I’m holding.

Five minutes.

My stomach rolls like I’ve swallowed seawater.

On the vanity sits a glass of water I haven’t touched, a little plate with strawberries I definitely won’t eat, and my phone face-down like it’s too heavy to look at. I flip it over and the screen lights up with the same message I’ve had open all day.

Unknown Caller.

Tonight. 9:00. Suite level. Come alone. Bring ID.

No emojis. No smiley faces. No “LOL.” Just instructions.

It feels safer when people are direct. It feels safer when there’s no pretending.

I stand and pace from the vanity to the window, then back again.

The suite is on a high floor, high enough that the city looks like someone scattered lights across black velvet.

Somewhere down there, real people are living real nights.

Eating dinner. Laughing in cars. Watching TV. Arguing about nothing.

My dad is probably asleep in his recliner, because he gets tired so quickly now. He’ll wake up at midnight and pretend he wasn’t sleeping. He’ll ask me if I’ve eaten. He’ll smile like I’m still thirteen and he’s still the kind of man who can fix anything.

At first, he just began getting winded and losing some weight. When suddenly, last week, he couldn’t even make it up the stairs. One CT scan later, and they’ve diagnosed a kidney mass.

I hate being away from him for even one night, but I have to.

The doctor said the surgery is his only real shot, and he needs it now.

Not next month. Not next week.

Now.

And not a miracle. Not a guarantee. A shot. That’s all.

Twenty thousand dollars, and that’s just the upfront cost.

It’s not even that the number is huge in some abstract, rich-people kind of way.

It’s huge in a personal way. It’s huge like “in-my-whole-life-I’ve-never-had-that-much-money-at-one-time” way.

It’s huge in a “the-savings-account-I’ve-been-building-since-I-was-sixteen-wouldn’t-even-make-a-dent” way.

I know what people pay for rent. I know what groceries cost. I know how quickly a hospital bill climbs when you start adding tests and specialist visits and “out of network” to the list of things you never planned for.

I also know what my paycheck looks like.

I just got the job. Sure, it’s only a job as an assistant, but it’s a job some people would kill for. At least in the circles I grew up around.

I got hired because I’m organized. Because I don’t miss details. Because I can keep my mouth shut when everyone around me is talking. Because my friend Maddy’s cousin’s boyfriend knows someone who knows someone who needed a reliable assistant now.

That’s how opportunities happen for girls like me.

The interview wasn’t even an interview. It was a ten-minute conversation with a man in a suit who barely smiled and asked me if I understood discretion. Then my boss walked into the room and everything changed.

He isn’t the kind of handsome that makes you think of movie stars. He’s the kind of handsome that makes you think of trouble you want to be in.

Tall. Broad shoulders. Dark hair. A face that looks carved. He doesn’t waste expressions. When he looks at you, you feel it like heat on skin.

He didn’t flirt. He didn’t smile.

He just looked at my résumé, then at me, and said, “Can you handle pressure?”

I said yes and decided it would be true no matter what.

He studied me for a second longer and I felt myself get smaller under his gaze. Then he nodded once and said, “Start Monday.”

It should have felt like winning.

Instead, it felt like being in a room with no exits.

The pay is good for what it is. Better than waitressing, better than retail, better than anything I could get without a degree.

But it’s still not twenty thousand dollars. Not even close. Not before the window closes and my dad’s one shot at recovery turns into a “we’re sorry” phone call and a doctor with kind eyes.

So, when Maddy joked, I laughed.

Because that’s what you do when your friend says something ridiculous like, “You know, I heard this girl once sold her virginity online and got, like, forty grand. Can you imagine?”

I laughed because it was absurd.

Because it was something that happened in movies or on trashy websites or to people who didn’t have a dad who still keeps your kindergarten drawing on the fridge.

Then I went home and sat on the edge of my bed and searched it.

I told myself it was just curiosity.

I told myself it was a way to distract my brain from the numbers and the fear.

I told myself I would close the browser and move on.

Instead, I found forums. I found articles.

I found warnings and horror stories and a few polished pieces that made it sound like an “arrangement.” Like a business transaction between consenting adults.

Like if you used the right words and asked the right questions and set the right boundaries, it could be… safe.

That was the word I clung to.

Safe.

Because if it could be safe, then maybe it could be possible.

If it was possible, then maybe I didn’t have to watch my dad fade out in slow motion while I stood there with empty hands.

I told myself I was doing it for him. That it was love, not desperation. That it didn’t say anything about who I really am.

I told myself a lot of things.

Now I’m standing in a suite that smells like expensive cologne, wearing a dress that’s practically a suggestion, waiting for someone, not to escort me, but to deliver me, to my chosen fate.

My phone buzzes again. This time it’s not unknown.

Dad.

My heart stutters so hard I almost drop the phone. I stare at his name until the screen goes dark again.

I can’t answer. If I answer, I’ll hear his voice, as and I’ll crumble. If I answer, he’ll ask where I am, and I’ll lie, and the lie will lodge in my throat and choke me.

If I answer, he’ll say something simple like, “Hey, kiddo,” and I’ll say, “Hi, Dad,” and it will sound normal. It will sound like every other night.

And then I’ll go out there and do this anyway.

I set the phone back down and press my palms to the cold marble of the vanity. My fingers tremble.

“Just breathe,” I whisper to my reflection.

The girl in the mirror nods as if she believes me.

A soft chime sounds near the sitting room—someone at the main door, maybe, announcing themselves without knocking. The suite is secure; I remember the woman downstairs telling me that, as if it would be a comfort.

Discretion is guaranteed.

Security is present.

I repeat those lines in my head like a prayer. Like if I believe them hard enough, they will become true.

There’s a second knock on the door.

“Erica,” the woman calls, still smooth. Still calm. “It’s time.”

My pulse jumps into my throat. My mouth goes dry. My legs feel too light, like I’m floating.

I look at myself one more time.

The dress dips low in the front, exposing more skin than I’ve ever shown a stranger on purpose. The back is worse—nearly bare, a thin strap across my shoulder blades. The heels make me taller, but not enough to stop me from feeling like a small animal dressed up for display.

I smooth my hair, even though it doesn’t need smoothing. I touch my necklace, a cheap silver chain with a tiny heart charm my dad bought me from a gas station when I was sixteen because I’d had a bad day and he didn’t know what else to do.

I almost take it off.

I don’t.

I don’t know why. Maybe because it’s the only thing on me that feels real.

I walk to the door with my shoulders back, because if I don’t, I might fold.

I open it and the woman stands there, mid-thirties maybe, dark hair in a sleek ponytail, black suit that fits like she was poured into it. She looks me up and down, not like a man would. Like she’s checking if a product meets the listing.

“Good,” she says, like she’s confirming something. “Follow me.”

“Where—” My voice catches. I clear my throat and try again. “Where exactly am I going?”

She gives me a polite smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “You’ll be introduced in the lounge. You’ll stand where I tell you. You’ll answer only if spoken to. You’ll keep your face composed.”

My stomach drops. “And if I can’t?”

Her gaze sharpens, just a fraction. “You will.”

I swallow. “How many people are there?”

“Enough.”

She steps aside and gestures down the hall. I move past her, my heels clicking too loudly in the quiet.

The woman leads me toward an elevator. There’s a security guard posted beside it, earpiece in, hands clasped in front of him. He looks at the woman, then at me, and then looks away like I’m not a person.