Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Nico
Iknew she would hate me.
I thought it wouldn't bother me. Everyone hates me eventually. Pietro tolerates me. Lorenzo finds me exhausting. Vittoria thinks I'm impossible. Bruno wants me dead most days. Even Dante, who drives me around without complaint, probably fantasizes about driving off a cliff with me in the backseat.
So when Kristen said it—when the truth finally clicked into place behind her eyes and she looked at me like I was something she scraped off her shoe—I expected the familiar numbness. The wall I built specifically for moments like this.
Instead, there's this dull ache in my stomach.
I watch her sitting down to the floor, knees pulled to her chest. She looks small. Breakable. The opposite of how she looked at that gala, standing over my mother with fire in her eyes and competence in her hands.
The urge to go to her is ridiculous.
I don't hug. I don't allow anyone to hug me. Physical contact that isn't violence makes my skin crawl. I read once that hugs help people connect emotionally—something about oxytocin and bonding hormones. I filed that information away under "reasons to avoid physical affection."
I don't want connection.
Or I didn't.
Fuck.
"Kristen."
She doesn't look up. Her forehead rests on her knees, her hair falling forward like a curtain. Her shoulders shake once, twice, then still.
Most civilians think we're fiction. That's the thing nobody tells you about organized crime.
People don't believe it exists outside Netflix shows and paperback novels.
They look at families like ours and see "old money" or "corrupt businessmen" or "connected to politicians.
" They rationalize. They justify. They convince themselves the mafia died with Al Capone.
It's easier than accepting that the man who donated to their kid's school fundraiser also ordered someone's fingers broken last Tuesday.
Kristen isn't stupid. She saw signs. The security. The money. The way everyone defers to Pietro. But she convinced herself we were white-collar criminals at worst. Insider trading. Tax evasion. The kind of crime that happens in boardrooms and gets settled with fines.
Not the kind that gets settled with bullets.
"I can't—" Her voice cracks. "I can't be here."
"You can't leave either."
She finally lifts her head. Her eyes are red-rimmed but dry. No tears. That somehow makes it worse. "So I'm a prisoner now?"
"You're being dramatic."
"You just told me the Russian mob wants to collect a hundred and forty thousand dollars from me in thirty days. You told me my ex-husband has been lying to me for years. You told me you're—" She swallows. "You're mafia."
"Italian-American organized crime," I correct, because apparently I have a death wish. "Technically."
"Oh, that's so much better."
There it is. That spark of fight beneath the fear.
I hate that I find it attractive.
I move closer without meaning to. Three steps. Two. Until I'm standing over her crumpled form, looking down at the crown of her head. My hand twitches at my side.
Don't touch her.
"I'm paying the debt."
The words come out flat. Final. The way I deliver orders to soldiers who know better than to argue.
Kristen's head snaps up. "No."
"It's already done." A lie. Pietro approved it, but I haven't made the call yet. "Shell companies. Untraceable. The Bratva gets their money, you get your life back."
"I said no." She scrambles to her feet, swaying slightly. "I won't take your money."
"You don't have a job that pays a hundred and forty thousand dollars in thirty days."
"And you do?"
I almost laugh. "I have access to resources you can't imagine."
"Criminal resources." She spits the word like poison. "Blood money."
"Money is money. It spends the same whether it came from construction contracts or—" I stop myself. No need to elaborate on our other revenue streams. "The point is, I can make this problem disappear."
"By making me owe you instead?" Kristen takes a step toward me. Then another. Her eyes are blazing now, all that fear transforming into something hotter. "By trading one mafia debt for another?"
"We don't charge interest."
"That's not funny."
"I'm not joking."
She's close now. Close enough that I can smell whatever that scent is. It shouldn't affect me. I've been surrounded by women wearing perfume.
None of them smelled this good.
Stop.
"You don't get to decide this for me." Her voice shakes with rage. "You don't get to swoop in and—and buy me like I'm some—"
"I'm not buying you."
"Then what do you call it?"
A strand of hair falls across her face. Before I can stop myself, my hand moves. Fingertips brush her temple as I tuck the hair behind her ear.
Her breath catches.
Mine does too.
What the fuck am I doing?
"Apparently," I say, and my voice comes out rougher than intended, "you're stuck in this house as a housekeeper for the rest of your life."
Kristen blinks.
Her eyes drop to my mouth.
Back up to my eyes.
Down again.
My pulse does something it hasn't done in years—it races. Not from adrenaline or violence or the cold calculation that usually drives my heart rate up.
From her.
I want to kiss her.
WHAT THE FUCK?
I don't kiss. I've never kissed. Sex is transactional. I state my terms upfront, no kissing, no cuddling afterward, no pretending it means something. Women accept or they don't. Most accept. They get off, I get off, everyone goes home satisfied and unattached.
Kissing implies intimacy. Connection. The exact vulnerability I've spent years avoiding.
And right now, looking at Kristen's parted lips, I want to taste her more than I want my next breath.
Get out. Get out of this room. Get away from this woman before you do something catastrophically stupid.
"I don't need your help." Her voice is barely a whisper.
I step back. My expression hardens.
"You're right," I say coldly. "You don't need my help. So go ahead. Walk out of here. Take Lily back to that apartment with the broken elevator and the locks that wouldn't stop stray cat, let alone the Bratva."
Kristen's face pales.
I should stop. I know I should stop. But the words keep coming, precise and brutal, designed to wound.
"They won't kill you right away, you know. That's not how they collect. First, they take things. Fingers. Teeth. Whatever they think will motivate payment." I tilt my head, watching her flinch. "And when you can't pay—because you can't, Kristen, let's not pretend otherwise—they'll take Lily."
Her hand flies to her mouth.
"Not to hurt her. At first. She's worth more as leverage. But children are fragile. They break so easily when—"
"Stop."
The word tears out of her like a sob. Tears spill down her cheeks, silent and devastating. She looks at me like I'm a monster.
Because I am.
This is what I do. What I've always done. I see weakness and I exploit it. I find the softest, most vulnerable spot and I press until people break or bend to my will.
I just never hated myself for it before.
Kristen's tears keep falling. She doesn't wipe them away. Doesn't look away from me either. Her eyes hold mine, and in them I see it. The exact moment whatever fragile thing existed between us shatters completely.
She's not just scared of me now.
She's broken.
And I did that. I broke her on purpose because I was scared of wanting to kiss her.
Coward. Fucking coward.
"The room is yours for the night," I say. My voice sounds wrong. Hollow. "Lily too. We'll discuss logistics tomorrow."
I turn and walk out of the living room.
I don't look back.
Behind me, I hear a single, shattered sob.
It follows me all the way to my office, where I pour three fingers of whiskey and drink it like water. Then another. Then another.
The alcohol doesn't help.
Nothing helps.
At 3 AM, I'm still sitting in the dark, replaying the exact moment Kristen's eyes went dead. Memorizing it alongside every other piece of evidence that proves what I've always known.
Love is a liability.
And I just proved exactly why I should never, ever let myself feel it.
Kristen
I watch Lily's chest rise and fall, the steady rhythm that used to be my only peace. Now it feels like a countdown.
Thirty days.
I press my back against the headboard, knees pulled to my chest like I'm trying to make myself smaller. Invisible. The way Jack always wanted me.
Nico's words replay in my head like a horror movie I can't pause.
My stomach lurches. I press my fist against my mouth to keep from making a sound that might wake Lily.
I'm such a fool.
The signs were everywhere. Guards, guns, security protocol rules I've learned since day one. The contract saying that I wasn't allowed to share nothing that has to do with the family to other people out of the compound.
I saw it all and convinced myself it was just... rich people stuff. Eccentric billionaire behavior. White-collar crimes at worst.
Because you wanted it to be true, that cruel voice in my head whispers. Because you were desperate.
Desperate and stupid. Story of my life.
They seemed so good.
But Jack seemed good too, didn't he? Charming. Protective. The kind of man who opened doors and pulled out chairs and made my mother cry happy tears at our wedding.
Instagram Jack. Public Jack. The version everyone saw while the real Jack picked apart my self-worth piece by piece in private.
Maybe that's what the Sartoris are. An Instagram family. All warm smiles and Sunday dinners and charity galas while they do... whatever it is that crime families do. The stuff Nico described in graphic detail just to watch me crumble.
I squeeze my eyes shut, but the images won't stop. Lily's small hands. Her curious grey-blue eyes that look so much like mine.
God, what have I done?
I brought my daughter into a mafia compound. Let her play with their people. Let her get attached to Vittoria. Let her wander into Bruno's wing like this was some kind of fairy tale castle instead of a fortress built on blood money.
My phone sits on the nightstand. I could call my mother. Beg her to come get us. Take Lily somewhere safe while I figure this out.
But my mother told Jack where to find us today. My mother, who's supposed to love me more than anyone, handed my location to the man who destroyed my credit, stole my savings, and put a Russian mob target on my back.
There's nowhere safe. There's no one I can trust.
Except...
Nico offered to pay the debt. One hundred and forty thousand dollars like it was pocket change. He didn't ask for anything in return. Just offered it, simple as that.
And then he ripped you apart for refusing.
I wipe my cheek. When did I start crying again?
The thing is, the things he said were meant to scare me. I know that. He wanted me terrified.
But I was already terrified. I've been terrified since I saw Jack kneeling next to our daughter. Since Dante appeared out of nowhere, confirming that someone had been watching us.
Lily shifts in her sleep, mumbling something. I reach out and brush a curl from her forehead, my hand trembling.
I press my lips together until they ache, swallowing the sob that wants to escape.
You could run.
The thought surfaces unbidden. Take Lily. Disappear. Change our names. Start over somewhere the Bratva and Jack and even the Sartoris can't find us.
But I have twelve hundred dollars to my name. No car. No family I can trust. And according to Nico, the Bratva already knows where I live.
Running isn't an option. It's a fantasy.
Which leaves me with exactly two choices: accept help from one crime family to escape another, or wait thirty days for men to come collecting.
Neither option ends with me being free.
I pull Lily closer. She curls into me automatically, her small fist clutching the front of my shirt.
Somewhere in this house, Nico Sartori is probably congratulating himself on putting me in my place. On reminding me exactly how powerless I am.
But I've been powerless before. I've been trapped before. I survived Jack for five years.
I can survive this too.
I just have to figure out how.