Chapter 23
NICOLETTA
Bolt goes into the kitchen and returns with two more cups of coffee. He kicks off his boots, plumps up the pillows and sits on the other side of the bed with his back against the headboard.
“Kinda weird, right?” He runs his finger over the rim of the cup.
“What’s that?” I ask, not quite sure where he’s heading.
“You and me.” He says the three words like that explains the last two weeks.
“Is there a you and me?” Might as well ask the hard questions.
“There sure the fuck is.” He turns to me.
“Everything changed after Diesel found the knife I hid, and I get it. I betrayed you.”
His eyes narrow. “You remember the first time we were in this room?”
“Kinda hard to forget, but you didn’t answer my question.”
“That is the answer.”
“I don’t think what happened that night or any other night we had sex constitutes a you and me.” I cock my head. “More like hot, crazy out-of-control sex.”
“So, what’s your point?”
“Are you trying to be obtuse?” I ask.
He makes a face. “First of all, what’s obtuse? And second, the fact we had that hot sex means there is a you and me.”
“I’m sure you’ve had hot sex with plenty of other women way before me.”
“Not like that.”
I mash my lips together. “I call bullshit.”
“Okay, maybe hot sex, but not like with you, and I’m thinking you felt the same way. I’m also thinking . . .”
“What?”
“Don’t get pissed . . . but did Bradley ever get you off?”
I throw him a death glare. “Yes.”
His eyes widen. “Now I’m calling bullshit.”
I huff out a breath. “Well, not all the time. Sometimes, I mean.” I put the coffee cup to my lips and drink deep. “Very rarely.”
“Just what I thought.”
“Now, you’re going to be all smug.”
“Not smug, just right.” He grins. “I knew the minute you walked up to me that first night that you weren’t getting it regular, or you weren’t getting it right.”
“Reallllly?” I drawl. “And what tipped you off?”
He smirks, shaking his head slightly. “A hot-lookin’ babe like you who gives herself up to me like you did. Who wants to get fucked in the back of a shit bar with an outlaw biker, and then gets even hotter when some random guys stop to watch?”
“And that told you I was desperate?” I ask.
“Fuck no,” Bolt bellows. “It told me you liked sex, but you weren’t getting it right or regular. Believe me, babe, there’s nothing desperate or needy about you.”
“Thank you . . . I think.”
“But even all that and hotter-than-hell sex doesn’t change the facts.”
“And what facts are those?”
“That there’s probably no chance of us being a ‘you and me.’” His gaze trials to the ceiling, and I hold my breath, waiting. “Before we went up to Riviera, I thought maybe, but now . . .” His voice trails off like he doesn’t know how to end the sentence—or end us.
“I don’t know what you’re trying to say. We went to take down Clark Williams and the others, and we did. Success.”
“The whole thing.” He spreads his arms wide. “The big country club, the people you know, the way you fit in. Can you honestly tell me you’d give all that up,” he waves his hand around his room, “for this?”
“You’re looking at this all wrong. I’m not giving up anything. I’m gaining a life I can actually live. Staying in Tijuana, helping the people here. I’ve gotten closer to the Harlots in the last two weeks than anyone on my tennis team I’ve known since I was a child.”
“When Manny was digging up all that intel on Williams and the others, he googled your house in Pacific Palisades—more like mansion. I saw the tennis courts, the pool, indoor and outdoor, the cabana that’s the size of most people’s home. All of it overlooking the Pacific.”
“And?”
“And there’s no way you could give all that up to live over a strip club in Tijuana.”
“You are right about that, but who says we have to stay here? Smoke and Blood have their own places.”
“Not with tennis courts and country clubs.”
“Don’t you understand? I never really felt a part of any of it.
I just went through the motions because that’s what my parents expected.
Even getting with Brad was a setup. Now, I find out the man I thought was my father isn’t, Brad was a greedy perv, and everything I believed was a lie—except one thing—I knew deep down I didn’t belong there. ”
“I just don’t want you rushing into some shit you’ll regret later.”
“I told you—”
Bolt’s phone buzzes with a text. He reads it, then reaches for the remote and turns on the TV.
“Smoke said to put on the news.” Bolt clicks to an American news channel just as Clark Williams’ mansion, a place I once called home, flashes up on the screen.
“Multi-billionaire, Clark Williams, has been arrested in conjunction with the murder of Bradley Remington, along with alleged smuggling of underage women over the border from Mexico.”
“These charges were issued after a shootout at the Riviera Country Club on Thursday night. Luckily, there were no fatalities. Others allegedly connected to the human trafficking—Stuart Hinchman, George Davenport and Tom Hansen—were also arrested.”
“Williams and the other men have pleaded not guilty and are being held at the Los Angeles County jail awaiting bail. More on this story tonight at eleven.”
“Wow, and we were there.” I turn to Bolt. “I can’t believe they didn’t try to tie the club into it too.”
“Might have something to do with Smoke’s connections in L.A. Clark might’ve had all those politicians, but Smoke’s got people on the dark side, probably with plenty of dirt on all of them.”
“True.” I slowly shake my head. “I still can’t believe those men I’ve known all my life were so twisted. This scandal will be talked about for years.”
My cell phone buzzes. I read the caller ID, flip the screen to Bolt, then put the phone to my ear. “Mom?”
“Nicoletta?”
“Mom, is everything all right?”
My mother never calls me. Not when I was home sick as a child with the nanny. Not when I went away to college. Not when I was in the hospital with appendicitis. I call her; she never calls me.
“Yes, of course.” A heartbeat. “Are you at The Tropics?”
Now this was getting spooky. I never told my mother I would be here.
“What do you know about The Tropics?”
“I know you’ve been living there for the last few weeks with a smoking-hot biker.”
“Mom, what’s going on?”
“I’m at a little cafe at the corner of the Avenida Revolución. Cafe Milano. Do you know it?”
My gaze darts to my coffee cup with Cafe Milano scrolled across the front. “I know it.”
Bolt is giving me the eye and mouthing “What’s going on?”
I make a circular motion in the air with my forefinger. The universal gesture for crazy, and he laughs.
“I have to see you. I have something for you.”
“Hang on a minute.” I put my phone on mute and turn to Bolt. “It’s my mother, and believe it or not, she’s at Cafe Milano. She says she has something for me. I’m going to have her come here, all right?”
Bolt shrugs. “Yeah, sure.”
Fifteen minutes later, my mother is sitting on one end of Bolt’s couch, me on the other end, with Bolt across from us in the chair.
“What’s going on, Mom?”
Aurora looks at Bolt. “She’s always been so impatient.” Then she opens the large Gucci duffel bag at her feet.
“Holy shit!” Bolt leans in for a better look.
“Exactly.” Aurora grins. “And this is just a small portion.” She zips the bag up and turns to me. “Remember I told you about the money in the gardener’s shed?”
I nod as a hundred questions race through my head before I center on one of them. “You were at the spa in Baja, so how did you—”
“Gwen Chandler called me,” she says like that explains everything.
“And?”
“You know Gwen, she called me right after the police questioned everyone the other night at Riviera and told me everything that happened.” She rolls her eyes.
“She’s such a gossip, but she actually did me a favor.
I flew back to L.A., grabbed as much as I could, and got out of there just in time.
A half hour later, I watched police cars swarm our driveway through the surveillance cameras on my phone. ”
“Why? You’re not guilty of anything besides picking the wrong man to marry.”
“Not in the eyes of the law. I’m his wife, so they just assume I know something.
” She lowers her eyes. Apparently, he kept some listings separate, then used the houses for their perverted pleasures.
” She raises her eyes. “I just want you to know I didn’t know anything about what Clark and the others were involved in. You believe me, don’t you?”
I reach out and squeeze her hand. “Yes. I believe you.”
“I was as shocked as everyone else, so I called Harry Silver, our accountant, and he told me to secure as many accounts as I can before the authorities freeze it all. There’s enough in those off-shore accounts in Singapore and the Caymans for a lifetime.”
Bolt nods. “Which isn’t exactly legal, as long as you don’t get caught.”
“And I didn’t.” Aurora smiles at Bolt, and he grins his approval. “Plus, Harry’s smart enough to keep his mouth shut unless he wants his license suspended for hiding money in the first place.”
“Looks like you have it all figured out.” My mother never fails to amaze me.”
“Clark, with his Ivy League education and all his money, will be outwitted by a woman who didn’t even finish high school.” Aurora smiles wide. “It’s delicious, don’t you think?”
“That’s one way to put it.”
“I also understand you and the rest of Riviera Country Club found out Clark’s not your biological father.”
“I was both shocked and relieved,” I say dryly.
“You have to understand, if I had told him the truth in the beginning, he never would’ve married me, and you would’ve had a much different life.”
“Right.” My mother thinks I’m agreeing with her, when in reality, I can’t help seeing the irony.
“None of that matters anymore.” She points to the designer bag at her feet. “But this does, and there’s at least five more in the shed.”
“And you want my club’s help,” Bolt says.
“Yes,” Aurora says like he’s stating the obvious.
“And what do the Royal Bastards get out of it?”
“The money.” She shrugs like she’s talking to a child.
Bolt’s eyes narrow. “All of it?”
“Yes.”
“Let me get this straight.” Bolt leans in. “You want my club to go up to your L.A. mansion, grab the rest of the duffels stuffed with cash, then keep it.”
“I don’t know what you are not understanding? I get the off-shore accounts, and you and Nicoletta get the cash.” She nods to the bag. “This one alone probably has at least two hundred thousand, and the others are larger.”
“Please tell me you didn’t fly commercial with all this money?” I ask.
“Of course not. I chartered a private plane.” Aurora frowns. “I always knew Clark was involved in something shady, but human trafficking? He deserves to rot in jail penniless.”
“On that, we agree.”