45. Nikola
NIKOLA
A fter one solid week of torture, Diana Bergman’s expression finally turned fearful the moment she spotted me. She never even glanced Uncle Sasha’s or Alexei’s way.
It was only me she watched. After all, this was my revenge. My payback. Mine and Skye’s.
Her expression was filled with hate and malice, but it finally went through her head that nobody was coming to save her. Not the head of the Spanish mafia. Not the heirs of her long-dead lover and first husband. Not her granddaughters.
I wheeled over to her with a twisted grin, ignoring the stench of her body that smelled of copper, urine, and desperation. She was still in the same clothes that Alexei had found her in. The white Valentino tuxedo now yellow and sporting multiple rips.
“Merry Christmas,” was my greeting, watching the IV hooked to her vein drip, drip, drip. It was what had kept her alive for so long. “Or maybe not so merry after all, considering you’re tied up in a dark basement and there’re no hollies or cherry pies to go around.”
“You have no honor,” she spat.
“Funny, neither do you,” I scoffed. So did Sasha and Alexei, who stood a mere two feet behind me.
“Torturing an old woman is so beneath you,” she said tersely, her speech slightly slurred. A sure sign that her end was near, and today I might just be generous enough to give it to her. “What happened to no torturing women and children?”
“It still stands. But you’re neither a woman nor a child. You’re an evil piece of shit who manipulated her family. Who tried to kill her own great-granddaughter. Who hurt a five-year-old.”
It was what kept me coming back to this fucking basement and inflicting punishment on this old woman.
I hurt inside, and I needed this bitch’s screams to drown out the pain and voices of regret in my head. Skye out of my life hurt more than anything else. Deep down, I constantly fought the urge to go after her, but every time I sat in that fucking wheelchair, I knew I was doing right by her.
Fuck it all.
“She was never supposed to be born,” she hissed as she failed to push herself into a seated position. “One disability in a family is an accident, two is a stain on a family tree.”
I reached for my knife from the holster around my chest and stabbed her frail arm, twisting it with a gleam in my eyes and a cruel smile on my lips.
Her scream followed, and I waited for echoes of it to cease before I said, “Skye is the highlight of any family. A star shining so bright, she blinds everyone around her. You, on the other hand, may call yourself The Duchess, but you are the stain.”
I slashed a long cut across her abdomen, drawing another scream from her as she coughed up blood.
“It took you long enough to put it together,” she cackled.
“Why not let her be?” Sasha asked, leaning against the wall beside me. His posture was relaxed, but it was all a front. He was just as enraged as Dante and me, blaming themselves for failing Skye. The truth was, we all failed her. “Why come after her after all these years?”
She shrugged. “Revenge has a long memory, and that child and her bastard father ruined my family.”
Alexei narrowed his eyes, all too familiar with lunatics, and recognized Diana Bergman for one.
“Or maybe you should look in the mirror and own your fuckup,” Sasha said in a cold voice, adjusting her IV to ensure she didn’t die prematurely. “Now for the last time, was the Spanish mafia aware of your plans?”
Lo and behold, the first husband to this woman held a soft spot for her and had a hand in Dante’s torture twenty-some years ago.
He teamed up with cartel members who were now long dead, but we needed to know if the heirs were in on this.
We suspected not, since those criminals were usually involved in sea raidings and kept to themselves.
When she didn’t answer, I twisted the knife inside her abdomen, inflicting pain that wouldn’t kill her.
“No,” she finally answered in a hoarse voice, her beady eyes on me. “But I know everything about them. I could be of use to you.”
I smiled cruelly at the disgusting woman, but I didn’t shut her down. I needed more answers. “How did you know that Skye would be at Revelation?”
Uncle Sasha shot me a curious look, but I ignored it, keeping my attention zeroed in on the old woman for any telltales of a lie.
Diana laughed, although the sound was dead. She’d given up. “My last husband was a member. I retained the access and sent an exclusive invite to Enzo Marchetti.”
I stiffened. “The Marchettis are working with you?”
She shrugged, the stench rolling off of her in waves.
“He found me. I knew his crazy mother once upon a time.” I shared a glance with Sasha, but neither one of us said anything. “I guess he wanted answers.”
“What kind of answers?” I demanded.
“Who and what she was.” She coughed, then continued. “I saw an opportunity and offered him an exclusive invite to Revelation. How he used it was up to him.”
“In exchange for what?” I demanded.
“A small favor.” She coughed again, spitting up blood. Death was coming for her steady and fast. “That he used his newest software he sold to the FBI. It tops the one by Nico Morrelli and erases any search results typed in from certain IP addresses.”
“That’s why I couldn’t find you,” I hissed. “That’s why search results related to Skye’s foster care records kept coming up blank.”
“Smart, ha!” She smiled, most of her teeth missing. Over the last week, the woman had forgone her dental implants.
“That doesn’t answer how you knew that Skye would be in the club that night,” I insisted. “Unless?—”
“I demanded he use it to bait his fiancée’s friends to the club as well. I spun a tale of a long-lost great-granddaughter.”
I shook my head.
The lengths she went to end Skye terrified me, so when she locked her beady eyes on me, I felt no regret pulling out a gun and pointing it at her forehead.
Bang.
Ding dong! The witch was dead.
I gritted my teeth, silence enveloping my uncle Sasha’s Land Rover as I watched him drive me home. It made me feel like a useless, dependent schmuck. I had started physical therapy, but driving myself was still off-limits. I couldn’t use my knees even if I wanted to. Trust me, I’d tried.
He pulled up in front of my father’s home but didn’t move.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed. “Jesus, are you going to start too?”
He looked at me. “Start what?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. Just say what you want to say so I can get back to work.”
He shot me a disapproving look. “It’s Christmas Day, nephew.”
“Merry fucking Christmas,” I muttered. “Now, can we go?”
“I talked to Skye this morning,” he proceeded to say, ignoring my sarcasm. “When do you plan on calling her?”
My heart felt like a hollow gaping hole and my future a chessboard without its queen. I’d counted the days since I last kissed her: thirty-four painful days. It felt like years.
I needed her.
It was fucking pathetic how much I needed her. I missed her fire, her moans, her everything. As if she was my oxygen, and now that I’d tasted her, life without her was impossible. It was life without air. It was surviving, not living.
Funny how life worked.
Just as things fell into place, everything fell apart so hard and fast, leaving me staring at the rubble of what was left of my crippled life.
But something had shifted inside me since Skye left. The same way it shifted all those years ago as I tugged on her hair and kissed her accidentally. I knew even back then that I could never be her forever because of this life I was destined to.
I told Dante Leone I’d find her a husband, but the truth was that whenever I thought of it, vehemence crept through me with such violence that a cold sweat would break out beneath my skin and a tremble would start in my hands.
So I tabled it until I was… stronger.
“Nikola,” Uncle interrupted my thoughts. “I know you think you’re doing the right thing, but two broken hearts should tell you otherwise.”
“She’ll forget about me.”
“But will you forget about her?” Uncle asked.
I pinched the bridge of my nose again. “What’s with you? You didn’t want me with Skye to start with. You should be happy.”
He took a deep breath and then exhaled it.
“Truthfully, I didn’t mind the idea that much once I thought it through.” I shot him a surprised look. “It made me realize that marrying you would officially make Skye a Nikolaev again. Besides, it makes sense.”
“What does?”
“That she’d fall for you. She always saw you as her protector. Her knight. Even when you pulled on her hair like some love-stricken boy.” He pushed his hand through his hair. “I should have known you two would be it all those years ago when I made you apologize and you kissed her.”
“It was an accident,” I muttered.
“Sure it was,” he grumbled. “Listen, Nikola. I know your father’s expectations to take over the Nikolaev empire were a lot to put on anyone as young as you.
The truth was, Vasili took over caring for your aunt and me along with the Nikolaev criminal activities when he was way too young, and he had no business carrying that burden. ”
I shrugged. “I’m fine with taking over.”
He nodded. “I know, but my point is that sometimes we act out when demands are put on us, but psychotic behavior is just a facade we hide under. However, it can leave you alone. What you and Skye found, made you a better person. Yes, you fucked up making a tape, but the two of you… you bring the best out of each other.”
He exited the car, and as I waited for him to grab the wheelchair from the back of the SUV, I stared in front of me.
Could my uncle be right?