7. Nico
7
Nico
T he pieces finally click into place as Isabella and I pore over the intelligence reports.
Santino Rodriquez. The trusted family advisor, the man who's been at Luca Bellanti’s side for decades.
He had access to everything that was leaked, and lately, his behavior has been off–nervous glances, canceled meetings, avoiding direct conversation.
“We need to be sure,” Isabella says, her fingers flying over the keyboard. She furrows her brows in deep concentration, the flickering screen light accentuating her sharp facial angles.
I lean in close, taking in the information on her laptop. “Then let’s get proof. Set up a trap, leak false information about a shipment. Something valuable enough to tempt him.”
When I walk into Santino’s office three days later, I’m prepared for the worst. The sting of betrayal, the lies, the excuses. What I don’t expect is the wall of evidence he presents.
"Security footage," he says, sliding his laptop toward me. The timestamp is clear—he was at his daughter’s dance recital the night of the leak.
“Twenty witnesses, including three police officers. Phone records showing I was nowhere near any of the locations in question.” His voice remains steady, but there’s something sharp in his gaze. “Someone is playing you, Nico. And you’re letting them.”
A slow, icy dread creeps down my spine. Someone set us up. The mole purposely led us to Santino, derailing us from the right track.
I leave Santino’s office with my mind racing, pulling apart every step of our investigation. The pieces don’t just fail to fit; they form an entirely different picture.
The drive back is a blur. My pulse pounds, my grip tight on the steering wheel. I hit the speed dial as soon as I got onto the highway.
“It wasn’t him,” I say the second Isabella picks up. “Santino had proof, solid proof. Someone wanted us to suspect him—”
The sharp crack of gunfire suddenly tears through the line.
Then chaos, screams, shattering glass and silence.
My blood turns cold. “Isabella? ISABELLA!”
The call cuts off.
A brutal, suffocating fear grips me. I slam my foot on the gas, weaving recklessly through traffic, my mind cycling through worst-case scenarios at breakneck speed. Dead. Wounded. Taken.
When I burst into Velvet, the scent of blood and gunpowder clings to the air.
Matteo stands in the middle of the club, with three bodies at his feet.
Then I see her.
Alive. Thank fuck.
She’s being checked over by our medic. Just a thin cut mars her cheek.
Relief slams into me, but before I can reach her, Matteo’s fist crashes into my jaw.
“Where the fuck were you?” he snarls, shoving me back. “You two idiots playing detective—she could have died. Did it never occur to you to tell me what you were planning?”
“Stop.” Isabella pushes between us, her small hands against Matteo’s chest. “I’m fine. Matteo got here in time.”
She fills me in on the ambush on her club which happened while she was on the call with me.
My gaze falls on the mercenary, still barely clinging to life.
I exchanged a look with Matteo.
This was no random attack.
I nod to the mercenary on the floor. “Let me handle this one.”
Matteo studies me for a beat, then nods. “I will escort her home.”
The interrogation is not quick. It is not painless.
I start by breaking his fingers one by one, watching as he tries to hold in his screams. The first snap is always the worst.
The raw agony spreads through his nerves like wildfire, and by the third snap, his breath is coming in harsh, uneven gasps.
I move to his kneecaps next, driving the heel of my boot down until I hear the sickening crunch of bone. He won’t be walking again.
Then the knife comes out.
I carve a slow, deliberate line down his forearm, peeling the skin back in ribbons. Blood oozes, thick and dark, soaking into the floor beneath him. He sobs, the sound broken, desperate.
“Tell me who hired you,” I murmur, my voice eerily calm. “Or I remove things you can’t live without.”
“I swear,” he gasps, blood bubbling on his lips, “I just followed orders. David, the one your man killed—he handled everything. We never knew who hired us.”
Another dead end.
“Thanks,” I mumble and put a bullet in his head.
When I step into the penthouse hours later, Isabella is waiting. She takes one look at me, blood soaked and exhausted, and something shifts in her expression. A softness I don’t deserve.
“I should have been there,” I say. My voice is rough. “Should have protected you.”
Her response is wordless. A kiss, searing and desperate, her hands fisting in my shirt. I lose myself in her, in the fire between us, in the undeniable proof that she’s still here. Still mine.
I slide my hands under her ass, carrying her to our bedroom.
Placing her gently on the bed, I gently peel off her clothes while my body slides up between her slightly spread legs, my shoulders pushing them a little wider apart as my mouth closes in on its target.
“Nico,” Isabella moans as I drag my tongue over her pussy.
I groan, pushing my tongue deeper as my hands grip her ass. My tongue slides lower to her clit, and then I take the throbbing nub between my lips.
“Nico….” she whimpers, writhing and twisting as my tongue curls around her clit. I keep her pinned down exactly how I want her, my fingers digging into the soft flesh of her ass.
My tongue plunges in again, swirling around to drink in her arousal. She whimpers and whines in pleasure, her ass lifting to press back against my mouth.
I don’t let up. I keep teasing her, higher and higher, hotter and hotter, until she’s actively and desperately thrusting her hips back against my tongue.
Her moans get louder, her legs tighten on either side of my shoulders, and when I suck her clit back between my lips and flutter my tongue across the roaring nerves, she comes undone.
I growl into her cunt, tongue-fucking her throughout her orgasm as it shudders over her body. She’s still quivering as I slide up over her. My knees shove her thighs apart, and just as she raises her ass, my swollen cock finds her slick, eager opening.
I grab a fistful of her hair at the nape of her neck, yanking her head back and making her gasp in pleasure as I sink into her sweet little pussy.
“Oh my FUCK, Nico!” she shrieks, moaning and clawing at the bedsheets.
I roll my hips, slowly inching my thick cock back out from between her pink, swollen lips.
Then I quickly ram back in, letting my balls slap her clit as she screams for more. My hips pound faster, thrusting harder as my cock fucks her greedy, dripping, pretty pussy.
My hand tugs her hair harder, pulling her head all the way back, bringing her up on her knees with her back to my chest. I snarl into her neck, inhaling the scent of her and biting down on her soft skin.
My hands circle around her, cupping her breasts and twisting her nipples in my fingers before delving between her legs. Isabella moans as I stroke her puffy lips while I fuck her, rubbing her clit in slow circles as my swollen head sinks as deep as I can inside her.
I fuck her harder and faster, driving my cock in and out of her as she begs for more, harder, deeper.
She shudders, her head pulled back against my chest with my hand tight in her luscious dark hair.
She reaches back, wrapping her arms around the back of my neck and all but hanging off me like a rag doll as I fuck the absolute hell out of her.
Isabella's moans get louder. Her body begins to stiffen and clench, and I can feel her pussy squeezing my cock like it’s trying to milk the cum right out of my balls.
She’s about to come.
She screams into my mouth as she comes, her pussy spasming and clenching tight around my cock. I groan, biting her lower lip as I drive in deep, my balls twitching as I spill rope after thick rope of hot cum deep in her greedy little cunt.
Later, as we lie sweaty in bed, she traces the edge of my shirt with her fingers.
I know what she wants to ask.
“Why do you always keep it on?” she whispers.
The question hits a raw nerve, but something in me wants her to know. Wants her to understand. "I was thirteen," I start, and the words taste like ash. " My father thought I was too soft. "
I tell her everything. The staged kidnapping. Three weeks in that basement, fighting other teenagers, thinking I'd killed them. The minimal food, the psychological torture, the constant message that my family had abandoned me.
How proud my father was when I killed his chosen target, thinking I was fighting for my life.
"Maria, my housekeeper, you met her at the wedding… She found me after. Treated my wounds, held me while I fell apart. She's the closest thing to a mother I've ever had."
When I finish, Isabella is crying. I reach for her, and she flinches. The reaction cuts deeper than any knife, even though I deserve it. Of course she's afraid—she’s married to a monster.
"I would never hurt you," I say roughly. "I know I'm damaged, I know what I am, but—"
"Stop." Her hands frame my face, forcing me to look at her. "I didn't flinch because I'm afraid of you. I flinched because I can't bear how badly they hurt you." Her thumbs brushed away tears I didn't know I was shedding. "You're not damaged, Nico. You're not a monster. You're a survivor."
Something breaks in my chest. "Isabella..."
"I'm falling in love with you," she whispers. "God help me, but I am."
I kiss her then, pouring everything I can't say into it.
Because I'm falling too, I have been since the moment she walked into my life with fire in her eyes and steel in her spine. And for the first time since I was thirteen, I don't feel like a monster.
I feel human.