Chapter Thirty-Four #2
“I’m up, I’m up…” I groan, feeling where I'm gonna start bruising later. “Ah, fuck.” I grab at my side. What the fuck did Niko do? I get to my feet and put up my fists. “Ready to go again?”
His brows quirk up, telepathically asking what the fuck is wrong with me. He lowers his voice like the other boxers didn’t just watch. “What? No. Get the fuck outta the ring, Maks. Go home. Go home to your wife. Get some rest or something. You ain’t right in the head right now.”
I spit the blood at his feet. “Pussy.”
Niko laughs, “Oh yeah, I’m the pussy. I’m the big fucking pussy that just let myself get knocked down.”
“Yeah, I let myself,” I scoff with a shake of my head. “Because you know you’d never be able to beat me otherwise.”
His throat bobs as that arctic gaze of his searches my eyes, jaw flexing. He stands straight and drops his hands to the side. I’ve cut somewhere deep. Said something that I'll never be able to take back. “Fuck. Nikolai, I—”
“Go the fuck home, Maks. You’re not ready.”
I pull a Raven and throw him the middle finger, climbing out the ring. I pull out a clean, dry hoodie from my bag, throw all my shit into it, then shove my shoes back on. I lock eyes with Matt as I open the door, and I leave.
But I don’t go home.
I can’t. I sit in the SUV with my hands gripping the wheel, and I…
I can’t just go home. Not with when waits for me there is a quiet, upset wife.
A wife that loves me. A wife that’s waiting for me to just…
talk to her. The back of my skull hits the headrest. Niko’s right.
I’m being a fucking pussy. But what do I say to her?
How do I fucking make sense of this fucking shit I’m feeling?
I don’t even understand it. It’s fucking sticking to my lungs, my liver.
It’s a fucking parasite, leaving me hollow.
God, I feel like I’m going fucking nuts.
I drive to Eden, throw my keys to the valet, and head inside, where I find Johnny humming to some pop song while he clicks on his computer screen. I walk past him.
“Oh shit. Hey, Boss. Didn’t know you’d be in to…dayyy… What the hell happened to you?” he asks, and I hear the squeak of his chair and his footsteps behind me.
“Nothing. Just trained with Niko this morning," I reply while sitting at the chair behind my desk. My surroundings are familiar. All it does is remind me that if I hadn’t have survived, it would have all stayed like this. The new Pakhan would be Niko, and the new capo would be Kallum.
Johnny leans on the door frame of my office and folds his arms over his chest. He lifts a dark brow and eyes me curiously, like he’s contemplating saying more but doesn’t.
“What do you got for me?”
“Ummm, nothing really. It’s been quiet.”
Yeah, it really has. I feel myself scowl and my employee straightens.
“What’s that look for?”
I shake my head. “Last time it ‘got quiet,’ Parker was shot and I was…” taken.
The silent word hangs between us like stringy, invisible smoke. Saying it makes it a reality. Saying it recognizes I was weak. Saying it means my system is flawed. I failed somewhere. Targeted or not.
Johnny’s dark eyes bounce around my office, not exactly landing anywhere they need to be until they finally fixate on me again.
He blinks, then sniffs with a shake of his head, standing tall.
“You know, Boss, I saw the numbers from Wales… the ones they lost were far more than the ones we lost.” He shoves his hands into his pockets.
“You know, my nonna used to say sometimes you get shit on once a year. It balances the universe or somethin’. ”
I scoff with a shake of my head, remembering his nonna, Vicki. She was one of the first dancers at Inferno after my grandfather, Alessio, won it from some Syndicate prick in a poker game back in the 50s. She was a spitfire. Kind… but mouthy. “Yeah? Good ol’ Vicki O’Hannigan told ya that, huh?”
Johnny jerks his chin to the photograph of my grandfather, his Betty Boop lookalike nonna, and Dahlia Collins taken after one of the biggest nights of their lives.
Alessio once told me it was their best performance, even though they were both choking on lies.
If you look closely at the picture, the smile doesn’t match the worry in their eyes.
He lifts a shoulder and lets it drop. “Your grandfather trusted her… maybe you should, too.”
He turns to walk out of my office. “Quiet don’t always mean bad, Boss.
Just means the chaos has been controlled.
For now. And after everything your wife has been through…
don’t you think it’s about time? Don’t you think she deserves to rest?
Kinda feels like she earned it, don’t it?
I mean, it can’t be easy being married to a Don-slash-Pakhan.
Anyway, since you’re here, I’m going to lunch.
” The door shuts behind him with a small click, and his footsteps grow faint.
With a sigh, I get to my feet, finally feeling the bruises from this morning along with the guilt that’s been weighing me down for weeks.
I go to the elevator and step inside, close the wrought iron door, and hit the button to take me down to the lowest floor.
I look through the glass of each floor, each one a black void since Eden doesn’t open until this evening.
The elevator’s whirring halts just as it’s reached my final destination—my dungeon.
It still smells faintly of bleach from the last clean-up the crew did.
I blink a few times as the bright lights turn on one by one.
The silence is unnerving, and it pushes against my eardrums. I ignore it with a clear of my throat and a sniff.
No noise beyond the ones I make is heard.
I finally get to the small office with the en suite shower and do as I need to do.
I peel off my clothes, shower, and get into a clean suit.
All the while images of Sabrina’s frowns lately flit through my mind.
I glance at the mirror before flicking the light back off. I have a shiner on my cheekbone, my jaw, and let’s not forget my black eye or my busted lip. “Shit,” I sigh into the empty room.
I flick off the light, lock the door, and shove my hands in my pockets.
Readying myself to face my wife.
The scent of gingerbread, sugar, and what I think is cranberry and pecans invades my senses as soon as I walk through the front door.
Christmas carols play lightly in the background, and I know exactly where to find my wife.
I step through the foyer and shove my gym bag in the coat closet, shirk off my coat, hang it up, then toe off my shoes.
I don't see Parker anywhere. It’s like he’s been a ghost, too.
Or maybe it’s all in my head and I'm just drifting, seeing what I want to see.
Sabrina stands at the kitchen island, wearing a black long-sleeved shirt she’s pushed up to her elbows.
Well, I guess it is in my head. Parker sits at the breakfast nook reading the paper, not saying a word.
She’s muttering to herself, reading a recipe with her glasses on, hair up in a messy bun on her head.
She hasn’t worn pink in days. It’s been darker shades of blue, black, or beige.
When she curls into bed, she sleeps as far away from me as possible.
It’s worse than when I first forced her to start sleeping in my room.
Back then, I used to find her asleep on the floor.
That was an easy fix. I’d pick her up and put her in bed with me.
Then it seemed like it was the only way either of us could sleep—her tucked into my side or close enough to feel the warmth radiating off of each other.
When we first came back, she at least slept with her arm out, an open invitation to grab her and tuck her in where she belongs.
And like a fucking cazzo, I didn’t. I couldn’t. I can’t.
Parker clocks me first, mismatched eyes following me as he sets down the paper and takes a sip of his afternoon coffee.
On the dining table behind him is what can only be described as a mountain of cookies.
How long have I been gone? There’s a static tension in the air, like right before a lightning storm begins.
Sabrina looks up, green eyes tracing my face, and her brows furrow. “What the fuck happened to you?”