Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
SERENITY
THE HONEYMOON
The glass trembles in my hand. He gently takes it and lifts it to my lips. I swallow the last of the liquid in one gulp.
What does he mean he got involved?
“Nico, what are you talking about?”
He leads me over to a lounge chair. “Sit down.”
Nico sets the empty glass on a nearby table.
Now it’s his turn to pace back and forth.
The alcohol flows through me, soothing some of the tension.
“It all started back in college, when my family stayed with yours. You had confronted your father about security. I needed to understand why you were freaking out. I’d asked you to let me in and you wouldn’t,” he sighs.
“So, I went to my father for help. He refused to assist. And against his wishes, I sat down with Sergio. I had to find out what was going on with you—my woman. After learning what you’d endured, I vowed to make those bastards pay—Ettore and Aleksandr.”
My eyes widen. “Nico-”
He raises a hand, cutting me off. “Let me finish.”
I sit on my knees now. The wedding dress is puffed out around me.
Nico’s gaze lingers hungrily before he forces himself to look away.
“It all makes sense now,” he says, shaking off the desire.
“Why your real name wasn’t listed at Creekwood.
You were hiding in plain sight.” He wags his finger as he comes to another realization.
“That bastard sent someone to your graduation. Had them push a note into my flowers. I know because I had the security cameras hacked at your graduation.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “There was a card. From Ettore. It said: Congratulations, Serenity,
I couldn’t find you until you showed up in New York. Don’t worry, I’m not planning to strike now. Just want you to know I can reach you. You took everything from me. You’ll pay.”
Nico’s jaw twitches. “I went after Ettore’s men.
Before you left, I was torturing one of his guys.
I did everything to keep you safe. Once you had fled town, I talked to your father.
I warned him they’d never stop hunting you.
He said he knew that. He’d reviewed the grounds’ security footage from the day you, your mother, and Krew were taken hostage.
He saw the man who witnessed it all. That’s why your father kept you heavily guarded.
Eventually, he tracked down the informant who had leaked information to Ettore—and he killed him. ”
I lift my chin. “Good.”
“You see, your mother, brother, and father were no longer the target. Just you, sweetheart. I couldn’t stand for that. Your dad did the right thing by going to Sergio for help.”
“Yeah, it gave me somewhat of a normal life. Even though I was heavily guarded at all times.”
His voice drops low, like a confession meant only for the dark.
“I started two wars.” He pauses, letting that settle. “And I didn’t go to my brother. I found someone else. Someone with enough power to match what I was walking into.”
He halts, and his eyes are somewhere far away.
“I dismantled Ettore’s operation piece by piece. Took down his spots one by one. Got shot twice doing it. Thank God for Kevlar.”
My mouth falls open and my heart is slamming against my ribs so hard I’m convinced he can hear it.
“Then one night, they came for me.”
He’s quiet for a moment. When he speaks again, his voice is measured. Too measured, like a man who’s rehearsed staying calm about something that nearly destroyed him.
“I woke up to the sound of a helicopter. Not passing over — hovering. Right above the house.” His jaw tightens. “Clad only in a black t-shirt, cargo pants, and socks, I snatched my Glock from the nightstand and leapt out of bed.”
I press my hand to my mouth.
“Then the windows started breaking. Every single one. Downstairs first, then mine. A man came through the glass like he’d been dropped from the sky, still connected to a cable, boots crunching through the frame. He had an AK-47 trained on me before he even found his footing.”
He exhales slowly through his nose.
“I sprinted into the hallway. Gunfire was erupting downstairs. It was chaos. The kind that tells you you’re outnumbered.
I aimed my Glock at the bastard who’d broken in and fired several shots.
His bulletproof vest allowed him to return fire effortlessly.
I dashed towards the stairs. Another man tried to escape the other bedroom, but one of my men took him down.
Lune sprinted halfway up the stairs toward me. ”
Something shifts in his face when he says his name. A fracture behind his eyes.
“My back pressed against the wall, I aimed my Glock in both directions. Lune covered the bedroom doorway while I watched the other doorway. We were locked in — moving pieces on the same board, same as always. Lune fired at the man stepping out of my bedroom, forcing him to retreat back inside. Another figure crept up behind Lune. I fired at him. Bullet to the head.”
He swallows.
“Then a third man slipped out from the right. He must’ve already taken out my soldier. He opened fire on both of us.”
“Nico…” My voice cracks as tears spill over.
He lifts a hand, telling me to stay where I am. He’s not done.
“I felt it. Two shots. I hit him in the neck before he dropped, but he got me again on the way down.”
His voice goes quiet. Almost gentle.
“Lune,” he called out like he was reliving the moment. “I slid down the wall, hand pressed to my stomach, the floor rushing up to meet me. My eyes were closing, and I was sure that was it. I was sure I was done.”
He slips his fingers slowly through his hair. “But it wasn’t me they took.”
The silence that follows is suffocating.
“They killed Lune.”
The three words land like stones dropping into still water.
I don’t think. I move off the lounge chair, across the ground, to him. My hands find his face and I hold it, tilt it toward me, search those cognac eyes that have always looked at me like I was something worth burning the world down for.
And I see it. Something I have never once seen in Nico’s eyes.
Grief.
Raw, unguarded, unashamed grief.
“Nico, I’m so sorry,” I breathe. “So- so sorry.”
“He’d been with me for years.” His voice fractures on the last word. Just barely. But I catch it.
I pull him into me, wrap my arms around shoulders that have carried so much for so long, and hold him the way you hold someone who doesn’t know how to ask for it. The most powerful, feared, untouchable man I’ve ever known — and he is trembling, quietly, against me.
“I feel sick knowing he died in a war that was mine to fight,” I whisper into his hair.
“Reacher wanted me to pass something along.” He pulls back just enough to look at me, and there are tears tracking silently down his face — unashamed, unwiped. “Lune said he knew you were the one for me.”
Something breaks open in my chest.
“I’m forever grateful,” I manage, though the words feel pitifully small against the weight of what his bodyguard gave.
Then Nico says it, softly, the way you say something that still terrifies you even in the past tense.
“I was dying, Serenity.”
I pull back, staring at him. “What?”
“I was in a coma for a month.”
My hands go to my stomach. Nausea rolls through me.
“Nico.” My voice is barely sound. “You should never have gone to war for me. That was my fight.”
He moves fast, both hands cupping my face, thumbs pressing into my jaw, eyes blazing and wild and certain.
“No.” The word is iron. “You are my woman. That makes it my war.”
“If you would’ve died—” I clutch his lapels like I’m drowning.
“Then that was my choice,” he cuts in, cold and final.
My eyes squeeze shut.
“They know you’re back,” he says then, quieter. “And they’re coming.”
I open my eyes. Let that settle into my bones, where it belongs.
“Good.” My voice steadies. “That’s exactly why I came back. To finish this. Alone, Nico. I won’t let you bleed for me again.”
The corner of his mouth curves. Slow and devastatingly familiar. That devilish smirk that has always meant he’s already three steps ahead of me.
“Wife.” The word is velvet over stone. “We’re a package deal now. You go to war, I go to war. I go to war, you go to war.” He tilts his head slightly. “That’s not negotiable.”
He pulls his hand away from my face, and immediately I yearn to feel his touch again. His hands on me make me feel truly alive.
I want them back the moment they’re gone.
This man has never stopped. Not once. Through years of silence and distance and everything in between. He never stopped loving me. There’s still a small voice in my head that wants to ask about all the other women, all those years. Whether any of it meant anything.
But when I look at him right now?
I find I don’t particularly care.
He’s mine. Finally, completely, irrevocably mine.
I let out a long breath. “We go to war together.”
Something eases in his expression. Just slightly.
“That reminds me.” His gaze hardens, possessive, unyielding. “Don’t ever say again you’re going to die. I protect what’s mine.”
His eyes drag over my body, slow and claiming.
“Every inch of you belongs to me.”
“Did you almost die getting my dad’s territory back?” I ask.
He reaches into his inner jacket pocket and pulls out a cigar.
“Nico, you don’t need a cigar to tell me about this traumatic time in your life.”
He holds it between his fingers.
“I spilled a lot of blood to get Newark back to your family. That city is part of your legacy. Besides, I gave him other territories for your hand in marriage too.”
“Did you almost die getting back that territory?” I ask again.
“No. I was in Baltimore a year and a half ago destroying Aleksandr’s businesses. It was his men who almost killed me.”
I step closer and bury my face in his chest and inhale his intoxicating scent. “Thank you, Nico, for never giving up on me.”
“No more walls, Serenity. I deserve to have the girl from high school, the woman who helped with the bets, the woman who played video games wearing nothing but my t-shirt.”
I peer up at him, resting my chin on his chest. “You do.”
“Even before I almost died, I was dead inside without you by my side.”
“Nico,” I utter.