Chapter 16 Nico
NICO
The thing was amazing. As soon as I walked in and saw it, I was in love.
Bright candy-apple red, fully restored, custom rims—it was a thing of beauty.
The guy who’d brought it in said the engine kept misfiring.
It sounded like a pretty simple fix—spark plugs and ignition coil being the top two candidates.
I rolled up my sleeves, put the car on the lift, and got to work.
It was a good way to distract myself while I waited for Felipe’s call.
He’d been working back channels to get a meeting set up with me and Javi.
I needed to talk to him face to face. To let him know, in no uncertain terms, that he needed to back the fuck off.
It was probably pointless, but he needed to understand my position and the danger he was in.
If he tried to touch Maddy, I wouldn’t hesitate to rip his throat out.
The spark plugs looked fine, as did the distributor cap. I followed the chain to the carburetor, and then the coil. I was right about the coil being bad.
I was elbow-deep in the replacement when Felipe called. I nearly dropped my wrench when his number popped up. I knew what it meant, and the anxiety was already building inside me.
I put my tools down and answered. “Talk to me.”
“Hey, Nico. I finally got a hold of one of Javi’s nephews. I sweet-talked him into giving me his cell number. Javi actually took my call.”
“And?”
“Meeting is set for today. One hour in the parking lot of the grocery store downtown. Public, but not too public. Far end of the lot, away from most of the parking and the entrance. I already called the other guys. We’ll be nearby, hidden away in case things go sideways.”
My heart was beating heavily in my chest. “Alright. I’ll finish up here and head that way. Try to get there early.”
“Good deal. If things go well, you won’t see us, but we’ll be there,” Felipe said.
“Later.”
Shoving the phone back in my pocket, I went back to work. The grocery store was only a ten-minute walk from my shop. My concentration went to shit, and it took fifteen minutes longer than it should have to finish the repair.
Once I was done, I headed out to my car and drove to the grocery store. The ten-minute walk was only a two-minute drive. A text came through from Felipe as I pulled in, letting me know he had eyes on me. Javi was nowhere in sight, so I got out, leaned against the SUV, and waited.
The waiting went on for longer than it should have.
The time for the meet arrived, and Javi had yet to show up.
I gritted my teeth. It was obvious what he was doing, and it pissed me off.
There was no doubt he was coming. He wouldn’t have agreed on the phone and then not show up.
Javi would have just told Felipe to go fuck himself.
No, he was making me wait on purpose in a roundabout way to assert his dominance.
A true alpha didn’t wait for anyone. That was the message he was sending. It was loud, clear, and irritating.
Ten minutes after the scheduled time, Javi’s muscle car came roaring into the parking lot. It took everything I had not to sneer in disgust as he parked and got out of his car. I needed this to be diplomatic. I had to push my anger below the surface.
Javi’s salt-and-pepper hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and he wore his usual leather jacket. I never knew how he survived the Florida heat and humidity with that damned jacket on. It was almost fall and still over ninety degrees.
He nodded to me. “Nico.”
“Javi.”
“Well, I’m here. I don’t have a lot of time. What are we discussing?”
I sighed. “You know exactly what we’re talking about.”
Javi raised an eyebrow and ran a hand through his gray goatee. “Elaborate, please.”
“Stay away from Maddy,” I said, forgoing any more preamble. Javi’s eyes narrowed at the mention of her name, but he didn’t respond. “Maddy is mine. I’m going to claim her, and that makes her part of the Lorenzo pack. Now and forever, she’ll have our protection.”
“Claim her?!” Javi shouted. The change on his face was so pronounced that it startled me. “You’re going to try and claim that thing? You goddamned fool. You have no clue what she’s capable of.”
“Watch your mouth when you talk about her,” I hissed, pointing a finger at him.
“You idiot!” Javi raged. “Do you have any idea what she is? Or are you just trying to get some hot little piece of ass?”
I didn’t justify that with an answer. Instead, I relaxed back against my car, crossing my arms. We glared at each other for several seconds, Javi’s anger growing hotter by the moment.
“Okay,” Javi said, raising his hands. “Let’s lay it all out.
Maybe you really are that dense. She’s a monster, Nico.
An abomination that can destroy us all. The blood that flows through her veins is tainted.
” He pointed in the general direction of the Lorenzo compound.
“That woman you and your family are harboring? She is a beast unlike anything you’ve ever seen.
If you’re stupid enough to awaken the monster inside her, then you deserve the shitstorm that’ll follow. ”
“All I hear is an old man who’s scared of a woman. Is that what this is, Javi? Is that what your clan is scared of?”
Javi clenched his hands into fist. “Goddammit! Listen to me. Her great-grandfather was a carrier of the blood of Edemas. You know what that means? I know your father told you the stories. Everyone does.”
This was information Luis hadn’t uncovered yet. I wanted to hear everything he knew, so I nodded for him to go on.
“The grandmother was a half-breed. The bloodline is there, but her father was born with human genes and her mother was fully human. That means the Edemas line is diluted.”
“I’m gonna stop you there,” I said. “If the bloodline is so diluted, why is Maddy such a threat to you?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, goddammit. It’s the reason she can’t be allowed to survive. If she were to mate with a shifter, there is a chance the dormant beast inside her will react to her mate. It will awaken the latent genes. She could become a shifter.”
I’d assumed as much, but still didn’t think it was reason enough to kill an innocent person. The legends about the cruelty of Edemas probably had some truth to them, but that didn’t mean every single descendant was some psychotic monster that had to be wiped out.
Javi jabbed a finger toward me. “We can’t allow her to become a wolf.
She needs to be destroyed. If there was even a one-percent chance she could go on to have a child that was an alpha, then the werewolves could return.
You can’t let that happen…unless you want to risk the lives of your entire clan. ”
Rage swept across my body. I took two heavy steps toward Javi. “Is that a threat?”
“No. You’re confused. That’s not what I mean. I’m not the threat, that woman is. If the Hollander bloodline was to be restrengthened and the werewolves come back, she’ll be the main reason we are destroyed and subjugated. It will be a bloodbath.”
My mind went to Maddy. Nothing about her seemed like the type of person who would go mad with power.
She was kind and gentle. Everything Javi believed was urban legend, paranoia, and bullshit.
“Listen, I know exactly what Maddy is capable of. She’s none of the things you’re talking about.
The blood is so diluted, even you’re sitting here talking about ‘maybe’ and ‘possibly.’ You have no idea what you’re talking about.
You even said her father was a half-breed and her mother was a human.
What could you possibly fear from someone like that? ”
Veins stood out on Javi’s neck and he slammed his palms into his thighs in frustration. “She’s not what you think she is. Blood doesn’t lie. You’re blind.”
“Blind or not, Maddy is mine. Tell your puppet masters they need to stop pulling your strings. If this royal family or whatever keeps going after her, they’ll be in for a fight they’ll regret.”
Javi’s eyes widened in surprise and he took a step back. Apparently, he hadn’t thought we’d know about the people commanding him. He’d thought it was a secret only he knew. He yanked his car door open. “Fine. Have it your way. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, Nico.”
He sped away, not sparing me another look.
I watched him go, my mind processing the information.
I didn’t need any more proof for who and what Maddy was.
But I couldn’t help but wonder if Javi’s story was true.
Had it really been centuries since any of Edemas’s descendants could shift?
It seemed crazy that none of them had mated with a full shifter.
Shifters made up a full third of the earth’s population.
The odds that it had never happened over the course of three centuries seemed outlandish.
I nodded to myself. Javi was full of shit. Maddy wasn’t dangerous, and I’d prove it. I pulled out my cell and called Luis.
“I’m here. Are you good? We just watched Javi drive away like a bat out of hell.”
“I’m fine. He’s still on his bullshit. Listen, we need to dig into Maddy’s paternal family history. We need to figure out everything we can about David and his ancestors. Every resource we have, spare no expense. Buy what you need, bribe people if you need access to records, whatever it takes.”
There was a slight pause before Luis responded. “Are we okay here?”
“Yes. I need to prove that Javi is full of crap. Get to work on it, and let me know if you find anything or need help.”
“On it, brother.”
By the time I got down the street to where the guys had been holed up watching the meet-up, Luis had already gone off to start his research. Felipe got out of Sebastian’s car and got into mine.
Sebastian leaned out his window. “What did that jackass have to say?”
I shook my head. “Not much other than he thought Maddy was some kind of monster that needed to be put down. He was talking about her like she was a rabid dog.”
Sebastian lip curled in disgust. “What a dick.”
“Yeah,” Felipe muttered. “Before all this, I had a pretty good idea he was a piece of shit. This situation with Maddy has removed all doubt.”
“Speaking of,” I said. “I want to get back home to her. Let’s go.”
We walked in the house, and the first thing we noticed was the cackling laughter coming from the living room. Felipe glanced at me and gave me a questioning frown.
“I told you!” Gabriel shouted, still laughing, “It’s one of the best comedies of the nineties, I told you.”
Felipe and I walked down the hallway and found Maddy on the love seat, her face red with laughter. Gabriel sat on the couch opposite her, seeming to revel in her enjoyment. On the TV was some kind of slapstick comedy with some guys who used to be on Saturday Night Live back twenty-five years ago.
“Having fun?” I asked.
Gabe and Maddy both turned to see us and burst out laughing again, Maddy covering her face.
I couldn’t help but smile back. She was beautiful when she laughed.
My heart skipped a beat. There wasn’t a cruel or malicious bone in her body.
Regardless of what blood ran in her veins, this was not someone who would end the world.
“Well, if it’s that funny, can we join you?” I said.
Maddy patted the seat next to her. I took a seat, putting my arm around her. Felipe sat next to Gabe and put an arm around him. My brother shrugged him off. “What the fuck, bro?”
Felipe grinned, nodding toward us. “I was just trying to fit in.”
Gabe sneered at him. “If that’s what you want, you need to pony up the big dough. I don’t put out on the first date unless it’s for a sugar daddy.”
We all laughed again and settled in to watch the rest of the movie. After five minutes, Maddy leaned in close to my ear. “Is everything okay?”
As an answer, I kissed the top of her head and nodded. “Everything’s fine.”
It might not have been the full truth. We were in danger. The world was balanced on a knife’s edge. But at that moment, everything was perfect. I’d do everything I could to keep it that way.