11. Edward
Edward
“ Y our threats won’t work on us, Mr. Balestra,” the nearest guard says with a sneer. “We’ve heard better.”
He’s enjoying this, the rat bastard. Taking the opportunity to mock me when he thinks he’s safe behind his intercom.
It would be too easy to fire out a shot and watch his head explode and waste them all to get what I want. Frustration turns to acid in my gut. I’ve been too fucking busy cleaning up the trail of dead ends to actually stop by the house until now, but something kicks me in the ass to do it tonight.
To get here, to see Nicola, to assure myself she’s fine.
She’s hanging in there, stronger than anyone should have to be in her situation.
The woman spits fire. That’s for sure.
Desperation combines with a burning need to have her in my arms again. Not solely a stolen moment like the one on the couch but a long and drawn-out affair, to show her with my body how much she means to me. If she’ll give me the opportunity.
I’m shit with words when it comes to feelings.
Words are meaningless, easily given, and easier to fracture. Words are important for negotiations and contracts, but when it comes to interactions between people? Those aren’t my skills.
I told her we’d work together but my way, and so far, I’ve done everything myself. Everything I can, but the walls in my way are too tough to crack with my fucking skull.
We make a good team, so it’s time to bring her in as a partner.
I’ve got to stop being so fucking stubborn, as my father always says. And start depending on someone else. Someone who is the better piece of me. Who brings out the best in me and whatever I have to offer.
Someone like Nicola.
I want her. I’ve had her. Now I want her again. And these goddamn grunts are standing in my way.
My hand rests on my gun in a pointed gesture. “Let me through. Or call Miss Salvatore. She’ll tell you?—”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Balestra,” the guard on the left cuts in. “Mr. Cunningham has stated no visitors.”
There are five of them at the gates to the property like this is some kind of fucking mafia version of Fort Knox. They’re all looking at me like I’m the slime on the bottom of a tire, making their nights harder.
“Those are the orders.”
Something about the way he says it has me doubting those orders came from a trustworthy source. Call it intuition, call it too many years under my old man’s boot, but it amounts to the same thing.
“The lawyer is making the decisions now?” I bark out.
The guards have no answer for me, but they band together into a solid wall of muscle. “Sir, if you’ll kindly step back. You’re not welcome on the premises any longer.”
It’s a diplomatic answer and falls on deaf ears.
I know how to deal with these fucks. Violence is definitely the answer.
Striding back to the car, I drop into the front seat and twist the key in the ignition. With the door barely closed, I gun it, heading straight for the gates. The car is going to take a beating, but that’s what mechanics are for.
We’ve got the best on payroll.
“Balestra, stop!”
The majority of the guards scatter out of the way at the first roar of my engine, but one of them, the first one who spoke, lifts his gun. He fires off a round of shots through the windshield in a triangle pattern. The class cracks, splits, and shatters.
With shards raining down on me, I keep my grin in place and blow through him and the gate at the same time.
Fuck this bastard.
His horrified face stares at me through the break in the windshield, his white-knuckled fingers scrambling for purchase on the hood. Metal clashes together, and his howl of pain sounds louder than the engine.
He’s a speck of dust, a fly in my face, and urgency has me pressing my foot harder against the gas pedal.
The man’s screams cut off abruptly as the gates fall away, his body sliding down the hood of the car and disappearing beneath the undercarriage. A slight bump, and then the tires are clear.
It’s no great loss and his death is forgotten with the next tire rotation.
I gun the car, machinery squealing over the hot asphalt. The house takes up the majority of my vision field, and somewhere inside, Nicola is there.
She must not have wanted to talk to me, but by god, I’m going to make sure she listens. It’s time for me to explain why I lied about my connection to her dad. Explain all about my own darkness and make sure she forgives me.
She has to forgive me.
I brush broken glass out of my hair and laugh.
This probably isn’t the best way to go about things but might makes right. In some instances. Her guards won’t let me in? I’ll find my own way to get to her, and if said guards won’t get out of my way, then they’re going down.
If Nicola doesn’t forgive me, then I’ll persist until she does. Simple. Inelegant. Brutish.
My heart pounds out an erratic rhythm.
“Nicola, where are you? We need to talk!” I yell out her name on my way to the front door. Unlocked, and none of the other bodyguards in sight. Did Cunningham give them the night off?
A discussion with the lawyer is next on my list.
Once I find her, we’re going to have to have a talk about security. Fuck, I might even have some of my own guys come down here just to make sure she’s okay.
There's blackmail on the table, and with it comes certain dangers. If she can’t understand that in her grief, then I’ll do it for her. I’ll be the fucking specter looming over her if it means she’ll make it through this safe.
Not unscathed because there is no way to live this life without accruing scars.
“Where are you?” My voice echoes back to me in the nearly empty house. It’s not supposed to be empty.
She should be under lock and key. Someone is pointing the finger at her, questioning her innocence, and her men need to surround her rather than scatter.
The first floor is clear, along with the rooms on the second floor. There’s no use searching the attic because, sure as shit, the only thing I’ll find up there are dead bees and mice.
So where the hell is she?
The door to the back is shut but not locked, the same as the front. The gardens practically sparkle in the moonlight. Little foxes always stick to their dens. A fierce smile pries my lips apart. It’s late enough for her to be in bed, but what are the odds she’s out for a stroll among her roses?
It might take me a little bit of work to find her, though. The woman has perfected the art of standing still, which is a huge benefit to her. She’s got the spirit of a wildfire, always poking into places she doesn't belong, yet she knows when to tamper her energy and use the quiet to her advantage.
My strides have purpose.
Every step brings me closer to her, like I’m following a scent on the wind. She’s close.
I lick my lips in anticipation. When she’s back in my arms, then I'll relax. Then I’ll have a moment of peace to really give a thought to our next step. Maybe even together.
I pull up short at the sight of Nicola on her knees with a knife to her throat. And looming over her, a literal phantom, is the same man who killed her father.
Her eyes go wide at the sight of me. “Edward, please, get out.”
In the madness of my mind, a single spot sticks out to me. She’s about to have her throat slit, and she’s worried about me ? If my heart had not been well on the way to belonging to her, it felt official now: it’s hers.
“I thought it might be you with all the commotion,” the man says.
My mind blanks, and my gaze zeroes in on the knife. I know the sharpness of it intimately. I know how it feels to hold a similar handle in my fingers and slice it into a man’s gut.
Black rage presses in on me until it’s the only thing I see and feel. It’s impossible to move even when I’m itching for my gun.
“You know, I’d almost hoped you would show up,” he adds in a tone as thin and icy as a winder wind. “To make things easier. Now, I don’t have to go hunting for you.”
My brows draw down in a narrow V. “And who the fuck are you?”
A body plows into me from the side and takes us both down to the dirt. A mouthful of gravel bites at my skin and scratches deep, the heft a burden.
“Edward!”
My ears ring, and when I reach for my gun, my hand fumbles, crushed immediately under the pressure of a knee.
“None of that, now, Mr. Balestra.” The voice is soft and colored with an English accent. “We can’t have you ruining everything so close to the end.”
The man in the hat bows his head, a sharp decline of a chin pointed enough to be used as a yarn loop. “I’m surprised you haven't figured it out yet. Either of you.”
The old woman, the housekeeper we’d seen limping through the manor house that night…She’s got a kitchen knife in her hand, grasped in limp fingers, and my gun in the other.
“Why don’t you stick to cutting up vegetables than people.”
“She wasn’t supposed to be here,” the old woman argues.
I’ve felt the icy fingers of disgust on my spine more than I’m comfortable counting. I know when someone truly harbors hatred in their heart, and the way the woman looks at me leaves no doubt of her true feelings. The expression breaks only when she glances at Nicola. Who, I’m pleased to see, isn’t cowering but holding perfectly still against the blade.
I study my fingernails. “A traitor. Seems a little staid, doesn’t it? The money was just too big of a lure for you to ignore, so you employed…what? A friend? A lover?”
The man chuckles, the sound of granite rubbing together. “Does it truly matter?”
“How long, Louisa?” Nicola asks. “My mother is your best friend.”
“Yes, she is. And I love her the same way I love you.” A hint of a smile plays across her lips as she teases as she draws out the moment, keeping us on edge.
Then there’s the glint in her eyes, the scrunch of her nose, and the small glimmer of satisfaction.
“You call this love?” Nicola asks, then hisses when the knife bites deeper into her jugular.
“You tell me.” Those three words are said with such force they scorch themselves across my skin.
Now Louisa glances at me, defiant, her age melting away.
Her narrowed eyes turn to the man in the fedora, and the gun bursts to life under her fingers. A rapid tap tap of multiple shots fired, and it takes me too long to realize the tall man’s body jumps with each pop.
They catch him in the shoulder, and it's enough to weaken his hold on Nicola. She remains on her knees as the fedora man stumbles, taking a massive step back and coloring the white gravel with his blood.
“You—how could you—” he breaks off with a groan, coughing up more blood. His hat skews to the side.
Louisa stares him down and holds the gun back out to me. “Sorry about the tackle, young man. Carrying my own weapon would have been too suspicious.”
“What are you doing?” Nicola is crying, and despite the distance between her and Fedora, I’m not satisfied.
I’m also unable to move from the grip of exhaustion.
Louisa turns away from me and gazes at the man on his side, trying to push himself back up to his feet, one hand on the bullet hole in his shoulder.
“How could you?” he repeats his question.
Louisa nods before adjusting her grip on the kitchen knife. “An old woman like me makes the perfect target, doesn’t she? It also puts me above reproach.” She taps her leg, the one that’s shorter than the other and limps forward. Tottering on the uneven gravel. “You’d never suspect a double cross.”
“Louisa?”
“I’ll be right there, sweet pea. Right after I finish what I start.” A hint of a smile still lightens the woman’s lips as she crosses to the fedora man. “It never pays to leave loose ends flapping in the wind, does it?”
My delight is feral as she slices the knife across Fedora’s throat. Yet as the moments tick by, the atmosphere somehow changes, growing colder. A slow chill creeps its way into my blood, and by the time Louisa finishes her hack job, holding the man’s head in her hands, I’m practically shivering.
“Off your knees, little fox.” I somehow gather my wits at the same time I gather Nicola into my arms.
She buries her face against the crook of my neck and clings to me for dear life. Thankfully for her, I’m not willing to let her go. Now. Ever. Take your pick.
Louisa tosses the head into the fountain then dusts her hands off and only succeeds in smearing blood everywhere. “No one messes with our family,” she says pointedly, staring over Nicola’s head to steal my gaze. “No one.”
I incline my head as understanding blossoms. The old Englishwoman has my eternal thanks for whatever fucking part she played tonight.
Nicola presses her hand against my thrumming heart, every part of me tight and frozen. “You came for me.”
“You doubted me.” I lift her hand to my mouth and kiss her knuckles.
Her eyes are too wide, too delicate for my peace of mind. “You are a liar, after all. What did we say about secrets?”
“I came tonight to make sure there were none left. The gambling, the debts.”
She nods in understanding. “Louisa told me.”
The old woman is already dragging the headless corpse toward the edge of the garden path. My gut tells me there’s a whole-ass novel waiting to be explored. Another time, another night.
“Death must be the glue that bonds people together,” I whisper. “I’ll tell you everything, little fox. You have my word. As soon as we clean up.”
Nicola widens her stance and grows roots. “Now, Eddie.”
The fire in her blood is exactly what I need to thaw the chill in mine. It radiates off of her in blistering waves, demanding justice for all the ways life has wronged her. And so, as the hours pass and the three of us take care of our murderer, I tell them everything.
Halfway through the tale, Nicola stops me for a scathing screaming match, ending with a slap on the hand and an extracted promise not to gamble our fortunes away.
Our.
It’s not the only promise I make that night.
The night gets warmer the moment we stuff the body in my trunk. The chill I’d felt in the garden vanishes when I press my lips to Nicola’s mouth, as does the feeling that I’m only meant for the bloodshed. That I’ll never get the happiness other people have gotten.
Then, the only person watching me is Nicola, who stares at me like I’m the most important man in the world, and I’ve stopped wondering if it’s enough.
She is.
She will always be enough.
“You’ve got a very loyal woman in the house,” I say as my hands land on her hips.
I still don’t know half of what happened with Louisa or Arden’s murder, but we don’t need to spell it all out tonight. Being here with Nicola alive and unharmed leaves me breathless.
“I should have known she’d try to protect me,” Nicola whispers. “It’s what she’s always done.”
It’s not impossible to buy that kind of loyalty, but it’s tough.
“What would you say about keeping her on when we start things up on our own.”
Nicola chuckles. “ On our own ? You’re not serious, Eddie.”
“I think I’ve made my intentions pretty clear,” I argue grumpily.
“As clear as mud, yes.” She bobs her head.
“I’m going to marry you, Nicola Salvatore. Wherever you want to live, that’s up to you, but you’re going to say yes to me. And we’re going to keep Louisa on to manage our house and our affairs.”
Nicola steps out of my arms, and for half a heartbeat, I’m terrified she’s going to say no. Then, a wicked grin warms her cheeks. “I suppose you’ll have to catch me first.”
She takes off into the garden, and with a yelp of victory, I bolt after her.