4. Niccolò
Niccolò
The imported cigar burns down to the band between my fingers. Ash drops onto the polished mahogany of my desk, scattering over the syndicate ledgers. I don't brush it away.
My office is dead quiet. The Severato estate is a fortress of stone, glass, and armed men, designed specifically to keep the world out. I control the eastern seaboard from this chair. Usually, I find clarity in this room.
Tonight, it feels like a cage.
I stare at the open ledger in front of me.
Three hundred thousand dollars recovered from Pietro.
The rat is bleeding in a soundproof basement cell, waiting for Alessio to finish interrogating him about how he pulled this off.
Beside the ledger sits a heavy, cream-colored envelope bearing the Falco family crest. The details of my arranged wedding to Caterina.
I look at the crest and feel absolutely nothing.
I crush the cigar into a crystal ashtray, close my eyes, and the sterile walls of my office vanish.
I am back in the suffocating heat of that dive bar.
I feel the exact pressure of two small, shaking hands pressing flat against my chest. I see the rapid, frantic beat of a pulse hammering at the base of a pale throat.
I can taste the sheer, reckless defiance in that pair of wide, terrified eyes.
Either she didn't know who I was or she didn't care. It doesn't matter. She belongs to me now.
The heavy oak doors of my office swing open. Enzo walks in. He always moves as silently as a ghost. He stops in front of my desk and drops a thick manila folder onto the wood.
"You asked for a thorough sweep," Enzo says in a flat, icy monotone. "I’m giving you one. Here is everything there is to know about the woman." I open the folder.
"Livia Marino," Enzo states. "Twenty-two. No siblings. No criminal record. Bank accounts hold practically nothing. She lives in a rundown apartment complex on the South Side."
I flip the page, scanning the black ink. "Parents?"
"Dead," Enzo answers. "Father was a drunk.
Beat the mother for years. He wrapped his truck around a pole when the girl was ten.
The mother died of a failing liver three years later.
Since then, the girl has worked every legal, under-the-table job she can find.
Waitress, cleaner, food delivery, whatever pays cash.
She saves every dime. She is trying to buy a commercial lease on the coast. I hear it is for a bakery. "
I stare at the bleak, miserable summary of her life.
She is a survivor. She clawed her way out of a house soaked in violence and alcohol, and she built a fortress around herself. That explains the fire. That explains why she looked at the violence in my hands and didn't run. She grew up watching a monster.
I flip to the final page. There is a surveillance photo of her walking out of a bank. She is wearing a worn coat, her head down, clutching a cheap canvas bag securely to her chest.
My jaw tightens, she looks so small.
"There is a complication," Enzo says.
I look up. "A complication?"
"Marco Rossi," Enzo says. "He is a trust-fund prick she humiliated at the bar. His ego is bruised. He wants to teach her a lesson. He bought off two lower-level street pushers and a pair of dirty cops in the twelfth precinct."
A cold calm settles over my skin. "What is he planning?"
"He acquired two kilos of product. He is having his guys plant it in the air vents of Livia’s apartment while she is at work I don’t have the day yet.
By next week, the case will be complete.
After that, the dirty cops kick her door down.
They find the coke. They arrest her for distribution.
Under civil forfeiture, the state seizes every dollar in her bank accounts.
Her bakery fund vanishes. She catches a twenty-year sentence. "
That low down dirty son of a bitch.
You give a worm a tree and suddenly they think they are the king of the jungle.
"Do you want me to intercept?" Enzo asks quietly. "I can have Marco and the cops buried before midnight. We pull the drugs. The girl never even knows."
My first instinct is an urge to hunt. Marco breathed her air. Marco put his hands on her. Marco plotted to put her in a cage. I want to drive a knife through his eye and watch him choke on his own blood.
I lean back in my leather chair. My fingers tap a slow rhythm against the armrest.
I look at the photograph of Livia. Her spine is straight. Her jaw is set. She is fiercely, violently independent. She relies on no one.
If I step in and save her, if I kill Marco and wipe the slate clean, she will just keep walking.
She will keep pouring beers, saving her crumpled bills, and looking at me with that same defiant hatred.
She will never come to me willingly. She hates men with power.
She equates my authority with the abuse of her father.
She will fight me until her last breath.
Unless she has no breath left.
The logic is twisted. It is morally black. But I am not a hero. I am a predator who found something he wants to keep, and I will tear the world apart to secure it.
If she loses her apartment, her money, and her freedom, she will hit rock bottom.
The world will chew her up and spit her out.
And when she is sitting in a cold, concrete holding cell with her entire future completely obliterated, I will walk through the doors.
I will be her only way out. I will save her from the streets, and I will pull her behind my walls where nothing can ever touch her again.
I will break her independence so I can be her absolute protection.
"Don't intercept the cops," I order.
Enzo’s eyes narrow slightly, but his face remains blank. "You want the raid to happen. You want her to fall."
"I want her to know she needs me," I correct him. "Let them plant the product. Let the cops kick the door down."
"And Marco?"
My blood runs completely cold. Marco's usefulness will expire after he has given the order. Keep an eye on him. Once he gives the go, have Alessio pick him up. Then take him to the docks. Make it last hours."
Enzo nods. He turns and walks out of the office, closing the heavy oak doors behind him.
I close the manila folder, stand, grab my suit jacket from the back of the chair, and slide it over my shoulders. I check the weight of the 1911 at my hip.
The alley behind The Neon Crow smells like rotting garbage and spilled beer. I stand in the deep shadow of a brick wall, out of the glare of the flickering streetlamp. The cold night air bites at my skin, but I don't feel it. I am entirely focused on the heavy metal door at the back of the bar.
It is 3:00 AM.
The heavy metal door groans open.
Livia steps out. She looks exhausted. Her shoulders slump slightly, the rigid armor she wears on the floor finally slipping. She carries a cheap, worn tote bag over her shoulder. She locks the deadbolt behind her, her keys jingling loudly in the quiet alley.
She turns to walk toward the street, and I step out of the shadows. She freezes. Her breath catches in a sharp gasp, and her hand flies to her chest. She steps back, eyes wide as she takes in my massive frame blocking the narrow alley.
"You," she whispers.
I walk toward her without saying a word.
Her survival instincts kick in. She turns, calculating the distance to the street, but I am faster. I close the gap in three long strides.
She backs up, her spine hitting the rough brick wall. I step into her space, bringing my hands up and planting them flat against the bricks on either side of her head. I cage her in, exactly the way I did inside the bar.
She is trapped.
She tilts her head up to look at me. Her chest heaves, brushing against my suit jacket. She smells like stale smoke and cheap vanilla soap. It is a terrible combination, but it hits my lungs like a drug. I breathe her in, a heavy inhale that makes her shiver.
"What do you want?" she asks. Her voice is shaking, but her chin is raised.
"You work too hard, Livia," I murmur.
Her eyes widen slightly at the sound of her name. She didn't tell me. I know anyway.
"Get out of my way," she demands.
She brings her hands up, placing them flat against my chest to shove me. I don't move. Her hands stay there, small and pale against my dark shirt. She realizes I am an immovable object.
"You don't belong here," I say, my voice dropping to a low, rough pitch. I look down at her mouth. "You don't belong serving drinks to trash. You belong on your knees for me."
It is a filthy, possessive proposition. It is designed to strip away the pretense.
Livia’s eyes flare. The fear vanishes, instantly replaced by a blinding, violent rage.
"Fuck you," she spits.
She shoves my chest hard, her nails digging into the fabric of my shirt. "You think you can just corner me in an alley? You think because you wear a nice suit and carry a gun, I’m supposed to drop to my knees?"
I catch her wrists. My grip is iron. I pin both of her hands to the brick wall above her head. She thrashes against my hold, her body twisting, but I use my weight to press her flush against the wall. Our hips align. The friction sends a jolt of heat straight to my groin.
"You will," I tell her. "Eventually."
"Never," she snarls, her face inches from mine. "I know exactly what you are. You’re a monster. You use your size and money to terrify people. You’re a violent, pathetic thug, just like another man I used to know. I would rather die in the gutter than let a man like you touch me."
The words are meant to cut. They hit a nerve I didn't know I had. The comparison to the man who beat her mother to a pulp makes a muscle tic in my jaw.
I lean in, my mouth brushing the shell of her ear.
"Your father was a coward who hit women," I whisper with my hot breath against her skin. "I am a monster who slaughters cowards. Do not confuse the two, Livia."
She shudders violently.
I release her wrists and step back, taking the suffocating heat of my body away from her. She sags slightly against the brick, rubbing her wrists where my fingers left red marks. Her chest rises and falls rapidly.
"Stay away from me," she breathes.
I look at her fierce independence, her worn coat, her desperate pride.
Next week, it will all be gone. Next week, she will have nothing left but me.
"Go home, Livia," I say.
I turn and walk away, disappearing into the shadows of the alley, leaving her alone in the cold.