Chapter 45 – Nico
“How dare you!” Nonno boomed in Italian.
I felt Rae’s wildly beating pulse under the tips of my fingers. Wrapping my arm tightly around her, I pulled her against my side. This was us. She wasn’t going anywhere.
“What?” I scoffed in the same language, keeping this conversation from my bride-to-be. “Is something wrong?”
“You’re supposed to be out there! Making Arabella feel like a princess, not—not—” He gestured rudely at my girl, gasping and shaking.
“Not proposing to the love of my life?” I lifted a shoulder.
The don’s face turned purple. He gulped air as if it would erase what he saw.
I smiled. Tick-tock, Nonno.
A somber bell tolled in the beyond.
Rae dug her fingers into my side. Her whisper floated to my ear like a calm breeze under the storm. “I should go.”
What she didn’t yet realize was that I was the master of the winds. This chaos was of my own design. The pieces were falling into place exactly as I’d commanded.
“You’re not going anywhere, except home with me,” I murmured and squeezed her gently.
“You will not leave this party with the—” My grandfather peered into the shadows of the bookstacks and roared, “The maid? Dominico, are out of your damn mind?”
“No, I see things clearly. More clearly than you,” I chuckled.
Any minute now, and my friends would arrive. They’d lured the don away, and now it was time to take control.
The poor don wasn’t walking out of this library alive.
But Don Grimaldi hadn’t felt the cool touch of death lurking behind the tomes and brittle manuscripts. He still thought his word was law.
“She’s dead,” he declared. “You hear me, Dominico? I’m going to kill this whore, and you will join Arabella. From now on, she is your main concern.”
He cut off mid-rant.
At first, I thought it was deliberate. He’d done it before, paused because he was breathing so fucking hard. His mouth stayed open, the next insult waiting, his hand half-raised like he meant to point at her again.
But nothing came out.
The silence felt wrong.
No, no!
I sensed death’s sting as the holy angel struck. The supernatural bastard was robbing me of my moment. I hadn’t planned to kill him tonight, just haul him away to hospice where he’d be locked up until he died.
But the moment he threatened Rae, my plans changed.
I took a step forward, but Rae wrapped her beautiful, inked arms around my waist.
The don’s fingers twitched. Once, then again, sharper this time. Something inside him had slipped loose. His eyes went wide in shock.
“Mannaggia,” I spat.
Before my eyes, Don Grimaldi had another fucking heart attack.
The color drained from his skin until it turned a dull gray, and his lips parted as he pulled in a breath that sounded wet and uneven.
His hand went to his chest. There was no performance in it.
He clutched the shell that housed his failing organ.
Confusion scrawled across his face at his body’s own betrayal.
The man who had spent his entire life standing over everyone else swayed on his feet, reaching for the shelf and missing it entirely. When he hit the floor, the sound cracked through the room and took everything else with it.
I simply watched.
On the floor, he looked smaller. The force that had filled every space he walked into was gone.
It had been ripped out of him all at once.
His chest heaved. Each breath came harder than the last. His hand dragged at his shirt, clutching, as though he could tear the pain free if he held on tight enough.
“Should I call someone?” my sweet cherry asked, but her voice sounded distant.
When I answered, my own was hollow. “No. It’s too late.”
Rae’s exhale was a shudder.
I wrapped my arms tightly around her as the end approached.
The great and wealthy Don Grimaldi lay gasping a few feet away.
He’d made his last threat, but because he lacked true power, it would never be carried out.
This wasn’t the kind of ending he would have wanted.
His own body had turned on him, the same way he had turned on everyone who had ever stood under his roof.
There was no one to blame, no one to punish, no one left for him to overpower.
Luigi and his brothers burst into the vaulted hall a moment later.
Emanuele cursed, but Joey only laughed and bent to check the don’s pulse.
“I see you didn’t leave any of the fun for us,” Luigi drawled, swiping a hand through his hair.
Joey sat back on his haunches. “Hail Dominico.”
The supernatural bell clapped in the distance. The somber tone rattled from my mind down my spine.
I was the don.
“Should we just leave him, or…?” Emanuele scratched his chin.
Shaking my head, I pulled Rae gently from under the shelter of my arm. “You lot return to the ball. Act as if nothing is wrong.”
But the fiery beauty planted her feet. “I’m not leaving you.”
“Baby,” I said softly, brushing my palm over her cheek. “You need to go back to the party. Be seen. And then Luigi will take you home.”
“Nico—”
I leaned down and cut off her protest by placing a kiss on her forehead. “I’ll see you later tonight, Rae.”
Luigi was smart enough not to reach for her, but he herded her with his body, his brothers flanking his sides.
I watched them disappear into the gloom before I pulled out my phone and called for an ambulance. I told the operator that I’d taken my grandfather away from the party because he hadn’t been feeling well and now he was unresponsive.
I did it to save my friends.
If anyone accused me of killing him, it wouldn’t haunt their lives.