Chapter 12 | Alexis
Alexis
Iwoke up to the sound of Nick’s heavy breaths in my ear. Rolling over, I bit my lip to hide my snicker. His mouth was partially open and his stubble was dark across his strong jaw.
“Man, you’re out cold,” I whispered.
Deciding to let him sleep, I trailed to the kitchen and mulled over our breakfast options.
“Spaghetti O’s or creamed corn,” I muttered to myself. “Not exactly brunch at the Plaza.”
I decided on the corn and opened the can before pouring it into the lone pot I’d found underneath the sink. I hummed as I stirred the corn, eventually placing them in the two mugs from last night. Heading back to the living room, I smiled at Nick as he lay upon the bed, studying me.
His chest was bare above his six-pack, and saliva rushed through my mouth at the thought of tasting the black little hairs along his happy trail. What would he taste like there...and what would he taste like if I went lower?
“Hey, princess,” he murmured, his voice sleepy. “You make us breakfast?”
“Mmm hmm. Creamed corn. The breakfast of champions.”
He grimaced before rising. “Yum,” he said sarcastically.
Taking the mug, he sat beside me on the couch and began to eat.
After swallowing a few bites, he looked out the window. “It’s still coming down. I wonder how long it’s going to last.”
“Not sure, but it will give you time to heal, at least. How are you feeling?”
He eyed the bandages on his arm, wrist and hand. “Pretty good. I’m tough.”
I gnawed my lip as curiosity swelled. “Have you been hurt before? Or tortured?”
“Sure,” he said, shrugging. “It’s kind of a requirement of the job. I was grazed in the thigh once when we busted one of your dad’s meetings with an old drug trafficking contact. He was less than thrilled we...” he cleared his throat, “put the dealer out of business.”
I shivered. “You killed him.”
“Yeah,” he said, nodding. “The dealer was a bad guy. I try not to kill good men, but sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference in my line of work.”
“Your line of work,” I repeated, feeling my lips curve.
“You know. Dentist, accountant, mafia right-hand man. They’re all the same, right?”
I rolled my eyes. “I know you’re joking, but I hate that you have to kill people, or face danger at all. Did you ever consider not choosing to work for Michael?”
Sighing, his gaze fell to his lap. “It’s not that easy, especially when it’s your family.
Michael gave me everything, and he’s a good man—or, the best man someone can be in our world.
He offered me the choice to have a life outside the mafia, but it didn’t feel right.
” His eyebrows drew together. “I just always felt my place was by his side.”
“It’s honorable that he wants to eradicate human trafficking, but he’s still in the mafia, surrounded by drugs and laundering and all the other illegal activities that entails.”
Nick nodded. “Yes, he’s a product of his environment, like I am. He’s dead set on eliminating human trafficking, and although he hates drug trafficking, he’s more realistic on that issue.”
“Realistic how?” I asked, genuinely interested in how Michael’s views differed from my dad’s.
“I think he realizes that drugs are never going away. So, even if he eliminates them from his empire, they’re going to be trafficked by someone else.
He thinks that he might as well be involved at the highest levels and have some control.
He detests fentanyl, so he has a team that makes sure all the fentanyl that comes in through the ports is destroyed. ”
I lifted an eyebrow. “And the other drugs?”
“He lets the rest through, but monitors them heavily. Again, it’s better than having someone else involved.
There are some evil narco-terrorists down in Miami and the Caribbean who traffic only in fentanyl.
It’s better to have Michael destroying it and regulating the ports than to have guys like Marco Nunez up here pushing that shit in our area. ”
“He seems like a really bad guy,” I said softly. “Dad was just beginning to work with him, I think.”
“Yeah, John’s got his eye on him, which is worrisome,” Nick said. “Marco traffics women too. He’s a real son of a bitch.”
“Then I guess Michael is the lesser of two evils,” I admitted.
“I was worried he was using Mom to take over my dad’s empire, but he seems to really care about her.
I was contemplating giving him the flash drive with Dad’s Eastern European contacts over Christmas.
” Blowing out a breath, I shook my head.
“I should’ve just done it sooner. Then, we’d never be stuck here. ”
“You created leverage for you and your mom in a world where you’d been left with nothing,” Nick said. “It was smart. I get why you did it.”
“If I’d just given the info over, Michael wouldn’t have needed to protect us. I know he wanted to marry Mom to claim ‘Victor Rossi’s widow,’” I made quotation marks with my fingers, “but I wasn’t sure that was enough to keep us safe.”
Nick’s eyebrow arched. “Michael is head over heels for your mom. He would’ve taken any excuse to marry her. But he was your dad’s rival for a long time. I get not trusting him.”
“Or you,” I teased, grinning. “I mean, you were such an ass to me. I hated you on sight.”
Heat entered his dark eyes. “You didn’t hate me last night.”
Breathing a laugh, I threw one of the couch pillows at him. “Screw you.”
“Maybe, if you’re lucky.” His voice oozed with confidence as he grinned.
I stood and held out my hand. “Give me your mug before I bang mine against your head and give you another concussion.”
He handed it to me and blew me a kiss.
I washed the mugs and returned to the couch, releasing a slow breath as I gazed out the window.
“So, what’s our plan?”
Nick’s cheeks puffed as he stared out the window too.
“I’ll continue to heal, and hopefully the snow will let up tomorrow.
After it stops, we should wait a few hours to make sure it won’t resume, and then we need to hike.
We’re going to have to layer up with everything we have.
We’ll wear John’s guys’ clothes and wrap up in the blankets and sheets, and I saw a few garbage bags in the kitchen we can use to cover our shoes and clothes.
It’s not going to be fun, but we need to hike back toward the main road and get service on the men’s phones.
Once we have service, Michael will send someone to pick us up within hours. ”
Worry covered my features as I looked at him. “What if John or his men find us first?”
“I’ll have the two guns, and I’ll protect us,” he said confidently. “But I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
“Why did they bring us up here anyway?” I gestured around the cabin.
“Most families in our business have cabins in Upstate New York. It’s secluded and off the grid. Perfect for extracting information from difficult targets.”
“Does Michael own cabins up here?”
Nick nodded. “He has a few scattered throughout Upstate New York.”
Leaning back on the couch, I sighed. “I hate the fucking mafia. So much death, and drugs, and women who are assaulted...”
“Michael has rescued countless women, and gives them jobs—”
“In his strip clubs?” I asked, lifting my hands. “Oh, great. Every little girl’s dream.”
Nick’s lips pursed. “I know it’s not ideal, but real life is messy, Alexis.
Your dad was an asshole, but he loved you.
That’s evident in the fact that you went to a top-tier collage and were never really dragged into our world.
I understand you want out, but it’s ill-informed for you to judge others who didn’t have your privilege. ”
Anger welled in my chest, and my head snapped toward him.
“Don’t tell me I’m privileged. You assume I’m some spoiled princess, but my father was terrible to my mom.
I did everything I could to keep him from hurting her.
That’s why he loved me; because I had no other choice than to ingratiate myself to him, even though I knew he was evil. ”
“Alexis...” Nick said softly.
“He didn’t hit her as much if I was nearby, although he still hit her sometimes.
” I swiped the errant tear that ran down my cheek.
“But I realized that if I ran to him, and called him Daddy, he would focus on me instead of her. That he would stop hurting her.” Placing my face in my hands, I tried to push away the memories.
“I realized it when I was young, and I tried to help so he wouldn’t hurt her. ..”
“Shh...” Nick said, scooting toward me and pulling me into his arms. “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he said, pressing my cheek to his chest. “I didn’t realize he hit her.”
“He hated her, and she hated him,” I said, sniffling. “It was awful, and I was stuck there, in that house with him and the person I loved most, who I wanted to save, but never really could.”
“That sounds awful,” Nick said, his deep voice rumbling against my cheek as he stroked my hair. “I can see why you want out. You were trapped in a very unhappy place.”
“I just want to live a life free of this world. And now Mom married Michael, so I’ll still be mafia-adjacent, even if I move to Africa.”
Nick leaned back and smiled. “Please don’t move to Africa. I promise, you can get away from the mafia in the US. We can figure that out.”
I huffed a laugh. “Maybe, although it’s going to be tough now. I mean, I have to celebrate holidays with Mom and Michael, at least.”
Nick frowned. “Just your mom and Michael?”
I bit my lip. “Maybe with you too. You’re kind of okay.”
He smiled as he wiped my tears with his thumbs. “Don’t go too far away. I think I’d miss seeing you. Every once in a while, at least.”
My eyes darted between his, and I felt myself drowning in them. His brown irises swirled with limitless emotions, and I swallowed the lump in my throat.
“Just every once in a while?” I whispered.
“Yes,” he said softly. “Because I want you to have the life you want, and that’s not a life near me.”
Extreme sadness flooded my chest, and I felt a fresh batch of tears well in my eyes. The thought of only seeing Nick sporadically caused my heart to splinter in places I didn’t even know existed.
“Or maybe I could find a reason to stay...” I said, my voice shaking with emotion.
“No, sweetheart.” His thumb moved over my cheek in a gentle caress. “I want more than that for you.”
My chin lifted as I grinned. “I’m not sure how to break this to you, buddy, but I make my own decisions about my life.”
His lips twitched. “Oh, I know. You’re too fucking stubborn for your own good.”
“You’re goddamned right I am.”
Chuckling, he glanced toward the fire. “I need to put some more logs in. It’s getting low.”
“Do you think we have enough to last us a few days?”
“Yeah, I think we’re good.” He pressed a kiss to my forehead and slowly rose before placing more logs in the fire. Returning to stand in front of me, he crossed his arms. “Well, what are we going to do now?”
I wrinkled my nose. “I have no idea. I’d usually be buried in my laptop on a snow day.”
He sat down beside me and leaned his head on his fist as his elbow dug into the couch. “Tell me about hacking, or coding, or whatever. I don’t get any of it.”
I could feel my eyes light with pleasure. “Really?”
“I mean, yeah.” He gestured around the cabin. “What else are we going to do? You obviously love it, and that makes me curious about it.”
My heart skipped a beat at the tender words.
There was something so sweet about this man that he didn’t even realize, but I understood intrinsically.
Several times during our time at the safehouse, he’d said things that were inherently genuine.
He didn’t hide his thoughts behind veiled words or masculinity. He just said what he truly thought.
It was such a rarity in today’s disconnected world, filled with filters and endless social media posts designed to imitate fake emotion. It was so hard to find someone who was just comfortable being themselves, and who said what they truly thought.
“What?” he asked, and I realized I was staring at him.
“Nothing. You’re just...cute.”
He scowled. “I can assure you, I’ve never been called cute in my entire damn life.”
Laughing, I shrugged. “Well, you have now.” Settling into the couch, I ticked my fingers as I spoke. “Okay, we’ll start with coding, then we’ll move to hacking, and then we’ll move to AI. That topic is fun and scary, all at once.”
“Riveting,” he said, lifting his eyebrows as he teased me.
Grinning, I got to work educating my mafia crush on all things technology. Surprisingly, it turned out to be one of the most enjoyable conversations I’d ever had.