15. — knowing when. #2
“Which girl?” Giorgio snarled, millimeters from Nico’s face.
Blood trickled down his bottom lip. He tasted it with a swipe of his tongue.
Nico’s gaze met Salvatore’s over his father’s shoulder. He couldn’t say it.
“My daughter,” Salvatore informed quietly.
Giorgio glared back and forth between the two, but then his gaze lingered on Salvatore in the end. “Excuse me?”
“It’s a developing situation. New, okay? I’m handling it,” Sal lied easily.
“How new is it?”
“Recent,” Nico forced out.
Giorgio squeezed Nico’s throat harder.
He could barely breathe now. The spots came back in his vision, speckled and bursting.
“Come on, Giorgio, shit, let the kid go,” Sal hissed. “People are fucking watching and this is my home. My daughter’s—”
His father pulled him away just to blast him against the SUV again.
“At least he has fucking taste. Can’t say that for Marco, can I?” Giorgio asked, scoffing hard. “Although, let me say, if she’s whoring around with him already, and it’s so new like you say, that’s on you, Salvatore. For fucking shame.”
With those words, Giorgio let Nico go. He pointed a finger at Nico.
His father stepped closer again. Nico forced his chin up and stared the man down.
Just like Marco.
Same bully. Same bullshit.
“If you think a son of mine is—”
“Okay, okay,” Salvatore muttered, stepping in between the two physically that time. “Another day, Giorgio. We’ll do this on whatever fucking day you choose. Just not here, and not now.”
Fury met rage as Salvatore and Giorgio locked into a stare down that even had Matty stepping closer to them both by a few inches.
Nico sniffed hard to clear the sting in his nose before wiping the blood from his lip and chin.
His hand trembled from the adrenaline. It’d been so fucking long since he felt that kind of high.
Fighting, fucking, or drugs. Any would do the job for him.
Giorgio watched Nico again.
This time, he averted his gaze. He couldn’t keep looking at his father and not shout exactly what he knew the man was right in his face. Or worse.
He’d fucked up so much tonight for everybody. For himself. Would he see his sister again?
The world crashed around him one second to the next. More conversation passed between one face melting into another subsequent moving mouth saying words he couldn’t understand. His reality shifted all at once, settling into Nico, so he fully understood what he’d done here.
The sky just fell.
Nico barely registered Salvatore yanking him away from the SUV. He did hear the man’s words echoing in his mind with every step he took further from the house while his father and Giorgio’s men drove away.
Tires squealed.
Nico just kept hearing Salvatore.
“Get the hell out of here, Nico.”
···
Nico didn’t know how long it had been. An hour, maybe a little more. Long enough for him to walk to the guest house at the back of the property, grab his lanyard, phone and wallet, and head back for the main house. Or rather, back to his vehicles and the rest of his things.
The time didn’t help.
His hands still shook. Hate gnawed away. He wasn’t a bit better.
“Hey, there you are. I’ve been calling and texting you. I heard what happened, are you okay?”
He blinked, biting hard into his lip as he yanked open the Mustang, back in the garage now. He couldn’t acknowledge Frankie talking to him because he might explode if he did.
“You didn’t see it?” he dared to ask.
Even his voice sounded off.
“No,” Frankie murmured, stepping closer to him. In his peripherals, he noticed her sweatpants and matching gray hoodie, and how she shrunk in the oversized clothes. “I went to get changed after you saw me. Marco gave me the fucking creeps.”
Nico snorted. “You’d be the first to say so. You wouldn’t believe the pussy he used to bring home.”
A sound came from Frankie. He didn’t recognize it.
Then, something bumped into his knee. Not hard, but enough that it gained his attention. He looked down to find Stella rubbing her side against his leg. Had the cat followed her in? He didn’t even notice.
Nothing felt real.
“You’re not okay, are you?” Frankie asked.
Nico couldn’t even say it.
“Hey, come here,” she told him.
Nico shook his head and leaned in the Mustang to grab the ready bag he always had in the back. Besides cash, toiletries, and a change of clothes, it also held his IDs and important documents.
“I, uh—”
“What the hell are you doing?” Frankie asked hotly.
Stella bumped her head against his leg again as he turned to face the girl he loved more than himself. It wasn’t such a hard thing to do, considering how much he seemed to hate himself, but he did.
He loved her like crazy, but he was a fuck-up, too. He couldn’t fuck her up. He refused.
“What are you doing?” she demanded again when he headed for the Ducati a spot over.
“Leaving,” Nico said then.
“What?”
“Leaving.”
“What?!”
“First, don’t fucking scream at me,” he snarled back at her.
Frankie’s spine snapped straight. “Where exactly do you think you’re gonna go, Nico?”
“Not here. Your father—”
“Is on the phone. Again. Where are you going?”
He couldn’t ease that ache in his chest when he looked at this girl. The little voice that kept telling him he would ruin her had started chanting it on constant repeat. It wasn’t so little anymore, and he couldn’t keep ignoring it. Right along with what Salvatore said.
“The least you could do is talk to me,” Frankie whispered, tears welling. “Why won’t you even speak to me?”
“I want to hurt something. Someone.”
She hugged herself tightly.
“And if you get too close to me, I might fucking hurt you,” he admitted.
She shook her head. “No, you won’t.”
Her tears spilled.
He wished he could stand the sight of them.
“Stop crying,” he muttered thickly. “Stop it.”
“Stop making me cry!”
“Just stop...fuck!”
“Why are you leaving? Where are you going?”