Chapter 6
There were a lot of ways River’s day could’ve ended.
She’d considered all of them since she’d found that giant Russian in her kitchen. Most of the variants ended in her death, much like the Avengers fighting Thanos. Still, a small number ended with her walking away from the kidnapping relatively unscathed. Or at least, only minorly scathed.
But not once in all her imaginings did she end up at a mob boss’s home as his guest. Or was she his prisoner? She wasn’t exactly sure anymore.
What she did know was that while she might be held against her will, she would not be doing so in squalor.
“Come,” Nico said, taking her elbow as she exited the car, guiding her to the front door of the biggest house River had ever seen. “We need to get inside.”
If there were such a thing as a mid-century modern fortress, a picture of Nico’s mansion would accompany it in the dictionary.
The elongated, two-story architectural masterpiece was situated comfortably in a copse of mature pine, cottonwood, and birch trees.
Warm horizontal cedar paneling intersected with cool swaths of pale stone, creating a striking contrast of textures that somehow managed to be both inviting and intimidating. ..much like the man who called it home.
She could imagine curling up with a book in front of one of the many floor-to-ceiling windows. But as she stepped through the oversized front door, she figured she shouldn’t be worried about finding a reading spot. Not when she was lucky to even be alive at this point.
The living room was as impressive as the outside, she quickly realized. It even smelled expensive. Like cedar, lemon floor polish, and something River couldn’t identify. Thousand-dollar bills, maybe?
Regardless, the space radiated the kind of effortless elegance River had only ever seen in glossy design magazines.
Natural light spilled across sleek, low-slung furniture with clean lines and subtle curves, while the walnut-toned ceiling slats created playful shadows that danced along the neutral walls and soft upholstery.
River was a little afraid to touch anything. Everything here probably cost more than she made in a year. She didn’t want to mess any of it up with her grubby, poor-people paw prints. “Um…how long do you expect me to stay here?”
He raised a brow at her. “Why? Are the accommodations not to your liking?”
She side-eyed him. “The accommodations are better than royalty is used to. I just have things I have to take care of at home.”
A frown line creased his brow and his eyes hardened in a way that dropped the temperature in the room twenty degrees. “Boyfriend?”
If he didn’t have that scary look on his face, she’d laugh at the question. A boyfriend. Pfffttt. She hadn’t even had a date since the divorce.
And the last time they’d had lunch, her mother suggested she freeze her eggs since she “wasn’t getting any younger and didn’t have any prospects in sight.” Which was why she only got together with her mom once a month. Anything more than that was bad for her self-esteem.
“No,” she managed to admit without laughing. “No boyfriend.”
If she didn’t know better, she’d say the look on his face was relief. But that couldn’t be right…could it?
“In that case, I’ll send someone to your house to pick up whatever you’ll need for, oh, I don’t know, maybe a few days,” Nico said. “Or however long it takes to figure out what’s going on with Ricky.”
She flinched when he barked out what sounded like a stern order in Italian, then flinched again when another giant man seemed to materialize out of the damn ether.
Seriously, what did these guys eat? How was the mafia growing such huge dudes?
This one had features similar to Van’s, but he was much leaner.
Still tall and muscle-y, but more like an Olympic swimmer than a bodybuilder.
And he was wearing a black t-shirt and jeans instead of a suit.
Whether that meant he was lower on the mafia food chain or just a man who preferred comfort, she had no idea.
If he was the latter, she could relate. After all, she practically lived in yoga pants.
The stupid black dress she was wearing was her only dress—and she’d only bought it because her mother would’ve made her life miserable if she’d shown up to her great aunt Matilda’s funeral in her yoga pants.
Nico and the newcomer exchanged a few hushed words, then he turned to her and said, “Text Enzo your address and a list of what you’ll need. He’ll take care of it right away.”
Well, either Nico was as bad a kidnapper as she was, or she truly was a guest here, not a prisoner. Because what kind of kidnapper lets his victim have her phone and anything she wanted from her house?
And while the thought of Enzo pawing through her underwear drawer wasn’t comfy, the idea of him potentially finding Russians in her kitchen rather than her doing it—again—did have a certain appeal.
Enzo the giant could probably crumble up the Russian like a used tissue and toss him down the garbage chute.
So, she dutifully added his number to her phone and shot him her list.
When he scanned it, Enzo raised an eyebrow at her. But after that brief glance, he rushed off to do her bidding—or, Nico’s bidding, she supposed—without any questions. It was like having the biggest, most heavily armed Instacart shopper in the world at her disposal.
Hopefully, he’d do a better job with her list than actual male Instacart shoppers had ever done for her. Seriously, what kind of idiot substitutes castor oil for olive oil?
But I digress…
Nico gestured to the incredibly expensive-looking black leather loveseat that ran parallel to his desk. “Have a seat while I make a call, yes?”
River did as she was told. Again. Was there ever an accidental kidnapper who was meeker and more pathetic than her?
She’d be disgusted with herself if her night hadn’t fallen to shit so epically. At this point, she was afraid to do anything, or touch anything, or even think about anything. Following Nico’s orders just felt safer.
That’s when some completely inappropriate thoughts about other things—really dirty things—Nico might tell her to do while she was his, um, guest.
Or was he planning to use her as a hostage of some kind?
River quickly squashed the thought. What could he possibly get out of holding a nearly middle-aged schoolteacher who spent her spare time crocheting little outfits for her parrot and watching and re-watching anything she could find with Jensen Ackles in it?
Dark Angel was criminally underrated, by the way. And way ahead of its time.
But again, I digress.
That’s when it occurred to her that she’d just zoned out during his phone call. He might’ve been saying something she should know, and instead, she’d been sitting there like a dumbass, waxing poetic about Jensen Ackles.
Nico hung up on whoever he was talking to without saying goodbye. Seemed rude, which struck her as weird. She’d tased and kidnapped this man, and he had yet to be rude to her.
He was frowning sternly until he turned his eyes back on her again. That’s when his expression softened. Maybe he was just chivalrous. Was that a thing among mafia bosses?
“Alexi will be here shortly,” he told her.
She sat up straighter. “Here? The head of the Russian mafia is coming here? Where I am?”
“Yes. Do you mind sitting in while we talk?”
This is the time to not be meek, she told herself. Now! Stand up for yourself now, loser! Tell the hot mafia boss you don’t want to see the Russians ever again!
So, of course, what she actually said was, “Sure.”
God damn it, mouth. You had one job to do.
Nico steepled his fingers under his chin. “Tell me about your ex. How did you end up married to someone like that?”
River snorted at the derision in his tone. “Someone like that? Am I so different? I kidnapped the wrong man. Is that any better than owing money to the Russian mob?”
He somehow managed to smile without moving a single muscle in his face. It was impressive. And way sexier than it should’ve been in her situation. “Something tells me if he hadn’t made big mistakes, you wouldn’t be here.”
Truer words had never been spoken. “What sucks is that Jeremy was always a walking red flag. I chose not to see it,” she admitted.
She’d always been surprised on some level that Jeremy wanted to marry her. She was weird and quirky and stuck in her own head more often than not. He was the outgoing, all-American, classically handsome, king-of-the-world type that wouldn’t normally even glance at a feral house-gremlin like her.
So, when he asked her out, she went. When he asked her to marry him, she accepted. As a former high school nerd, it felt like her duty to take whatever the popular boy offered her.
What an idiot she’d been.
Nico nodded. “What went wrong?”
She swallowed hard. “It became clear early on that he had issues. He drank too much, spent too much money, stayed out too late. Always claimed to be working on ‘the next big thing’ that would set us up for life.”
He also spent way too much time on the dating apps he never deleted, too. But admitting that to Nico felt way too embarrassing.
River knew she should’ve left him after the first affair. But she didn’t. Not after he begged and pleaded prettily for her forgiveness. Promised her that he was merely using these women as business contacts, all while convincing her that if she only believed in him more, they’d be fine.
Jeremy had been a shitty husband, but if gaslighting were a sport, he would’ve been an elite athlete.
Eventually, she decided she’d had enough and told him she couldn’t do it anymore. She wanted a divorce.
On some level, she’d hoped he’d beg her to stay. To commit to couples therapy and change his ways.
He left that night without uttering a single word.
River didn’t see him again until he signed the divorce papers. He did so without even making eye contact.
She didn’t realize he’d stolen her credit card and cleaned out their bank account until three days later. He’d managed to trash her credit along the way, too, by taking out a handful of cards in her name, maxing them out, and defaulting on the payments.
That was when she realized he’d probably never really loved her. He’d been merely using her to finance his gambling addiction. To him, she was nothing more than a meek, gullible wallet.
Throughout her whole story (the parts she was willing to tell him, at least) Nico listened quietly, his eyes never leaving her face.
The only emotion she ever saw in his expression came in the form of a muscle in his jaw jumping when she told him about her ex breaking into her apartment while she was at work and stealing a wad of cash from her vacation fund that, she could only assume, he promptly lost at the casino.
The casino she now knew was Russian mafia owned.
“Fortunately, I owned our house outright,” she said, trying not to let any of the heartbreak she felt at her husband’s betrayal come through in her voice.
“It’d been left to me in my grandmother’s will, and I never added his name to it.
I was able to sell it, pay off some of the debt, and pocket enough cash to get by on while I rebuilt my savings. ”
Nico looked seriously pissed off on her behalf, which was terrifying and sweet all at the same time. “Did you report the theft to the police?”
She shook her head. “I know I should have. But I just wanted to put it all behind me, and I haven’t seen him since. Apparently, the Russians haven’t either.”
He leaned forward. “He abandoned you to the mafia to cover his debts? Even after you didn’t report him to the cops?”
“Well, I mean…he had no way of knowing what would happen if he disappeared.”
The look he gave her bordered on pity. “The mafia is a great many things, fiorellino. Ambiguous is not one of them. If he borrowed from the Russians, trust me when I say he knew exactly what would happen if he skipped out on that debt.”
His words took a minute to penetrate her brain. “You mean, um, Jeremy knew they’d come after me for the money?”
“I’m afraid so.”
Well, Nico had promised he wouldn’t lie to her, and he didn’t. Not even to spare her feelings.
Being a bad husband was one thing. But knowing Jeremy deliberately put her life in danger and couldn’t give a shit about it was depressing.
She’d been married to a man who basically threw her like a chewed-up dog toy to the Russian mafia. Had sex with a man who would betray her like that.
Her father had passed away when she was ten.
Her relationship with her mother wasn’t all that great.
She had no connection to her extended family.
And she’d never made friends easily. So, her ex, sadly enough, was the closest relationship she’d ever had…
and he couldn’t be bothered to even consider her when it mattered most.
She was so… alone.
“Otters hold hands while they sleep so they don’t float away from each other,” she whispered.
She didn’t have anyone to hold her hand so she wouldn’t float away and probably never would.
“No,” Nico said, his voice low and stern. “Don’t you dare cry. He doesn’t deserve one single tear. Especially not your tears. You should be angry.”
She blinked at him and sat up straighter. “I should, shouldn’t I?”
He nodded. “You were wronged.”
Yes, damn it! Why was she sitting here, all depressed, like she’d done something wrong when Jeremy was the lying, cheating, fiscally irresponsible asshole who’d almost gotten her killed? She’d definitely been wronged. Many times. “I was.”
“Revenge will be yours. I’ll see to it.”
Well, that was nice. And a little terrifying. Much like Nico himself.
It occurred to her then that he was offering to be her otter, even if only temporarily. He was willing to hold her hand while she slept so that she wouldn’t float away in this whole disaster.
Which meant Nico Fortunado was way more dangerous than she’d assumed when she kidnapped him. Because fearing for her life was one thing. Now that she knew her heart was also in danger?
She needed to choose her next moves very carefully.