Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
NICO
Across from my desk, the idiot rambled on.
Our lawyer, Ludano, was a sleazy asshole none of us cared for but put up with because he was usually good at his job.
Usually. Trying to find holes in my pipeline on how we were going to minimize tax exposure and coming up with none was making him look desperate.
It was a ‘my dick is bigger than yours’ kind of situation.
Rather than admitting he’d found none, he bored us with non-existent shit.
He was so involved in the sound of his own voice that he didn’t notice the lack of reaction.
Stefano was typing on his phone, and I could tell by his smirk that he was pissing someone off and enjoying it.
I’d caught the gist of Ludano’s intent, nulled it, and muted everything else. I didn’t need to focus. Moving money through complex corporate structures was a sixty-minute task for me. At the most.
My attention was on my screen. But instead of numbers, it filled with images of my little assassin moving from one room to another.
I watched her walk from the storeroom to the kitchen.
That strut alone was enough to make my dick swell in my pants.
She was a criminal, alright. She should be behind bars for robbing men of IQ points.
I hid my smirk behind my hand as she paused in the doorway for a second before scattering to the other side of the room to empty the dishwasher.
Given how she squirmed under the attention of Magda, I knew she hadn’t told her yet.
She probably hadn’t told the other girl either.
She was a fool, or was set on testing my patience.
Either way, the deadline ticked. She had twenty hours to redeem herself or…
I leaned back in my chair, bent one leg over my knee, and let myself indulge.
I quite liked this feeling. This fuzzy brain and hazy vision.
Except for the hard-on. That was a nuisance.
Just the thought of her was enough to get me hot and itchy.
It tested my control, and I lost every single time.
I’d lost count of the times I’d locked myself in the bathroom and jerked off to images of her.
But I was done with that. Delayed gratification was a bitch.
But it would be worth it. I was sure of it.
My phone vibrated, and Enzo’s picture displayed on it. Picking it up, I walked out of the room, leaving the asshole mid-explanation.
“Ludano with you?”
I leaned against the hallway wall. “Boring the shit out of us, yes.”
“Tell him we’re having issues with two of our clubs. He needs to get the licenses renewed. ASAP.”
I frowned. “Why don’t you tell him?”
Enzo groaned on the other end of the line. “The fucker annoys the living shit out of me.”
The bastard was loud and too fucking pompous to be kept alive for very long by Enzo. I couldn’t give a shit about him either way. “There’s only one solution to that.”
“Stefano’s watching a candidate.”
“I was thinking of you learning to curb your irritation.” Anna walked into the office. Three coffees on her tray, wild curls tamed into a high ponytail, and a beige dress that covered her to her knees. Enzo went on about something, but my head filled with a buzz.
“Nico? I asked you a question.”
“Later.”
I snapped off the phone, walked into my office, and froze in the doorway. She had leaned forward to set down his coffee, and the fucker’s stuffed his nose in her hair. Something ridiculously violent surged inside my body.
Before I could control myself, acid dripped from my tone. “What the fuck are you doing?” Three pairs of eyes whipped my way. She noticed the jackass sniffing her and jumped back a step.
My heart was rocketing inside like a fucking ping-pong ball. He was too much of an idiot to read the obvious threat in my words. He shrugged. Like he was a man who couldn’t help but want her. “She just smells good.”
“So? Buy yourself a fucking rockrose on your way out.”
He’d crossed the line. My fucking line. Then did it again. “You don’t mind, do you, bella?” Next to him, Stefano groaned. “It puts me in a good mood.”
My vision exploded. Red spots flamed in my eyes.
I counted to bite back the acrimony coiling inside my body.
She stared at me. Curiosity and fear flickered across her face.
When I finally managed to speak, my tone belied nothing.
Was soft. It landed like bricks on fabric.
“Sniffing my wife put you in a good mood?”
His jaw dropped open. He backed away. The chair scraped with the force of it. “Wife?” His pompous voice had gone squeaky.
Next to him, Stefano patted his shoulder. “Someone’s got himself into trouble.”
“No,” Ludano shook his head wildly. “I didn’t know she was his wife.” He looked pleadingly at Stefano, but he only got a chuckle from him. He turned to me, mistakenly seeking my sympathy. “I didn’t know.”
“Don’t worry, sweetie.” Anna rolled her eyes. Then she pulled the pin off the grenade by fucking leaning over and putting her hand on his trembling shoulder. “The man is loco. I’m just his maid.”
I gritted my back teeth. I’m just his maid.
Ludano’s gaze shifted between us wildly.
He didn’t dare to look at the woman upping my pulse rate for more than a second before he looked at me.
His face went ashen. I kept my gaze as blank as the icy blade of a steel knife.
Stefano leaned over and spoke right behind his ear.
“I’d know who to believe if I were you.”
He nodded and half stood up from his chair, papers falling to the floor. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. If I had—”
I held up my hand. “Forget it.”
Like fuck if I would.
A relieved smile cracked across his pale face. Foolish man. We’d finish our meeting before I finished him. Besides, I didn’t want Anna to see his blood. The thought of it tasted sour. I could wait. Patience was my best trait. I walked to the desk and sank into my chair.
“Let’s finish our work here.” I gave her a pointed look. She took the hint and walked out the door. But not before she fucking patted Ludano’s shoulder one more time. I decided I’d tick hours away from our wedding date every time she pissed me off, starting with twenty-four hours for that.
Ludano dropped to his knees, collecting the papers, half mumbling to himself. My gaze met Stefano’s. ‘How long?’ He mouthed the words.
He thought the probability of my patience lasting longer than this meeting was zero. Idiot. I wasn’t Enzo.
I’m just his maid.
I’d arranged the wedding in one week. Could have been a day if I hadn’t been a fool and ordered her a special dress all the way from fucking Spain to marry me in. One hundred and seventy-two hours. The four words she spoke denying the truth… it dropped down to one hundred and sixty-eight.
We settled into the paperwork. Ludano spoke again, his voice shaky. He wasn’t trying to find any holes in my pipeline anymore.
She just smells good.
I tried to lose myself by timing shipments to avoid patterns. If we asked Columbia to hold on for a month, that would get the feds out of sync.
You don’t mind, do you, bella?
Maybe we could get them to do a detour.
He had his nose in her hair. I stared at the offending body part, which seemed to be growing larger by the minute.
In the meantime, we could leak something else to the feds. Something less damaging.
I hadn’t even sniffed her hair yet.
She just smells good.
It would reduce tension if we redirected them— fucking hell.
My chair hit the wall as I stood up.
Ludano startled, his face the color of mortuary meat.
“Let’s do this another time.”
“Yes, yes, of course. Yes.” He bent to gather the papers.
I glanced briefly at my brother. He cocked his head. ‘Now?’ he mouthed. No. I wasn’t that bad. I get to six hundred and ten. “Leave it.”
“But I need them to work on them.”
“Leave. It.”
Ludano visibly shrank from the tone of my voice. For a second, he hovered, clearly wanting to defend his job. Then he decided he was getting the better deal by walking out alive. With a slight nod, he dropped the papers and picked up his suitcase.
I let him get to the door while I glared at my brother, trying to come up with a number, any fucking number to calm me down. He didn’t even get to the door before I gave up.
“Fuck it.”
Stefano chuckled. Ludano turned. I walked toward him. “Let me drop you off.”
He staggered back. “But I came by car.”
Stefano joined us and casually draped his arm over him. “You can’t drive by yourself.”
“Not where you’re going,” I said right behind his ear.
He went still. His skin turned clammy, but to his credit, he didn’t put up a fight.
We walked him out the door and passed Anna in the hallway coming out of the living room.
She opened her mouth to say something. I prayed it was a long sentence because my patience was thinner than a fucking fishing line.
She must have sensed it because she closed her mouth. Such a smart girl.
At the car, Ludano’s obedience gave way. “I didn’t know, I swear, please.”
“You sound like a broken record.”
He struggled. Stefano put his hand on his head and shoved him down and into the car.
“Please. I swear. I thought she was just your maid.”
Those fucking words again. My hands curled on the shift.
Stefano turned to Ludano from the passenger seat. “I’d be smart and shut up. More words, more pain.”
He shut up. All the way to one of our warehouses.
It wasn’t just that he’d sniffed her. A sixty-fucking-year-old asshole had thought it would be acceptable to stuff his nose in her hair.
How many times had men tried to overpower her while she’d worked in that hotel?
With Juan gone, she would have had no one to protect her. What if he had tried to force her?
We couldn’t reach the warehouse soon enough. When we did, I yanked him inside. When he dropped to his knees, I dragged him along the floor and put the razor-sharp blade Stefano handed me to his nose. “Did you like my wife’s scent?”
“No,” he screamed.
What the fuck was wrong with this fucker? I put my face in his and growled. “Are you telling me my wife stinks?”
“What? No.” He swiped at my hand and tried to crawl away. We watched him struggle like a fish out of water.
“I think he’s got a problem with his senses.”
Stefano stepped in, gaze thoughtful. “We should treat him.”
“No.” Ludano screamed. “I’ll go to the doctor. I’ll cut off my nose—”
“Excellent idea,” I agreed before cuffing his leg and pulling him to me.
“No,” he screamed.
“Yes,” I breathed. Gripping his head, I sliced the blade down in one smooth move.
One audible snick later, the cartilage and skin of his nose came off his face.
Blood sprayed from it. The empty warehouse instantly filled with his howls.
He staggered off, hand reaching for his face, trying to stop the gush of blood.
The whistling, wet sound of his breathing filled the warehouse.
“Jesus, you sound like a dying pig.” Stefano, as usual, was altogether too invested in it.
I pushed Ludano onto his back. “No,” he screamed. “You took my nose. I understand. I won’t do it again. Let me live, please.”
“You think I’ll allow you to live after sniffing my wife?”
“She’s not your wife yet,” Stefano chimed in.
I ignored him. Shoved my foot on Ludano’s chest. He choked immediately from the blood running down his throat. I didn’t help by knocking his head down with my other foot every time he tried to lift it up.
“This is going to be a mess to clean up,” Stefano observed dryly.
My phone pinged, and I took it out of my pocket. A message from Enzo. Three words.
About fucking time!
I glanced at my brother. “You told him already?”
He shrugged. “I talked him out of it the last time he tried to shake Daria’s hand.”
I shook my head. He’d talked Enzo down. How eager I’d been to go through with it spoke volumes in the hollowness of the room.
“Why the fuck didn’t you stop me?”
Fuck. I wasn’t sane to be let loose among mankind.
Stefano shrugged. “Would you have?”
“He had his fucking nose in her hair.” In her soft spirals that felt like silk and sin.
“Exactly.”
It was already bad enough that other men had felt the softness of those ridiculously tight springing curls. He had to do it in front of me.
“So, when’s the wedding?” he asked casually.
Interesting noises came out of Ludano. He tried again to keep his head up, but he was losing the battle. I didn’t have to knock it down anymore. It rolled down on its own. “One hundred and thirty-six hours.” After a beat, I added, “Sooner. If she pisses me off.”
My brother chuckled. “So what? I need a suit in forty-eight?”
I leveled my gaze at him. He was wearing a suit. “She’s not going to piss me off.”
I said it half-heartedly. He didn’t believe me. I didn’t either. Besides, I hoped she would. Eleven fucking years. Finally, she would be mine. If only for seven hundred and thirty hours.