Chapter 34
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
NICO
It was a good thing she was going to end me because, fuck, living in that house without her wasn’t an option.
It was already bad enough that I’d made Daria design it for her.
But seeing her in it was far worse. Each room, each corner held a languid memory.
The armchair of her first time with me, the sofa where I’d laid her down and fucked her.
Now even the goddamn piano was destroyed, like the history of vintage furniture, where every crack held a story.
The memory of her scent, her breath, her moans.
If I touched the bench, the roll of her hips would vibrate through my skin.
I wanted to capture each sound and shift.
Stuff them into the rim of the piano and lock it with the lid.
She was fast asleep. In my bed. Wrapped in my silk sheets. While I prowled from room to room. A ghost in my own house. Sleep was for the happy few. I wasn’t one of them.
I half expected Magda to come and find me. Give me a cup of coffee and the pep talk that went along with it. But she was nowhere in sight. Maybe she’d come when I was fucking my wife. The world could have ended, and I wouldn’t have noticed it, anyway.
But I needed someone to restrain me because bitterness was building inside me, and there was only one way to obliterate it.
Stefano answered with an annoyed groan on the third ring. “Do these nightly calls mean you aren’t being fucked?”
“I could ask the same since you always pick up.”
He growled. “Long story.”
“Mine too.”
A pause. “What do you want?”
“Need you to find someone for me.”
“Why?” I could hear him moving. “You can find anyone. I suspect you have a network in outer space.”
“I’m hoping you’ll stop me.”
He laughed. “Your life right now is better than any series.”
“Glad to entertain” I said bitterly.
In the background, a computer switched on. “Name.”
“Joel Laguna.”
“Interesting,” he murmured.
“I don’t want to hear it,” I gritted through my teeth.
“Spanish name.”
“I know.” I scrubbed my hand across my face. “Don’t find him.” I was afraid of what I would do.
“You seem to have got your wires mixed.”
I paced down the hallway outside my room door. Thirty-four wooden planks. Eight inches wide. I’d walked past her once when she’d been mopping the floor. The mop had wiped the third, fourth, and fifth plank for the entire nineteen seconds I’d taken to walk to the stairs.
“He’s in New York.” Fuck. He should have left. “But you knew that already.”
I did. He was in my house. On my fucking sofa, where he’d had his fucking paw all over my fucking wife. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
“Oh,” Stefano whistled. I knew he’d tracked his phone. “Your buddy's out.”
“Took you long enough to find him,” I muttered.
“I’m going to ignore that, but you need to get laid. Your blue balls are pissing me off.”
If we upped the interest rate by half a percent… why the hell was he taking so long to give me the info? “Well, fucking tell me.”
“Thought you didn’t want to know.”
My frustration spilled out in a groan. “I don’t.”
I could practically hear his smirk. “Is it the time of the month?”
“Fine.” I took the stairs three at a time. “I’ll find him myself.”
“There’re teens who are more sure of themselves than you. He’s clubbing. At one of our clubs, of all places.”
“Well, we own the fucking town. I’d hope it was one of our clubs.”
Fuck. I should keep him alive. “Don’t tell me which one.”
“Fine.”
Let him put his paws all over her when I was rotting six feet under. I grabbed hold of my keys and strode out. “Which one is it?”
“Thought you said you didn’t want to know?”
“Which. One. Is. It?”
Stefano laughed. “I’ll do better.” The sound of the door slamming reached me. “I’ll drive you to it.”
Five minutes later, he was at my door.
Music thrummed on the floor above. The basement ceiling pulsed to the beat.
Cement floors, walls, and ceiling. Yet I was colder than the entire building.
I’d showered. Changed my clothes. Just the thought alone that he might smell her rockrose fragrance through me was enough to make my chest crawl with agitation.
At least she couldn’t say I hadn’t tried.
I’d even let him live a day after stepping into my house, touching my woman.
I would have let him go. I might have even.
But I couldn’t wipe the images from my mind no matter how hard I tried.
His hand on her ass all those years ago.
His hand on her the day before. When he’d taken hold of my fucking wife’s hand, he’d asked to be killed. I was only granting his wish.
Footsteps thundered down the stairs. One confident, the other reluctant. His pompous voice irritated my eardrums before he even made an appearance. “You Martello brothers have no idea who I am.”
“Was that the line you used on your whore?” The metal door swung open, and the prick flew through the door, falling coincidentally at my feet. “He’s going to be extra pissed because I pulled him off mid-thrust,” Stefano warned me.
The fucker looked up, lips lining into distaste, and proceeded to spit on my new Mario Bruni.
“Oh, someone’s got his balls in a twist,” he sneered, too comfortable at my lack of reaction. “What’s the matter? Don’t like that she opened her legs for my dick?”
I smiled.
He frowned.
Stefano read it perfectly. “Oh. Oh.”
I ducked down, fisted my hand in his gel-slicked hair, and shoved my shoe in his mouth.
I hit the back of his throat. Thrusted deeper.
He gurgled around it. Thick saliva dripping down fine leather.
“You’re right.” I yanked his head off my shoe.
“I’ll give you double points for it.” I shoved my shoe in his mouth again.
Behind him, Stefano shook his head.
What did Anna see in him, anyway? Gelled hair and trained muscles from a gym.
He’d gone from coming after her one day to shooting his load inside a whore the next.
The thought of her being with him pissed me off.
The fact that she already had been made my vision split.
It threw me off guard. Much more than I’d thought, because the next time I pulled him off my shoe, the fucker lunged for me.
Catching me off guard and sticking a knife to my side.
Where the hell did that come from? With one kick, I had him flat on the floor. The next instant, I had my foot on his throat. “You didn’t think to frisk him?”
Stefano whistled from the doorway. “What’s the point of that? Besides, this is better than soccer. One zero for Spain.”
I stared at my brother. “Shouldn’t sticking my shoe in his throat count for something?”
He shrugged. “Nah. You’re on home turf. We’re dropping that to be fair.”
“I’d better up my game then.” I eased up on him. When he pushed to sit up, I pressed my heel on one palm, put my weight on it, and grabbed the other in my hand. “You touched her with this. I’d need that erased from my memory.”
“You’d never get away with it, you fucker.”
I gave it some thought. “You’re right. If you walk out of here alive, I won’t.”
He lost that part of the conversation. Too busy staring at the blood pooling down my side and sneering. “You want more blood?” I pulled out the knife. He grinned. Fool. I gave an irritated shake of my head. I’d gotten ahead of myself and forgotten one crucial detail.
“Stefano, hit the music, will you?”
Two presses on the remote and Asturias Leyendas by Isaac Albéniz blared into the room.
Perfect. To the tune of the piece I’d fucked my wife, I sliced off the prick’s thumb. He howled, body writhing under the pressure of my shoes.
The music washed over me. Blood pooled on the floor.
His screams intensified it. Images of Anna mixing with memories.
Him lifting her up in the air, touching her ass, playing with those freaking pom-poms, kissing her while I watched.
For every sin he committed, I sliced off a digit.
But his sins outweighed his fingers, so I moved on to the rest of his body.
Then, finally, because he’d abandoned her when she’d needed comfort the most, I stabbed him in his heart.
When the piece came to its dramatic end, so did the heartbeat of Joel Laguna. The room reeked of his pain and Anna’s favorite piece. I’d corrupted the very thing she loved. I stood up. Stared at the dead man’s eyes. He was gone. But I couldn’t rid myself of the suffocation in my chest.