Chapter 13 Vaughn
VAUGHN
“No… please, don’t hurt her…”
The soft cries pulled me out of a dream and into the very real spectacle of the woman lying beside me suffering from a nightmare. Her head turned on the pillow, sobs shaking her until the mattress vibrated. No wonder I woke up. This was why I insisted on sharing a bed for when this happened.
“Nova.” I was gentle, careful, placing a hand on her shoulder and giving her a small shake. “Nova, you’re having a nightmare.”
She had been here for the better part of a week now, after the night she fled here driven by a very apologetic Max.
“I don’t know what happened up there,” Max told me at the time, running a hand over his flat top, shrugging cluelessly. “She said she was going up to have dinner with him, and she came down crying maybe five minutes later.”
Anything could have happened in five minutes. Once I’d gotten her to calm down, she had explained some of the conversation between her and Riccardo. No big surprise. He knew exactly what was going on and tried to defend himself. I could have told her that would happen.
Since then, she had slept in my bed every night.
Was it easy giving her space, refusing to take advantage of her when she was vulnerable?
Hell no. To put it mildly, my fist was getting a hell of a workout lately.
My dick didn’t care that she was in no position for sex when she spent half the time walking through her days like a zombie, unable to sleep even with me by her side.
Why? That was what I couldn’t wrap my head around as I woke her up, watching her eyes pop open, listening to the soft gasp of realizing she wasn’t in that parking lot, watching those women. There had to be something she wasn’t telling me, something that had reached down into her soul.
“Oh. I’m sorry.” She ran a hand over her face while I settled on my side, watching her, wondering how long it would take before she stopped running away. Hadn’t I proven yet that she could trust me? What more did I have to do?
“Same dream?” I asked after a few moments.
There were still loose tendrils clinging to the sides of her face, stuck there thanks to the tears she shed before falling asleep.
She has been crying a lot lately too. Was this all because she couldn’t stand the thought of her dad profiting off the misery of others? Was there more to it?
“The past few nights, yes.” Moonlight streamed in through the half-closed blinds, painting her chest silver. The sight of it rising and falling, covered by a thin tank top, was entrancing. My fist and dick were going to need another meeting soon.
Concern over these dreams and how they affected her life during daylight hours left me unable to hold my tongue anymore.
“This might come out shitty, but I have to ask. Have you considered seeing a therapist? Clearly, this is too much for you to handle on your own. And that’s not a judgment. It’s a damn fact.”
She stared at the ceiling, worry lines between her brows, her full mouth tightening in a frown. “I know you’re trying to help, but this is way too much to unpack with a stranger.”
Her response came as no surprise. “You know, you don’t have to shelter your dad.”
My statement had the intended effect. Her head snapped around, her eyes finding mine. For the first time in days, there was life in them. Fire. I didn’t understand until that moment I had missed her, working from home to stay close by while the shell of Nova Mancini wandered the house like a ghost.
“And you know you don’t have to tell me what to do,” she whispered fiercely. “Besides, that’s not everything—”
Got her. Her cheeks darkened in the moonlight before she turned her face toward the ceiling again. I watched, saddened by the tear that leaked from the corner of her eye, glistening like a diamond as it rolled down the side of her face and soaked into her hair.
“Dammit. You’re very good at getting me to say more than I want to.”
“We don’t all need an advanced degree from a top university,” I teased.
“You are never going to let that go.”
“Probably not,” I agreed.
Her soft snort was a good sign. “It’s not only about the girls. He said something to me when I was there before I left.”
Now, we were getting somewhere. It took a conscious effort not to sound overly curious when I asked, “Your father?”
With the tiniest shake of her head, she whispered, “Nico. Nico said something. I haven’t been able to get it out of my head.”
“Tell me.” For fuck’s sake—I’d waited days for this. When would she learn it was useless, pretending she could handle all of this on her own?
Even if I had the tiniest bit of grudging admiration for her.
Drawing a deep breath, she explained, “When I was ten, my mom ran off on us.”
Not what I expected to hear, but I held my tongue.
Her chest rose and fell in a sigh. “I never did know why. I’ve never spoken to her again.
That’s how Dad and I became so close. We were all we had, the two of us.
It was like he worked twice as hard because he had to be both parents.
” Even now, there was a note of fondness in her words. Warmth. Love.
The fact that Riccardo’s wife had run off on him wasn’t a secret around town.
I remembered hearing about it now when I was around eighteen and fresh out of high school.
Dad had laughed about it, shaking his head.
“She must’ve found out what a piece of shit he really is.
I can’t say I blame her.” Considering my mother left him for the same reason, I never did understand why he thought it was so funny.
I would’ve guessed he could at least commiserate, show a little empathy.
Her throat worked, her nostrils flared, and there was a moment I was sure she would burst into tears. “I’m here with you,” I reminded her, finding her hand in the blankets and closing mine around it. “You don’t have to be afraid. You’re safe here.”
“Thank you.” Her apologetic smile was brief. “When Nico found me in Dad’s office and made sure I got on the elevator, he stopped me. And he said something. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. There’s literally no other way to explain it.”
“What did he say?” And how much longer would I have to wait until I had this son of a bitch killed? Had I ever ordered a hit before? No, not even close. It wasn’t my style. But the bastard was tempting me.
“He said something about being a smart girl. And how my mom thought she was a smart girl too.” Drawing a shaky breath, she concluded, “And look what happened to her.”
My stomach dropped in time with a surge of pressure in my skull. The motherfucker. “No fucking way.”
Her head bobbed. “Wouldn’t it be a shame if I disappeared too?
” She rolled onto her side, facing me, her head propped on her hand.
“I’m not crazy, right? There aren’t many ways you can take something like that.
” I almost hated how young and desperate she sounded now.
Looking for an explanation, a way of explaining all of it that wouldn’t point to the most obvious and ugliest conclusion.
“No,” I told her, and not without a touch of sorrow. “You’re not crazy.”
“And things got weird before she left. It’s amazing,” she mused, chewing on her lip.
“It’s like learning one little thing makes the past look different.
I remember everything, but now it all looks different.
She would stay up really late at night, which she never used to do.
I woke up and went downstairs to get water one night, and she was in the kitchen, crying at the table.
And there were other times when I would overhear her fighting with Dad.
They both tried to whisper so I wouldn’t know what they were saying, but I remember something about him needing to stop. Now that she knew, he needed to stop.”
Lowering her gaze to the mattress, she whispered, “I always thought maybe he was having an affair, seeing other women on the side. That was why she left. It was what I had to tell myself.”
“That could still be a possibility,” I pointed out, though I didn’t believe a word.
The kind of shit Riccardo was into, a man didn’t suddenly wake up one day and decide to try.
Odds were, he had been knee-deep in shady shit his daughter’s entire life, probably longer.
He was good at covering his tracks, but his reputation existed for a reason.
A daddy’s girl like Nova would brush off anything like that, insisting she knew him better than the rest of the world.
“But do you really think so? Because I’m starting to wonder if Nico had her killed.” She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, her chin quivering, her voice breaking.
Did I think Nico had her killed? Maybe. But he didn’t do it alone.
That was what I chose to keep to myself in favor of gathering Nova in my arms. She rested her head against my bare skin, dampening it, pounding lightly against my chest with her fist before winding her arm around me and gripping my shoulder tight.
“What if she’s been dead all this time, and I never knew?
It makes more sense than her walking away from me without saying goodbye. ”
Still, knowing what she knew about her dad, she refused to land on the most obvious conclusion—that it wasn’t Nico who called the hit.
Riccardo had a habit of looking the other way, letting Nico do the dirty work.
I couldn’t imagine the loyal right-hand man overstepping his bounds like that, having his boss’s wife murdered, not without the go-ahead.
There was a certain code men like him employed when it came to women and children.
They thought it made them honorable. Nothing could’ve been further from the truth.
“I’m here,” I told her. “I’m with you. You’re not alone.”
“That’s just it. I feel alone,” she insisted.
“Everything I thought I knew, it’s all a lie.
I don’t even know anymore if my dad loves me.
How can he love me and lie to me? He’s not the man I thought he was.
It’s been my goal for years to take over the casino when he’s gone, but I can’t imagine spending a minute there with him anymore…
” she paused to draw a deep, shuddering breath, “… and I hate him for it. I hate him for taking all those memories and twisting them around. And the happy memories with Mom. All the weekends we spent in Primm at our vacation house. I can’t see any of it the same now. I hate him for taking all of it away.”
Her honesty was refreshing after days of tiptoeing around the truth, refusing to admit what she’d already known. “I’m glad to hear you say that.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re being honest. It’s all right to be honest. You’re allowed to be mad and hate him. It’s better for you to admit it than to pretend you don’t.”
Pulling her head back, she somehow managed a skeptical look. Considering she was mussed, tear-stained, and bloodshot, it was no easy feat. “You sound like a therapist.”
“I’ve been in treatment. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.
I had some shit I needed to work through, too,” I told her, brushing loose strands of hair away from her forehead.
She leaned into my touch, and I kept going, knowing it relaxed her.
“And for what it’s worth, my mom didn’t bother showing up for Dad’s funeral.
Not even to support me. She did call, though, but she made sure to do it in the middle of the night so I wouldn’t answer, and she could get away with a voicemail. ”
Nova was now the only other person who knew that.
I hadn’t told my friends, the people I was closest to, out of…
what, shame? I was ashamed my mother didn’t care about me.
I was part of the reason she left in the first place, or so she’d told me at the time.
The bad seed. The problem child. I was growing up in Dad’s footsteps, bound to become the kind of man he was.
Maybe that was why Dad was so smug over Riccardo’s misfortune. In Dad’s eyes, Riccardo only had himself to blame, whereas some of the blame for my mom leaving him could be laid on me.
“I’m sorry. She shouldn’t have done that to you.” Her palm touched my cheek, her fingertips moving in my hair. Searching my face, looking for answers, comfort, and I wanted to give it to her—all of that and more.
“Parents, huh? They can really fuck you up.” Pressing my lips to her forehead, I murmured, “You turned out pretty okay despite everything. You’re a good person, Nova.”
Shuddering against me, she asked, “Even if I go to the police with what I know?”
Fuck. Such heavy questions at a late hour. “Don’t pressure yourself to make up your mind now. But yes. You would still be a good person even if you went to the police.”
I hated the fucker for doing this to her. Putting her in this position. At least imagining all the painful things I’d like to do to Riccardo and his errand boy pulled focus from how tempting it was to hold her this close, curled up in my arms.
“Why?” The question was soft, foggy like she was already falling asleep but needed to know. “Why are you doing all of this? We’re only married on paper…”
Good question. I didn’t have an answer. Though reflecting on it meant almost being able to forget the sweet oblivion her body promised in favor of holding her while she drifted off to sleep again.
Almost.