Chapter 7 Nico
The penthouse settles into the quiet I’m used to.
Usually when I’m here, it’s because I want silence.
Crave it. Earn it. But tonight, the silence has a weight to it I don’t like.
It drags behind me like a shadow that doesn’t belong, thick and unwanted and strangely alive.
A reminder of everything I didn’t prevent, every bruise on her skin I didn’t stop in time.
Isabella isn’t mine, so why do I feel responsible for her getting hurt?
She’s standing in the hallway, looking small in her tatty, oversized sweater and leggings, one hand pressed lightly to her ribs. Her cheek is already blooming with color, red washing into purple. It makes my jaw tighten with rage until my teeth grind.
She should be resting. She should be lying down. She should not look like something someone tried to break.
“Sit,” I tell her, pointing to the stool at the kitchen island.
Her brows lift. “You’re very bossy.”
“You’re very injured,” I counter, pulling the stool out for her. “Sit.”
She opens her mouth, probably to argue, because I’m learning that arguing is as natural to her as breathing, but then she exhales, surrendering, and lowers herself carefully.
I find myself hating that exhausted compliance.
Her fingers grip the marble edge and there’s a split second where pain flickers over her eyes before she masks it.
I don’t like that flicker. Everything in me wants to go to the warehouse and pound the piece of shit that put that pain on her face, until he’s nothing more than bloody flesh. To cut off the hand that touched her and feed it to him.
Instead, I cross to my kitchen island and heat up the food I had Rossi bring earlier, plating it without any finesse. My hands are steady, but my mind isn’t. Every time I imagine the purple blooming along her ribs, something inside me coils tight and sharp.
She watches me with an expression I can’t quite decipher, somewhere between suspicion and exhaustion. She’s right to be wary of me. I’m not a good man but I’d never hurt her. At least not like that.
Placing the food in front of her, I catch the faint floral fragrance of her perfume, and it makes my dick twitch with interest. It’s been too long since I got laid. It’s where I should be now, inside a hot pussy. Instead, I’m here, taking care of my enemy.
“Eat.”
“This is unnecessary,” she murmurs. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not.” I set the plate in front of her. “Eat.”
She hesitates again, overthinking, weighing, assessing, but picks up the fork and takes a slow, careful bite. Her shoulders loosen a fraction. Just a fraction, but it’s enough to make something in me unclench with it.
“You’re hovering,” she says after a moment, gesturing faintly to where I’m leaning on the counter with my arms crossed.
“Making sure you don’t pass out face-first into the risotto.”
Her lips twitch. “You’re such a charmer.”
“Eat,” I repeat. The almost-smile shouldn’t hit me where it does, low and unwelcome, but there it is anyway.
She’s quiet after that as she eats, small movements, measured breaths, each one reminding me where she hurts. And I stand there far longer than is necessary, telling myself it’s because I’m monitoring her condition.
Not because watching her steady herself, even by inches, calms something in me.
When she finally pushes the plate away with a soft sigh, I nod toward the hallway. “You can use the guest room where the doc checked you over,” I say. “Bed’s made. Bathroom’s stocked.”
She rises gingerly, pressing a hand to her side.
The motion is so small, so human, that my body moves forward instinctively before I force myself to stop.
I can’t keep trying to catch her every time she sways.
“Do you ever speak in full sentences, or is clipped caveman your only way of communicating?”
I rub my lip to hide the smile as I turn away from her and load the plate into the dishwasher. She’s recovering her spark, which means the pain meds are working. “Do you always insult the people who save you?”
A huff greets me, and I wait to see if she fires back with more of her sexy attitude.
“Fine. Thank you.”
She walks past me, still slow, still cautious, but now with a little more of her fire returned.
I follow, not close, but close enough that if she falls, she won’t hit the ground, and I do not look at her round ass in those thin as fuck leggings.
My father’s voice ghosts through my head—you watch out for what’s yours, even if you don’t want it to be yours.
I shut the thought down before it finishes forming.
When we reach the guest room door, I open it for her.
The room is warm under soft lighting. I notice the lamp by the bed is on, but dimmed, the room is the perfect temperature. A space meant for rest. A space meant for solitude.
She steps inside, turning in a small circle, taking it in again like she’s trying to figure out who I am through the shape of the room.
“It’s… nice,” she says quietly.
“It’s a room,” I say. “Try not to break this one.”
She shoots me a look, but she’s too tired to bite back the way she wants to. “Goodnight, Nico.”
I nod once. “If you need something, call me.”
She disappears into the room, the door clicking shut. The sound hits harder than it should.
I leave my office door open. Pretend I don’t notice I’ve done it.
But I do.
I sit at my desk, laptop glowing in the dim light, papers spread out in neat stacks. None of it holds my attention. My mind keeps skipping, sliding back down the hallway, the quietness behind that door. Her breathing. Her bruises. The way she curled on the floor when I broke her door open.
Every few minutes, I find myself drifting past her room. Not stopping. Just… listening.
For movement. For pain. For anything wrong.
Old habits. Too deeply rooted. I remember doing the same thing when my mother was sick, not wanting to disturb her but needing to be close, should she need me. But this is a bad habit, because the woman behind that door isn’t supposed to matter to me. She’s my enemy.
She doesn’t matter. She’s a complication. A problem. A threat I need close to manage—yes, that’s it. She’s here so I can watch her and make sure she isn’t poking her nose in my business any more than she has already.
My phone vibrates. Adi.
I answer. “Yeah?”
His face fills the screen, hair messy, tie gone, Letty asleep on his shoulder like she always does when she’s had a long day. The sight hits something soft in me.
“You’re alive,” Adi murmurs, keeping his voice low. “Good. Matteo said something happened.”
I’d texted my youngest brother earlier when I said I couldn’t meet him at the bar he was at. Matteo is drinking too much, burying his grief in a bottle. “Where is he?”
Adi smirks faintly. “Where do you think? Some club in Midtown. Trying to charm half the city.”
Of course he is. “Put me on speaker and add him to this call so I don’t have to repeat myself.”
Adi does, and Matteo appears on the call a moment later, neon lights flashing across him, music thumping so loud I feel it in my teeth.
“Nico! Tell me you didn’t kill anyone without me.”
“Not yet.”
Matteo grins like that’s a personal win. “Good. I could do with letting off some steam.”
Adi snorts. “And a senator’s wife wasn’t enough?”
Matteo smirks. He’s a handsome bastard and he knows it. “She was an appetizer.”
“Fuck’s sake, Matty, can you keep the scandals to a minimum? We don’t need any more headlines right now.”
“Speaking of which,” Adi adjusts Letty again, carefully lifting her hair from her face, “start talking.”
So I do.
I tell them how I’ve been following Isabella, about the car that tried to take her out. The attack in her apartment. The Bratva tattoo. Rossi dragging the bastard to the warehouse. I tell them all of it, except how distracting I find her. The last thing I need is them fussing over me.
Adi goes still. His whole face changes. “Bratva? You sure?”
“I saw it with my own eyes.”
Matteo whistles, all business now. My brother is a party animal, but when he’s needed, he’s all in with the family. “Shit. That’s not random.”
“No,” I say. “It’s not.”
Adi’s gaze sharpens. “And the girl? She’s safe?”
“She’s in the guest room.”
Matteo smirks. “At your place? Is that wise?”
I glare. “Yes, and don’t start.”
He lifts his palms. “Most women don’t get past your lobby.”
“This isn’t the same thing. I’m not fucking her, I’m watching her. Have you never heard the saying ‘keep your enemies close’, moron?”
“Whatever you say, Nic.”
Adi shoots him a look. “Focus.”
I lean back, scrubbing a hand through my hair. My head aches. My chest aches worse. “Someone sent that bastard with a message. She’s tied to this whether she meant to be or not.”
“You think it’s the old guard?” Adi asks quietly.
“Feels like it.”
Matteo curses, expression darkening. “We need to lock down. If they’re poking the bear, they won’t stop.”
“I know.” A long breath. “We’ll handle it. Quietly. We have enough eyes on us with losing dad, and then that fucking article she wrote. We need to tread carefully.”
Adi nods in agreement. “Let’s talk tomorrow. I’m getting covered in drool. Call if anything changes.”
I glance at my sleeping niece, vowing to do anything to make sure she can sleep the sleep of the innocent. “Will do.”
Matteo leans in close to the camera. “And, Nico?”
“What?”
“Don’t forget you can have some fun. From what I saw, she was hot.”
My jaw ticks. “She’s not some hook up, Matty, so show some fucking respect.”
They both stare at me like I’ve said something I shouldn’t have said.
Then Adi murmurs, “Be careful, Nic.”
The call ends.
The apartment folds back into quiet.
Soft.
Careful.
Too careful.
I walk to her door one more time, stopping just shy of touching it. There’s nothing but the faint rustle of sheets inside. Nothing but the small, steady sounds of someone who survived something they shouldn’t have had to face alone.
Good.
Back in my office, I sink into the chair with a glass of bourbon, rigid, alert, listening to the silence hum. Thinking of the presence down the hall that shouldn’t matter but it already does, in ways I don’t want to examine.
I tell myself it’s vigilance. Not something else. Not something worse. Not something dangerous.
And eventually, when the night feels deep enough to hide it, I start to believe myself.