26. Chapter 22
Chapter 22
Isabella
“ L et them try to find me. I’m always ready for the unexpected!” Percy waves his walking stick over his head like a rifle as Camilla puts her face in her hands.
“Percy, I’m serious. This isn’t a game. You could be in danger if I keep coming here. I’ll come back when things have calmed down, I promise.”
Camilla puts her hands on her hips and draws in a sharp breath. “And you swear it’s not this new guy?”
“No, it’s not Nikolai. He’s trying to help me. I want to tell you more, I really do, but if I’m not careful, it could put you in even more danger. The safest thing is for me to keep my distance until things calm down.”
Camilla nods her head solemnly. “Well, when you come back, we’ll make it a celebration. Maybe we can even sing together.”
“Camilla!” I smile before my mouth drops open in surprise.
“What’s weird about that?” She laughs, looking at Percy for agreement. He leans on his walking stick and scratches his head.
“You haven’t gone on stage in years, darling. The last time was probably…” Percy gazes off into the distance, filing through his jumbled up memories.
“It was when I first came here.” I add, quietly.
“It was!” Percy hops up like he’s been hit by a jolt of lightning.
“You were too nervous to go on stage, Iz, so you grabbed her hand, marched her up there, and the two of you sang a duet.”
“I don’t know what came over me.” Laughs Camilla, pouring herself a drink and pretending to be un-phased.
Percy nudges me with his elbow, a boyish look in his eyes. “She saw herself in you.”
“Percy, will you stop for one minute?”
He shrugs. “She was right! The two of you sang the house down. The applause were so loud I thought the building might collapse.”
Camilla steals a glimpse at us, and I think I see a tear in her eyes.
“Why did you stop singing?” I ask softly.
Percy’s eyes crinkle as Camilla gulps some of her drink and turns back to us. “I don’t know. Life just took over. One minute I was releasing albums, the next I was too busy to find the time to write a song.” She chuckles to herself. “I do miss it.” Her eyes meet mine, a familiarity I’d missed swimming in. “Next time you’re here, we’ll go on stage together. We’ll have a proper party, and hopefully it’ll be the end of all this chaos.”
“I hope so.” I whisper, unable to stop myself from smiling.
Nikolai
Isabella hurries out of The Blue Moon and slips into the passenger seat.
“Did they take it well?” I reach over, squeezing her arm and pulling her closer to me.
“They were okay. I don’t think they fully understand. I wish I could have told them more, but if I did, Percy might have tried to fight my dad.”
I chuckle, remembering how the old fella had sized me up when I came to pick up Isabella.
“We’ll be back before you know it, and now at least they’re prepared.”
Isabella nods, sucking in a deep breath, trying her best to hold back from falling apart. Seeing her upset like this makes me want to tear the world apart and destroy anyone who would dare to hurt her. She doesn’t deserve any of this. I hate seeing her upset.
“Your family never showed you the mafia world, did they?”
Her puffy eyes flicker up to mine. “No, they never let me.” She says in a strained voice.
“You wanna see it?”
The turmoil in her eyes evaporates into a curiosity that burns back decades. “What changed your mind?”
I shrug. “You’ve had to deal with all the horrible parts of this life. Why not enjoy a few of the privileges?”
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.” I say with a smirk.
Isabella
My heels click as I step out of the car with Nikolai. He bought me a new black dress and matching black heels just for this.
“Are you going to tell me where we’re going yet?” I ask.
He never gives anything away, save for the crooked grin he’s worn since he’d decided to take me out.
“Just follow my lead.”
Nikolai locks the car, takes my hand in his, and leads me into a huge glass building. From the moment we enter, it seems like everyone immediately recognised Nikolai - which is something I'm rapidly getting used to. Loud voices turn to hushed whispers. All the eyes in the room trail our footsteps once they’re out of Nikolai’s line of sight.
We reach an elevator that requires a special key card, which Nikolai pulls from his pocket. The mirrored walls of the elevator reflect us back to me. At first glance, Nikolai stands out for his brooding expression, broad shoulders, and the scars crawling from under his shirt and up his neck, but the more I gaze at his expression, the more I find a soul in his eyes.
“We almost look like we’re husband and wife.” Says Nikolai, gazing at our reflection with me.
He’s right; we look good together.
“Or captor and prisoner.” I say, tearing my eyes from his reflection to the real him.
He arches an eyebrow. “That depends on my mood.”
He leans in and leaves a soft kiss on my lips. His hands trail down the soft silk of my dress, hugging my curves into his lean body.
The elevator dings, and Nikolai steals one more kiss before pulling away with a bite of my bottom lip. With a thundering heart, I pull myself together and step out into the unknown with Nikolai at my side.
“This building fronts as a luxury hotel, but the lower levels are home to the biggest illegal casino in the world. Every person in here is a high roller. And I own every inch of it.”
Chandeliers sparkle from a high ceiling, pouring light onto a marble floor and long glass tables. Like an expensive shop, the tables are spread out from one another, languishing in the empty space like a cat curled up in the centre of a double bed.
“The biggest in the world?” I ask back. Sure, the room is big, but it’s only one room.
Nikolai points up, and I catch sight of a second floor. “There are five floors. The lower you go, the higher the stakes.”
“What kind of stakes?” I ask, letting my imagination run wild.
“The top two floors are just money, starting at a hundred grand buy in. But that’s baby money here. You wouldn’t last an hour betting that low. The third floor is where things get interesting.”
“How interesting?”
We watch men in suits and women in gorgeous dresses walk through the room, finding their way to different tables.
Nikolai smirks to himself. “I’ve seen games decide national policy on the fourth floor.” Nikolai sucks in a breath, his eyes flickering around in memory. “I’ve seen lives end, families destroyed, the fate of entire nations decided over a laugh, a drink and a game of cards.”
“You’re exaggerating.” I say, shaking my head. “My dad is one of the most powerful Dons in the country and he never had that much power.”
“No mafia man has that power. We host them, we sit at their table, we play the game on their chessboards. The real power is in wealth and tradition. That’s why the Irish split away from normal mafia ways. They want more than a beautiful life. They want to play with reality.”
“And you don’t?” I ask, turning to him.
“I’ve seen what that kind of power does to a person. I have enough scars for one lifetime.”
A prickly silence falls on us as Nikolai’s eyes flicker away from mine until a woman in a sharp suit rushes over to us. Her hair is scraped back into a tight ponytail and she’s wearing wire glasses, highlighting her sharp features and no-nonsense demeanour.
“Mr Ilyin. It’s always wonderful to see you. How can I help you and your beautiful wife?”
Why does everyone know we’re “married”? It hasn’t even been a month since our "marriage".
“Room four. Thank you, Anna.”
She nods and smiles politely, leading us through the vast room and over to a set of spiralling corridors that cut off into more private rooms. She takes note of our drink requests on the way and fills Nikolai in on a recent visit from an European prince who hasn’t paid back a loan he took out with the House.
“Mr Ilyin, I was hoping to talk to you about the recent infringement in more detail.”
“Oh?” Nikolai glances at her with dark eyes, barely hiding the frustration. “I’m here to spend time with my wife, not for business.”
“I understand, Sir, but it’s important and it’ll only take a minute.”
Anna’s smile is perfectly practised, but it’s too perfect. I’ve spent so long making sure I fit into what my family needs me to be that I can recognise that kind of sadness from a mile a way. She’s afraid of Nikolai; there’s no doubt about it. So, before Nikolai can say no, I squeeze his arm. “It’s okay. Just be quick.” I left a kiss on his cheek for good measure.
Nikolai’s jaw muscle tenses. “I’ll be back in a moment. They’ll know who you are, so don’t worry about money. You’re playing on the house. Try not to lose me too much money.”
“Oh, I never lose at poker.” I laugh back. Our eyes lock for one last fleeting moment before Anna pulls him away and I enter room four on my own.
I'm not joking about poker; it’s one of the few activities we did as a family growing up, and I almost always won after I was old enough to understand the game. Which, of course, is when we stopped playing. Trust Fredo to have a tantrum and my parents to take his side.
I stretch and crack my knuckles. There’s nobody to stop me now.