42. Nero
NERO
“What the fuck do you mean there’s a shipment of weapons missing? How do you lose two hundred fucking guns?”
The soldier who’s had the unfortunate task of conveying the information to Zeno visibly shakes. He darts a look to where I’m standing off to the side, but there’s no way I’ll be helping. Zeno’s already ripped into me for disappearing for two days, not yet understanding I did it for him.
I’d flown back this morning on a commercial flight, intending to admit everything at long last, only to be met with an onslaught of missed calls and texts. It’s led to a shitty day dealing with everything.
First, it was Gabriella freaking out about something wedding-related that had Elio driving all over the place, much to the annoyance of Zeno, who needed him to start training new recruits, yet found himself stuck between his role and his own wedding.
He asked me to take over the training so there’d be no reason to upset his mother.
Then a shipment of weapons that were being delivered to a high-paying customer in Croatia last night mysteriously went missing before the pickup. When soldiers went to drop them off at the border, there was nothing to pick up.
“So you’re telling me someone snuck into the compound, which has twenty-four-hour surveillance on it, stole a motherfucking massive crate of these things, and walked away?”
Gotta hand it to the kid. If Zeno’s padre spoke to me this way, I would have pissed myself.
The soldier bobs his head. “We checked the footage, but it’s been scraped.”
Zeno slams a fist down on his desk. “Of course it was! Find whoever did this. If those weapons are not returned within seventy-two hours, your life is on the line. Go.”
The soldier skitters away, shutting the door as quietly as fear allows him to. Once the steps hammer down the stairs, I turn back to him. “Don’t you think you were too rough? He’s only the messenger.”
Zeno rounds on me, teeth bared. “No, it’s yours because you were supposed to oversee the deal. Where the fuck have you been, Nero? You can’t disappear for two days!”
When I push off the wall, my hands really itch for a drink. One final one to get through this.
Years of guilt are ready to be unleashed because when he inevitably blames me, I’ll explain how wiping out the rest of Ursin’s Elite, the rest who wronged us that day, will make it all better.
Then I’ll be healed.
Anastasia will never know what’s been happening in the background over the past few months. She’ll be with someone who doesn’t make drinking his hobby anymore. I’ll be deserving of her. It’s so simple.
“I did it for you.”
Zeno drops a hip onto his desk, crossing his arms. “Disappearing for days was your way of helping me? Explain.”
This. Is. It.
As soon as my mouth opens, his phone rings. He answers by the second ring, brows raising at whoever’s on the other side, and then he gives the current address of where we are.
“The Bratva jet touched down a few minutes ago,” he explains after tossing his phone back to his desk. “Didn’t think she’d be returning so soon. She must be eager. They said she sped right off.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck. Our private airfield is only ten minutes away, being this club is on the farthest end of the city.
If Vanessa’s on her way, Zeno will be distracted her entire trip, stealing my chance to talk to him. I need to now, not in days. Ever since slicing Petrov’s neck, this moment couldn’t have come sooner. The plane ride felt endless. Ten minutes is not enough time to get into it now either.
“We’ll talk later, ‘kay.” A dismissal, but my feet are frozen.
“No, Z, I really need to—”
Ten minutes hadn’t passed before the very loud squeal of tires stops outside the warehouse. Zeno jerks up from his desk, brows melding. Unless Vanessa sped, how the fuck did she get here so fast?
Unless it’s not Vanessa.
Surely, with time zones, she didn’t figure it out yet. How many visitors does the older Petrov have that someone found him already?
Steps bound up the stairs, and my stomach physically sinks in on itself. Zeno crosses the office to open the door, only before he touches the knob, it’s violently shoved to the side as an extremely angry ballerina stalks in.
Fuck.
“Where. Is. He?” Her growl comes from the depths of Hell—and something tells me when she locates me, it’s exactly the place I’ll prefer to go.
She scans the room, spotting me in the corner being unsuccessful in my attempt to meld with the shadows.“You!”
There’s enough time to block her incoming punch, but like I deserved to die from alcohol poisoning in the months and years following the death of Giovanni Mancini, I too deserve this.
I used her. I like her, but I still used her. I gained her trust, slept with her, and stole the contact information needed.
I killed him.
After the first punch knocks my head to the side and leaves an ache that’ll surely bruise, the second to my stomach bends me forward with a groan that rearranges my insides, and then another to my nose.
Zeno lunges across the room to hoist her away, wrapping an arm around her waist while the other attempts to control her arms. Her legs kick, her inhumane screech ear-bleedingly loud.
“Z, stop.”
Brows drawing together at my instruction, he slowly releases her, all for her to charge at me again. Using the wall, I straighten upright but keep my head averted, preparing for her next hit.
“Look at me, you fucking svolotsch’!”
I do, staring into the swirl of betrayal. Of a woman whose trust I shattered, even when it was the last thing I wanted to do.
Her chest heaves while her face is all angles and hard lines of rage. Of sharp glass I’ll never be permitted to touch again. A demoness in an angel’s body, with a soul to match for both. I lit the match that sent her careening back down, justifying her vengeance.
In between dense breaths, she bites out a speech—the precursor of the trial she so rightfully judges me on.
“Most men manipulate to get their way. That’s a lesson I learned pretty early fucking on.
They use women for their own gain and never think twice about her.
From the minute we met—re-met—I didn’t like you.
Not because of our history, but because something about you reminded me of them—the ones who used me.
The pretty ones who believe they ran the world and, by extension, me.
It was your looks, your confidence, your attitude.
When you proved to be different, when you helped me to see beyond that belief, and I saw you for you, you went and destroyed it.
Fucking obliterated. Manipulating motherfucking ass.
” A long stream of Russian gets tacked onto it, none of it sounding positive.
She spits on the ground, redeveloping the space that’s been between us since the moment our lives brought us together.
I did that. I broke that trust and formed the cavern.
She whirls around with a growl and disappears from the room, rushing down the stairs, seemingly done. She’s yet to consider how I’m nowhere near done with her, though.
After her screaming, and previously Zeno’s at the soldier, the room is more silent than ever. It’s an impactful kind of silence that ricochets through to my soul. Zeno’s stare is as heavy but nowhere near what her hatred is. He cuts in front when I aim for the door, a hand shoving into my shoulder.
“You’re not going anywhere. I’m going to make sure she’s alright before she sends the whole of the Bratva on our asses and I’m fighting against my own fiancée. Then you’re going to tell me what the fuck that was all about.”
The door bangs shut downstairs, but I elbow Zeno away, getting through the door first. “I need to deal with this.”
Taking the stairs two at a time, I reach the ground floor just as Anastasia slams her car door shut. I bolt across the lot, cutting in front, hands crashing onto the hood.
The window rolls down. The engine revs. Her voice carries from it. “Move or die, Nero. Do not test me.”
I round the car, reaching inside to hold the wheel steady, hoping it’s enough she remains until having the chance to explain. But my speech dies on my tongue as I see how badly I’ve fucked up.
When a tear slides down her cheek.
“Cara mia.” My hand shifts from the wheel to her face, thumb ghosting over the teardrop before she jerks away, snarling.
“Don’t touch me. Don’t ever touch me again. Do not look at me. Do not speak to me. I don’t want to hear one more lie out of your mouth.”
“Can I explain?”
Motion in my peripheral vision reveals Zeno leaning against the warehouse’s entrance, his arms crossing as he watches the scene there’s not enough alcohol in the world to drag me through.
“Explain how you got close to me, fucked me, and then stole my father’s information from my phone?” Rage pours off her, an uncontainable energy that even she recognizes, since her next step is from the vehicle itself, the car door swinging near my legs.
“I asked for it months ago.”
Her entire body twitches. “And that makes it okay?”
“No. That wasn’t why I slept with you. I like you, Ana.”
She barks out a single laugh, harsh from emotion and tears. “I don’t think you know the meaning of that word. So if it wasn’t why you slept with me, stealing from me was a bonus?”
“Yes.”
“You killed him, Nero! You murdered my father!”
Zeno straightens from the doorway as she slams her fists into my chest, right over the heart that’s breaking apart with her every tear. Every tear I’ve made her shed. Nothing will ever heal this part of me because I shouldn’t have done it.
Not to her. Not to the woman who was starting to call my heart hers.
“Sì, because—”
“My papa!” Another hit.
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” She slams two fists into my chest. “Sorry doesn’t change what you stole from me. From Lev!”
“Your father deserved—”