42. Nero #2
Rage like nothing before, not even upstairs, consumes her.
She’s all limbs, hitting and kicking and scratching, and all I do is take it, feeling the impacts of bruises both internal and physical.
I let her, realizing the second my knife slid along her father’s throat, this thing between us, which had an actual shot of being something, was ruined.
My first act after boarding the commercial flight was to order a drink.
As I downed the shot-sized bottle, it dawned on me that I stopped drinking so much when in Anastasia’s presence.
With her around, she has become my addiction.
I may not have had her for long, but the snarky attitude and games were enough.
They were healing parts I never knew were broken until they stopped hurting.
If I stayed in her bed, if I woke up with her in my arms and got to see what she looks like with the sun hitting her face and maybe even make her breakfast in bed, or at the very least, showered with her, things could be different now. We could be different.
“You think I’m unaware of what my father fucking deserved?
You think I don’t know the pain he caused the world?
You have no idea what he’s done to me—to Lev and me.
You assume I’m angry because the asshole is dead?
” She releases one shrill humourless laugh that belongs in the deepest depths of prison.
“I’ll be the first to spit on that man’s grave and burn garbage on top, and that is my point.
You took what was mine. Mine and my brother’s.
You stole his death from us, all for what?
Petty, old feuding reasons. You have zero fucking idea what he’s done to Lev and me, but I’ll bet every coin in my bank that your problems won’t even cover the top layer of ours. ”
Shit… I breathe for the first time since her initial hit, but it doesn’t help. Rather, my lungs shrivel up and become useless organs. I didn’t know—didn’t think… Fuck.
“Anastasia, I—” My hand lifts, attempting to appeal.
“No.” She smacks it away, replacing it with a nail in my chest. “No, you don’t get to speak right now.
The feud that existed between our organizations—which I hope you enjoyed because I will single-handedly raze the entire Cosa Nostra for what you’ve done, so enjoy war, asshole. Hope it was worth his death.”
Zeno doesn’t even look fazed by that comment, which from anyone else, would be a death sentence.
“I need one more thing from you. One single word. A yes or a no. Were your issues with him worse than mine and my brother’s?
Were you thrown into prison repeatedly when you were a teenager, all because you didn’t obey a command?
Were you beaten up and forced to survive a room full of grown-ass men, all of whom despised and blamed the Bratva?
All because you’d rather fiddle with computers than shoot a gun? ”
This time when she hits, I stagger backwards a step. This time, it’s Lev in my mind.
“Were you trained—yes, trained—to seduce grown-ass men when you were fourteen years old? Were you taught how to poison drinks and use knives and rope and every other deadly paraphernalia, to murder? Were you taught how to combine those two—to seduce men and accept their offers back to their hotel rooms, all to have to fuck them, kill them, and watch him take the credit?”
This time, her hit physically drops me to my knees. Zeno approaches, but his attention and concern remains on the woman about to slit my throat.
“So, Nero. Yes or no?”
She’s seeking an answer to that? That, which makes looking at her impossible.
Not because of what she revealed, but because I didn’t know.
I didn’t know their father tortured Lev in such ways and used her like that.
A fucking kid, used in sex and murder schemes.
Her mind fucked with, her spirit pre-torn so by the time a real romantic interest became a potential relationship, her heart and soul were already shut off.
She even said it upstairs. “Most men manipulate. That’s a lesson I learned pretty early fucking on.
They use women for their own gain and never think twice about them.
” It’s why she struggles with trust. Why she wouldn’t give me the time of day.
Why she refused to kiss me at first. Why she froze at the concept of possession and never had a man cherish her with his mouth between her legs.
Until the other night, when she gifted me her trust…all for me to turn around and abolish it.
“No.”
She smiles. It’s nothing pretty or approachable. It’s one of destruction, meant to bring a man to his knees with a knife to his throat—if I weren’t already there.
“Exactly. So explain why you believe you had any right to take his life.”
“I’m sorry.”
Something flickers in her eyes. It’s similar to a lit candle right before a person’s hand passes over it, burning them.
They travel from me to Zeno, where she manages something resembling peace.
A low nod before she turns around and heads for the car, pausing with her hand on the door to face me.
It’s the dirt by my knees she speaks to instead.
“Vanessa and Zeno’s wedding is the last time I ever want to see your face, Nero Amato. Never talk to me again, don’t look at me, and stop apologizing. I’m done listening.”
She gets into the car and the car’s tires skid as she takes off down the road and out of sight. The dust from her speedy exit barely settles before my Capo is in front of me, glaring with crossed arms.
“You and I are going to have a long fucking chat, right after I ensure my fiancée is still my fiancée.” He turns for his car, and like Anastasia, stops with his hand on the door. “I have so many fucking questions, I don’t even know where to begin.”
He too drives away.
When I finally make it back to the villa, Veles meets me at the door, only to be quickly disappointed I’m not Zeno. She follows me to the kitchen where I pull out my preferred brand of forgetting and forgo the glass.
I’m judged by a dog for the remainder of the night.