CHAPTER 38
NOW
DAPHNE
“You know you don’t have to do that, right?” Kaitlyn enters the kitchen to place her coffee mug in the sink where I’m currently washing dishes. “You’re a guest.”
“I want to,” I reassure her with a gracious smile. “You guys have gone above and beyond for me this week. It’s the least I can do.”
“Babydoll, we let you sleep on our couch and force you to play board games with us every night. If that’s your gold star for above and beyond then I’m concerned about your standards.” She chuckles as she hops up to sit on the counter before readjusting her messy brown bun.
I’ve been hidden away in Cape Cod with Jonsie’s dad and stepmom for a week now and, I must admit, if you have to be in hiding, there are certainly worse places to be. I spend my days helping Katie run her yoga classes on the beach while indulging myself on fresh seafood every night. We play games. We watch movies. It’s a great time. It’s been a few years since I tagged along with Jones on one of her annual summer Cape trips, and I’m suddenly sad it’s taken such extreme circumstances for me to return.
I have no idea if Jones knows where I am. I’m going to assume not, since Marcus told me he promised Nicky he wouldn’t let anyone know I was here, but he wouldn’t lie to Jonsie if she called looking for me. When I asked if Nicky had shared with them why I was here, Katie said it was better they didn’t know. Plausible deniability, Marcus had called it.
Using the cover story Nicky suggested, Mom and Lucian think I’m spending two weeks at a spa retreat so that I can be well-rested for the wedding. My mother was thrilled by the idea and not only supplied me with a list of recommended skin treatments, but also asked me to inquire upon arrival if they had any seaweed wraps that could help me “shed those pesky last five pounds.” Bitch.
On a positive note, Nicky took my phone before he brought me here so I haven’t had to speak to her once in the last seven days. He dropped me off in the middle of the night and said he’d be back in one week to see if I had an answer for him.
That means he should be arriving today, and I still have no clue what I’m going to say. Do I want to marry Nicky? It’s possibly the one thing I’ve wanted more than anything my entire life, but am I willing to take it on these terms? Like some form of a transaction? I’m not sure. I hate that everything comes with attached conditions or ulterior motives. Why couldn’t he just want to marry me?
“Where’s Marcus?” I ask, finishing up the last of the silverware.
“Out for a run. Should be back any minute, though.”
“Ask and you shall receive.” Marcus strides into the kitchen, sweaty from his run. “And I come bearing gifts.”
Slamming my palm down on the faucet a bit harder than necessary in my excitement, I cut the water to the sink. I spin, expecting to see a familiar set of cerulean eyes, only to be met with disappointment when a pair of piercing hazel ones stare back at me instead.
“Rico.” I force a smile, reaching for a towel to dry my hands.
“Hey, Dee.” His gaze shifts over to the countertop where Katie’s still perched. “Katie.”
She smiles warmly as she leans into Marcus’s side, offering a wave in response.
“If you guys don’t mind, I need a moment alone with Daph.”
“Of course.” Marcus helps Katie down from the counter, patting Rico on the shoulder as they pass him on their way out the kitchen.
“Thanks, guys.” Rico glances back over his shoulder, his eyes following them as they exit the room. Turning back to me, he holds up a manila file folder, brandishing it for me to see before slapping it down against the small island between us. “You and I need to talk.”
I stare down at the stack of papers spilling out of the file, my brow furrowing in confusion as my gaze returns to his.
“Nick got arrested last night.”
***
Rico and I sit at the table on the back patio with a mountain of documentation spread out between us. My fingers periodically sift throughout the papers, though continue to revisit one page in particular.
It’s a mug shot dated several years ago from a sealed arrest record—Lucian’s.
“I can’t believe he raped that girl,” I whisper, covering my mouth in shock. “I remember when she disappeared from the college. It was all over the news.”
“I’m sorry, Daph.” Rico reaches forward, patting my arm before relaxing back into his chair.
I reread through the report documenting the allegations made against him. How she claimed he drugged her at a party before raping her in one of his friend’s rooms. My eyes drift up to the corner of the page, locating the date—just months before we started dating.
“How did I not know about this?”
“The same way everyone in our social circles keeps all their dirty laundry under wraps. Elliot used his money to bury it. I had to search deep for this shit.”
Placing it off to the side, I move on to the phone log showing a series of calls between her and Lucian following the incident. “Luc rapes her, Elliot pays her to go away. But then she starts calling him again when she finds out she’s pregnant.”
Rico nods, holding up the copy of her medical record detailing the positive pregnancy result.
“And then she disappears.” This is the part I remember. I can’t recall so much as a whisper of any rape, but it was big news when this girl went missing. The cops spent weeks searching the town, but she was never found.
“And you’re telling me this Yuri guy got rid of her as a favor to Lucian.”
“Not a favor.” Rico shakes his head, his fingers picking at the label of his beer bottle. “For leverage. Lucian’s the son of a prominent family. He had a problem. Yuri solved it, and now he owns him.”
“So, when Lucian asked me out… it was because he was directed to do so? Because of my connection to Nicky?”
Rico sits up, sighing as he places his bottle off to the side. “We’ve been dealing with Yuri a long time now for reasons far more complicated than I have time to go into at the moment. Yuri needs Nick and our operation. We all make a lot of money from our partnership, but he also knows if Nick could off him tomorrow and be free of him, he’d do it in a heartbeat.”
“Why?”
“Because Yuri’s a fucking psychopath prone to violent temper tantrums. We didn’t enter into this partnership willingly, Dee. Yuri has an overwhelming need to control everything and everyone around him. Nicky’s been looking for a way out since the day we got sucked in.”
“I still don’t understand how me dating Lucian serves any greater purpose in this master game of cat and mouse between Nick and some Russian gang leader.”
“Because it hurts him.” Rico leans forward onto his elbows, his expression serious. “Yuri was having Nick followed in the beginning. He knew you guys were carrying on. Yuri saw something that made Nick happy, so he took it away. Not only that, but having you paired up with Lucian meant if Nicky ever stepped out of line, Yuri had easy enough access to you if he needed to teach Nick a lesson.”
The realization slowly dawns on me as the pieces click together in my mind. “He’s not hiding me from the Feds, is he?”
Rico shakes his head, scrubbing a hand over the scruff of his chin. “Yuri suspected Nick and Mav were making moves against him, so he threatened you and J.”
“Which is an actual thing, from what you say? They have some kind of alliance?”
“Daph, when I tell you I had zero idea those two assholes have been working together the last four years…” He scoffs.
“How did he manage to hide that for so long?”
“Fuck if I know! Fucker waits for it all to blow up in his face before he clues me in.” Rico reaches for his beer once more, clearly distraught as he drains the last of its contents.
“Hey.” I reach for him, taking his hand in mine. “You know it has nothing to do with how he feels about you, right? He trusts you more than anyone in the world, Rico. If he kept it from you, he had a reason.”
“I know.” He nods, his face bearing a somber expression. “I just hate feeling like he’s been all alone in this. I could’ve helped him.”
“Rico, I don’t know anyone who’s helped Nicky more in life than you. I can’t imagine where he’d be if he didn’t have you by his side.”
“Thanks, Daph.” His large palm covers mine, a small smile slipping across his face.
“So.” I gesture to the mess in front of us. “My fiancé’s a piece of shit rapist. My entire relationship’s a lie. Awesome.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I can’t find any evidence that he was ordered to propose to you, so he may very well love you for real.”
“Sure.” I snort. “So much so that he’s been fucking around since the day we got together.”
He jumps up, grabbing two more beers from the outdoor fridge and passing one to me. “You want to be the pot or kettle in that one?”
“Touché.” I clink my bottle with his before taking a sip. “Now you got me feeling like a bad person. Tell me something else sucky about him to make me feel better.”
“He’s been fucking Amber.”
The bottle stalls on the way to my lips, my mouth agape. “Walsh?!”
He nods, dropping back down into the chair across from me.
“Didn’t see that coming. Well, you say J and Mav are back together. That frees the little tart up to take him off my hands.”
“That’s gonna prove a bit difficult, considering she’s dead.”
“WHAT?!”
Rico winces at my reaction, suddenly avoiding my gaze. “I mentioned Nicky got picked up last night for assault. What I may have left out is Mav also got nabbed last night… for murder.”
I reach across the table, snatching his beer and placing it out of his reach.
“You don’t get this back until you fill me in on everything I’ve missed in the last seven days. Reader’s digest version. Go.”
Rico stares at me for a moment, eyes briefly flickering to his beer before inhaling deep.
“Mav got picked up for murdering Amber even though J was with him the night in question. Caleb isn’t really Caleb, he’s Cabir—Yuri’s nephew, who was planted in J’s life much like Lucian was yours, but he became obsessed with her and is framing Mav as payback for stealing her from him. Nicky kicked the shit out of Cabir when it all came out, which is how he got nabbed for assault. Even though Nicky and Mav are working as informants, a condition of their deal is they won’t be identified as such to any other government agencies so all active investigations against us are still ongoing. If they get indicted on federal charges before they deliver on their deal, we all go to prison.”
I sit in silence, blinking several times as I attempt to process all he’s shared. “Is that all?”
“Nope.”
Jesus Christ.
“Nicky was released today after being ordered by his DEA handler to produce you immediately. Yuri is looking to form a working relationship with Elliot, and they’re using your wedding as an opportunity to meet. The Feds are gonna bug the venue in hopes they can get the evidence they need on tape. It’s the closest they’ve ever come to a shot at nabbing Yuri. If you don’t come home to marry Luc, then the whole thing goes to shit.”
“Well, then…” I retrieve his beer from the corner of the table, placing it back in front of him. “Let’s go home and get me married.”