by Krista Holt
“Nicola!” my mother gasps.
I hold my hand out, pushing her away, as another rush rises up my throat, splattering onto the concrete beneath me.
“Boss?” Enzo slams the trunk closed. “You all right?”
I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, slowing straightening, my other hand clutching my ribs.
“Yeah,” I breathe out slowly. “Does she have everything she needs?”
Enzo looks at my mother, who nods carefully. “She does.”
“Where you taking her?” Enzo asks.
“To her husband.”
His mouth drops open. “But…I thought…”
“For right now,” I groan, “you know all you need to.” I turn to my mother. “Wake her up.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m not letting her come back here. So you better tell her goodbye.”
She nods, and tears line her eyes as she gently touches my sister. Gabriella wakes with a jerk, and the tears start again.
I step back, letting my mother comfort her as much as she can before I gesture for Enzo to meet me on the other side of the car.
“Look, boss, I really am sorry about the rib.”
“It’s fine. I get it,” I say tightly. “I’ll be gone about an hour. Until I’m back, you stay with him. Do not let him go into the same room as my mother, do you understand?”
He nods, but hesitation lines his brow. “What if he wants to?”
“Stop him.” I lock eyes with him. “I don’t really give a shit if you kill him. But do not let him harm my mother.”
He swallows hard. “I understand.”
“Good.”
I slowly lower myself into the driver’s seat. My mother is still speaking soft words to my sister as she silently cries. I don’t interrupt, I let them finish before I start the car and put it in reverse.
My mother waves through the windshield, and Enzo stands stoically behind her, watching us leave. Gabriella doesn’t say a word as we wind our way through the outskirts of Brooklyn, until she robotically gives me directions to a small house in the suburbs that her husband just bought.
A white picket fence surrounds the property, and even though a thin layer of snow covers everything, I can almost picture the front lawn vibrant and green with flowers in the nearby planters. It’s idyllic, and the only thing disrupting that image is Daniel frantically throwing open their door and barreling down the stairs when he recognizes the Benz.
Gabriella starts wailing as soon as she sees him. He yanks open the car door and pulls her into his embrace, holding her tight. I slowly get out, catching his glare.
“What the hell did you do to her?” he asks, his voice shaking with anger and a healthy dose of fear.
“It wasn’t me.” I brace my forearms against the side of the car. “Take her inside.”
He jerks his chin at me, and then quickly carries her up the stairs and into their new home. I wait, unmoving, for him to return. His feet march through the snow until he stops on the sidewalk.
“What happened?” he asks again, his tone less accusatory this time.
“He found out she’s pregnant.”
His face blanches, and he struggles to hold my stare.
“Lucky for you,” I continue, “I don’t really care when it happened. I only care that she’s happy.”
I gesture toward the trunk. “Her things are in there. Forgive me if I don’t help you, I’ve got a busted rib.”
He appears startled, but doesn’t ask a follow up. Quickly, he pulls the suitcases and duffle bag out and marches them inside the house before coming back to the curb to stare at me.
“What now?”
I inhale a shallow breath, exhaling through clenched teeth as sharp pain pokes at me. “Now, you make her happy, or I come back here and give you the beating she took. Do you understand?”
He looks sick to his stomach, glancing back at his house that holds my broken sister inside. “I understand.”
“Good.” I start to climb into the car, and he heads for the house. “Oh, and Daniel?”
My voice stops him cold, but he doesn’t turn around.
“If you don’t have a gun, I suggest you get one. You need to be able to protect her.”
He nods again, and that’s the last I see of him.
* * *
After stopping at a drug store, I bought some bandages and the strongest over-the-counter pain reliever I could find. I swallowed them dry and then wrapped my ribs as tight as I could handle.
But now, as I stop the car in the same spot in my parents’ driveway, I can’t help but wish I was still there. I wish I were anywhere but here, really.
Shutting off the ignition, I lean back in the seat and stare at the house. I can’t bring myself to get out. To go back in there. To even look at him. Disgust twists my gut. Anger boils under the surface of my skin, hardly cooled. Any temptation I had to let him off the hook for everything he’s done to me died the second I saw Gabriella’s face. Now, I just want him dead.
And I’m tempted to do it myself. So, I don’t move, because I’m not sure I’ll be able to stop myself. Reaching over, I lock the doors and push the seat back, content to fall asleep in the car. Right up until someone taps on the glass.
I start, reaching for the gun I left in plain sight on the passenger seat. My eyes snap to the glass, and when I see Enzo’s face staring at me through window, I relax.
After waiting for my nod, he opens the door and climbs in. “Everything all right?”
“Gabriella’s settled,” I tell him, because nothing about this situation is all right. “What happened while I was gone?”
“Nothing. Your father left not long after you did. Your mother’s been alone, and crying in her room, ever since.”
“You know where he went?”
“No, he didn’t tell me. How’s the rib?”
“It hurts.” I touch it instinctively, because I’m a real genius, and wince when it responds with a spark of pain.
“I’m sorry. About that,” he says, haltingly.
“So you said. Stop apologizing for it. You did what you had to do. Just like I had to try to beat the shit out of him for what he did to her.”
“I know.” He exhales slowly. “I wanted to help you. Her face…” He shakes his head.
We sit there in silence, both lost in our thoughts, until he asks, “What the hell is going on?”
My gut twists with unease for a hundred different reasons, and out of the corner of my eye, I watch him. He alternates between tapping a nervous hand on his leg and drumming his fingers on the console between us. Anxiety crawls over my skin, prickling the hair on the back of my neck.
“I’m just trying to understand, boss. But you keep disappearing to run all these errands that no one seems to know anything about. You aren’t telling me, and your father doesn’t seem to know about them. Saul’s off the radar, and you don’t seem the least little bit worried about it. What if he went to the feds? What if he’s in protective custody?”
“He didn’t.”
“See, I don’t believe that! There’s something you’re not telling me. Does it have anything to do with that girl? Are you planning something?”
I steel myself against the worry that flares up with his words. He’s starting to connect the dots, dots that I desperately need to stay unconnected, for everyone’s sake. “Enzo…”
“Nic, I don’t really care. I don’t. I just can’t shake this sense that we’re all rearranging chairs on the Titanic. So what the hell is going on? Have you guys found the leak? Have you dealt with him? Do you not trust me, is that why I don’t know what’s going on?”
“We haven’t found the whistleblower, yet.”
“Or it’s Saul?”
“It’s not Saul.”
“Then where is he? What happened to him?”
I shouldn’t say anything. I should throw him yet another lie. But I can’t. After today, I’m beyond sick of this charade. This role I’m forcing
myself to play.
“Let’s just say he’s not going to be a problem anymore.”
His chin jerks in surprise. “What does that mean?”
I glance at him, noticing, after the events of today, just how young he looks. He’s only 7 years younger than I am, but it might as well be decades. He’s young, and still has so much of life to experience. When I look at him, I can’t help but see myself. The man I was before I met Reagan and I wonder, if someone gave him the chance to get out of all this, would he go? Could he?
If someone had offered me an out, a chance to run away and never resurface, I would have grabbed on to it like it was the last lifeboat on a sinking ship. But I never got the chance. Maybe it doesn’t have to be like that for him.
“Do you keep some cash easily accessible?”
His brow furrows as he looks over at me. “What? Why?”
“Things aren’t going to get easier here, Enzo. It’s going to get worse. So, if you were to take as much as cash as you can get your hands on, and simply stop answering your phone, I wouldn’t come looking for you.”
“Why won’t you tell me what’s going on? Where’s Saul? Is he dead?”
“Enzo,” I turn to him, “listen to me. I’m giving you a choice here. Forget Saul, forget my father, just get some money, get your passport, and get out of this town.”
“I can’t do that,” he argues. “Your father would find me, or he’d send someone after me.”
“No, he won’t. I won’t let him.”
He stares at me, trying to figure it all out. I feel bad for him, I really do, because he won’t be able to understand everything. There are a few pieces to this puzzle that he knows nothing about. He’s merely a pawn, someone to be used, and if needed, thrown away.
“It’s never going to go back to how it was,” I tell him. “Not after today. I can’t let that happen.”
He nods silently. “I get it.”
“Good. Now, get out of my car. I don’t want to see you again.”
He pushes the door open and gets out, standing by the car for a second before leaning back inside. “Saul’s dead, huh?”
I meet his knowing stare. “Yeah, Saul’s dead.”
“Thought so.” He inhales slowly. “Goodbye, Selvaggio. It’s been a pleasure.”
With a mock salute, he shuts the door, and in the rearview mirror, I watch him head to his car and then drive away. After the gate to my parents’ property closes behind him, I drag the phone from my pocket, wincing at the jostling of my ribs.
I open her contact information and hit call, listening to it ring for a second before she answers.
“Nic?”
I exhale, forcing back the emotions rising up, straining my chest. I needed this. I need her. “Hey.”
“Is everything okay? Are you all right?”
No. That’s the simple answer, but I can’t tell her that, she’d worry.
“I miss you.”
“You saw me this morning.”
“I know, but it’s been one of those days where it seems like everything that could go wrong, has. And I just wanted to hear your voice one more time.”
“Oh,” she says softly.
I fall silent, listening to her breathe. Wishing I was back in D.C., back in my apartment, staring across the bed at her.
“I love you, Reagan. I hope you know that. No matter what I’ve done, what I’ve failed to do, I have always, honestly, loved you. With everything I have. Believe that, if nothing else.”
“Nic…” Her voice cracks, and it fractures all my defenses.
My throat squeezes tight. My hand covers my eyes, trying to hide the tears that have escaped. I can’t take much more of this. After today, seeing Gabriella like that, knowing I put Reagan through the same thing—I can’t do this anymore. I don’t want to be this person anymore.
I roughly brush the tears away, and clench my fist, daring the rest of them to fall.
“I’m so sorry.” My voice sounds watery, even to my own ears.
“What’s going on?” she pleads. “Please tell me something, anything.”
I take a deep breath, and let it out. “No matter what happens, know I love you.”
Movement in the rearview mirror catches my attention. The front gate swings open, and my father pulls up the driveway.
“I have to go.”
“Nic!” she shouts, as I hang up on her and then shut the phone off. I reach for the burner, rapidly tapping out a text to Garrett as my father’s car rolls to a stop beside mine.
Move up the timeline. This needs to happen now.
CHAPTER 16
Reagan
“NIC!”
The incessant beeping of the dial tone is my only answer.
“Were you just talking to the Italian?” Becca peeks into my room a second later.
I nod, staring down at the phone as tears threaten to spill.
“What’s going on?” She hurries to my side.
“I wish I knew,” I cry, wiping my eyes. “I think he’s disappearing again.”
“What? Why?”
“I found a text in his phone last night—”
“You spent the night?” she interrupts. “With Nic?”
“Yes.” I rake my hand through my hair, pushing my bangs back. “And I found this second phone in his coat, and there was a text on it that said, three days, say your goodbyes.”
“Oh.”
“He’s leaving, I know it.”
“It could be something else,” she offers, but it’s so hollow that even she winces.
“Maybe, but why else would he call to hear my voice one more time? Why would he tell me he’s sorry? That he wants me to know, no matter what happens, that he loved me…why would he do it if he wasn’t disappearing again?” My voice is laced with panic as I gesture at Becca with my phone, like she’s somehow to blame for all of this.
“Okay, hold on. Call him back. Ask him.”
I press my lips in a firm line, nodding again as I dial his number.
He doesn’t answer. There’s no voicemail set up either. And it’s so devastatingly familiar. My hand covers my mouth, and I sink down onto the edge of my bed. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I thought I could pretend with all this, but something in his words broke through.
It was so genuine, so heartfelt, that I didn’t have any choice but to feel it. Really feel it. My anger. My guilt. My love for him.
Becca sits down beside me, draping an arm around my shoulders. “Reagan, what’s going on? The last time we talked, you guys had broken up. You’ve been a mess for days, and now, you’re suddenly spending the night with him. I’m seriously starting to worry. These ups and downs, the constant upheaval, it’s not normal.”
She’s right. Nothing about us has ever been normal. We didn’t even have a chance for normal. Simmons and Nic’s family were always in the mix.
“I’m really worried about you, Reagan. You’re struggling, and I don’t know how to help you. Please tell me what’s going on. Are you okay?”
I hide my face in my hands, unsure of the answer. I’m barely holding back my tears. It feels like something is sitting on my chest, this burden, this heartache.
“You can tell me anything, I swear. Talk to me.”
I draw a faltering breath, forcing back the words attempting to escape my mouth. Fighting the overwhelming need to break down and spill all of my ugly secrets. To tell Becca everything. About Simmons. About Nic. About how, despite how I’ve betrayed him and how he’s hurt me, I’m still in love with him.
Stupid, perhaps. But I don’t know how to stop it. I have no clue how to stop caring for him. And, even worse, if someone were to tell me how to fix this, how to stop loving a person that is so completely wrong for you, I’m not sure I would listen. Because some part of me, deep down inside, wants this. Wants him. I want him. I want us.
“Please, say something,” Becca begs.
I drop my hands, looking over at her. My mouth parts, ready to tell her eve
rything. Every twisted, messed-up thing. A small wave of relief breaks over me. This is it.
“I’ll tell you…” I swallow past the lump in my throat, and my eyes fall to the floor. “Please just listen, I don’t want to hear how stupid I was, how wrong I was. Because believe me, I know. I know. But I can’t keep this secret anymore.”
Becca reaches out to hold my hand, squeezing it tight. I hurriedly wipe away a few tears. I open my mouth, and then my phone rings.
Nic.
I almost drop it in a hurry to answer. “Nic? Nic, are you there?”
There’s a pause, and then Simmons’s voice dashes my hopes. “No, it’s not Nic.”
I blow a deep breath out, trying to calm down. “Simmons, what can I do for you?”
“We need to talk, about him. Meet me at DCA, international arrivals. There’s something you need to see.”
“Right now?”
“In an hour.” He hangs up without offering any more of an explanation.
“Who was that?” Becca asks.
“Work. I have to go.”
I head to my closet, needing a change of clothes. I want something more substantial than leggings and a sweatshirt for a meeting with Simmons. Something more protective, something that will help thicken my skin.
“Seriously?” Becca asks, voice trembling with outrage. “Are you kidding me? It’s after midnight? And you’re in no shape to be working on anything.”
“I’m sorry, but I have to go.” I grab some jeans and throw them on before reaching for a thick black sweater and leather boots. After yanking those on, I leave my closet, only to be blocked by my irate roommate.
“What is going on, Reagan?” she demands, hands on her hips. “Because I don’t believe that you’re going to work. This has something to do with Nic, admit it.”
“Fine, yes, it has something to do with Nic, but I can’t explain it right now. I don’t have time.” I slip past her.
“Why?” She trails after me as I move toward the entryway. “Why can’t you tell me?”
“Because I have to go. That’s why.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I know, and I promise, I’ll explain as soon as I can.” I open the door and step out into the dim hallway. “I swear, Becca.”
I hurry to the elevator and out of the building before flagging down the first cab I can find and jumping into the backseat.