by L A Cotton
I pulled over at a rest stop just on the outskirts of Rhode Island. Ahead of them by a couple of minutes, I climbed off my bike and scanned the area. There was a small brick building signposted ‘restroom’ and a couple of vending machines, but not much else in the way of places to hide. Slipping around the building, I pulled out my pistol and waited.
The SUV rolled to a stop. I couldn’t see it, but I heard the doors open, heard heavy boots hit the gravel. There were two of them. One would have been easier, but it didn’t matter.
No one was going to keep me from getting to Arianne.
Neither of them spoke, probably hoping to sneak up on me in the restroom while I went about my business. Once I heard them both enter the building, I tiptoed back around and silently slipped inside.
“He’s not here,” one of them said.
“He’s got to be. Check—”
The shot rang out, one of the guys hitting the floor like a sack of bricks.
“Motherfucker,” the other guy roared but I cocked my pistol right at him.
“Don’t. Move.”
He lifted up his hands, edging backward.
“Who sent you?”
His lips pressed into a thin line, but I wasn’t looking to play games. Lowering my aim, I pulled the trigger and he went down on his knee, blood trickling from the hole in his leg. “Who. Sent. You?”
“Fascini.”
“No shit,” I grumbled. “Mike Fascini?”
“N- no. The son. Crazy sonofabitch that one.”
My brow quirked up. “What were your orders?”
The blood drained from his face as he whimpered in pain. “Please man, don’t kill me. I got—”
I stormed forward, pressing the barrel right against his head. “What. Were. Your. Fucking. Orders?”
“Tail you and make sure you didn’t make it back to Verona.”
Scott really was a crazy motherfucker.
“Look, man, I- I was just doing—”
The second shot hit him right between the eyes.
It should have bothered me, killing a man in cold blood. It wasn’t something I ever relished, but this was different. This was about Arianne, about keeping her safe.
Doubling back to my bike, I didn’t spare a second glance as I kicked the starter and sped off in the direction of the cabin.
In the direction of the girl I would kill for.
THIRTY MINUTES LATER, I pulled up to the cabin. It was almost five thirty in the morning, the first signs of sunrise breaking on the horizon. I climbed off my bike hardly surprised when the door opened, and Enzo appeared. “You good?” he asked.
“I will be. Is she inside?” I shouldered past him.
“Hold up a minute. What happened?”
My eyes locked on his and I let out a heavy sigh. “You were right.”
“About the tail?”
“Yeah.”
“But you handled it?”
I knew what he was asking me. With a deep frown, I nodded.
“Hey, you did what you had to do.” He squeezed my shoulder.
“Where is she?”
“In the first room. I wanted her close by.”
“Thank you.”
“Go see her and then we’ll talk.”
I took off down the hall. I hadn’t been out here in a while, but everything about the place was still familiar. The door to Arianne’s room was ajar and I slipped inside quietly. She looked so peaceful asleep in the middle of the queen-size bed, wrapped in a fluffy white robe. I moved closer, my mind darting in a hundred different directions. He’d hurt her again, that much was obvious. But it was hard to imagine right now while she seemed so at peace.
Leaning down, I brushed her cheek. Arianne murmured nestling further into the covers. But she didn’t wake.
“I love you, Bambolina,” I whispered.
Her hand was curled around the sheets, the ring on full display. Carefully, I eased her finger straight and slipped it off, placing it on the nightstand beside the bed. It didn’t belong on her, but Arianne could choose what to do with it.
With one last lingering look, I left the room and went to find Enzo.
“Everything okay?” he asked as I joined him in the main room.
“She’s sleeping. I didn’t have the heart to wake her.”
“It was a fucking shitshow by all accounts.” His expression turned grim.
“What the fuck happened?” I dropped down into the chair opposite him.
“After you left, Luis called me, said he was worried about Scott’s demeanor.”
“Worried how?”
“Said he had a gut feeling.”
“So I stuck around. Stayed in the shadows, watching. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but I stayed. Was half-asleep in my car when he called again.” His expression morphed into one of disgust. “He said she—”
There was a knock at the door and my hand instantly went inside my jacket to my pistol.
“Relax,” Enzo shot up, “it’s Vitelli.” He went and opened it, letting Luis inside. “I was just getting to the good part,” he said to Arianne’s bodyguard as if the last few hours had bonded them somehow.
“I’m sorry,” Luis said, sitting on the end of the couch. “I shouldn’t have let him get the drop on me like that.”
“What happened?”
“Does he know?” he asked Enzo.
My best friend shook his head.
“Know what?”
“The wedding... Mike announced a new date. Thanksgiving weekend.”
“That’s a joke... you’re joking, right?” That was less than two months away.
“I wish I were.” A dark shadow passed over his face. “Fascini knows you went to Vermont.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah, fuck.” Enzo ran a hand down his face.
“But we have bigger problems right now.” The two of them shared another look.
“Will someone just tell me what the fuck happened?” I was growing inpatient.
“Arianne left the party after he made the announcement. I think it was too much for her. She didn’t want any visitors, so I posted myself outside. Everything was fine, then around two I heard something in the stairwell. I went to check it out and Scott jumped me, knocked me clean out. He managed to slip the guy we had on his room, and must have gotten an extra keycard for her room and slipped inside...” He cleared his throat clearly uncomfortable with whatever it was he needed to tell me.
“Arianne woke up and he held a gun to her head and tried to force her to...”
“He didn’t just hold a gun to her head,” Enzo snapped. “He made her suck the fucking thing while he got off. Your girl showed him though, drove a knife right through his thigh and knocked him out with a lamp.”
“He did that?” The air was sucked clean from my lungs. It was bad enough he’d already hurt her, but to hold a gun to her head and force her to—
I swallowed the rush of bile up my throat. “Did he...?”
“No. She says he didn’t touch her.”
“Where is he now?”
“I stayed behind and woke up both sets of parents to let them deal with that piece of shit. Roberto was concerned and wanted to see Arianne, but I told him over my dead body.”
“Nice,” Enzo snorted. “You sure no one followed you out here?”
“I’m good at my job. I know how to stay off the radar.” Luis almost looked offended at Enzo’s words.
“I want him dead.” I leaped up. “I want his head on a silver fucking platter.” The red mist swallowed me whole until I could see nothing but Fascini’s lifeless bloody body at my feet.
“You need to calm down.” Enzo hovered on the fringe of my consciousness.
“No, what I need is to see that fucker bleed.”
“Nicco?” Arianne’s voice rose above the blood roaring between my ears. I turned slowly to meet her weary gaze. Her eyes were red and swollen, her face streaked with mascara. “You’re here,” she said shakily.
&nb
sp; “I’m here.” I went to her, falling to my knees and burying my face in her robe. I didn’t care that we had an audience. In that moment, all I cared about was that she was here, and she was safe.
“Nicco.” Arianne slid her hand against my cheek, coaxing my face to hers. “I’m okay.”
But she wasn’t.
She couldn’t be.
“It’s early and I’m still tired, come to bed with me.” She tugged the collar of my jacket. I clambered to my feet, glancing over my shoulder.
“Go,” Enzo said. “We’ve got your back.”
I nodded, mutual understanding passing between us.
Arianne led me to our room, closing the door behind me. “I’m so fucking sorry.” My voice cracked.
“Ssh,” she whispered, pushing my jacket from my shoulders. Her hands went to the hem of my sweater next. I helped her work it off my body before unbuttoning my jeans and kicking them off. Arianne stood before me, drinking me in with her big, honey-brown eyes. “You’re really here.”
“I am.” And I didn’t plan on ever leaving her again.
Whatever Mike Fascini had up his sleeve we would face together.
She unbelted the fluffy robe and pushed it off her body. “Lie with me?”
I didn’t need asking twice. I scooped Arianne up in my arms and laid her down on the bed. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I am now.” She leaned up, pressing a tender kiss to the corner of my mouth. “But I’m tired. I’m so tired, Nicco.”
“It’s okay.” I climbed in beside her and rolled her onto her side away from me, tucking her into my chest. “I’m right here.” My lips touched her shoulder, lingering, as a violent shudder rolled through me.
“Promise you’ll be here when I wake up?”
“I promise.”
Her body sagged against me as if she needed to hear the words before she could allow herself to relax. But I couldn’t close my eyes, because if I did, I knew the nightmares would come. So I held her close and listened to the sound of her gentle breathing and tiny sighs.
Arianne never should have been there tonight. But she was right, she had been forced to play a part because of the men in her life who pulled the strings.
I wouldn’t let it happen again.
If Fascini wanted war, I’d meet him on the battlefield. I’d fight with all that I had, if it meant protecting her from the likes of Scott and his father.
I’d always known my life in the Family was tenuous. I respected the Omertà; respected the codes we lived by, but Arianne was my woman.
My life.
And to put the Family above her was a betrayal to my soul.
A betrayal to the future I hoped we’d one day have.
I MUST HAVE DROPPED off, because when I woke up the bed was empty, and I had a kink in my neck. Sitting up, I stretched out my muscles before pulling on my jeans and going in search of Arianne.
The last place I expected to find her was at the cooktop making breakfast for Luis and Enzo.
“You look like shit,” my cousin said around a smirk.
I flipped him off, going to Arianne. Wrapping an arm around her waist, I pulled her against my chest and tucked my chin into her shoulder. “I missed you.”
“You were sleeping. I didn’t want to wake you.”
“You should have.” She tilted her face up to mine and I stole a kiss.
“I needed to do something. Luis went out for supplies so I could make breakfast.”
“What time is it?”
“A little after ten.”
“Any word?” I asked Luis.
“Roberto has been blowing up my cell, but I haven’t responded yet. Figured we need to get our stories straight.”
“What about you?” My eyes went to Enzo.
“You think I’m going to be the one to break it to Uncle Toni that we stole the Capizola heir again? Yeah, not happening.”
“I’ll talk to him.” I ran a hand down my face, reluctantly pulling myself from Arianne.
“Are you hungry?” She seemed so content standing there, as if it was just a normal Sunday morning.
It wasn’t.
Luis was right.
We needed to get our stories straight and figure out what came next. There was no way Arianne was going back to that piece of shit, but if she didn’t... Well, it had the potential to pull the trigger on everything, and we were still in the dark about Fascini’s endgame.
Catching Luis’ gaze, I beckoned for him to follow me outside. “Stay with her,” I ordered Enzo and he gave me a two-fingered salute.
“Tell me everything.”
Luis closed the door behind him and joined me on the porch.
“Fascini is pulling all the strings. Roberto swears he didn’t know about them bringing the wedding date forward.”
“What do you think Mike has on him?”
“I don’t know, but whatever it is, it’s big. I’ve known Roberto a long time, Nicco. I have only known him as scared as this one other time and that was the failed hit on Arianne.”
“You think Fascini has threatened to hurt Arianne again?”
“Not Arianne. She’s the key. Think about it, she’s the future of Capizola Holdings. They need her to get rightful and legal access to his empire.”
“So if not Arianne... her mom?”
“Aside from Tristan, she’s the second most important person in his life.”
“Fuck.” I raked a hand down my face. The bombshells just kept coming.
If Luis was right, and Arianne didn’t go back, she could potentially be sentencing her mother to death.
“It’s a mess, Nicco. But you know you can’t send her back there, not now. He shoved a fucking gun in her mouth and—”
“Don’t, just don’t,” I gritted out as my fist ground against the wooden railing. I wanted to fuck something up. Preferably that psychopath’s face. “He needs to be dealt with.”
“She won’t let you do that. She won’t want his blood on your hands.”
“Do you have an alternative?” Because we were running out of options.
Luis' cell started ringing and he pulled it out of his pocket.
“Roberto?” I asked.
“No.” He frowned. “But I need to take this.”
“I’ll be inside.”
He nodded, stepping off the porch and heading for the SUV.
I went back inside, smiling when I saw Enzo helping Arianne find plates. Leaning against the door jamb I watched them. Enzo still looked like a cold-hearted bastard, but the fact he was here told me all I needed to know.
He was warming to her.
“Are you going to stand there all day?” His brow rose as he glowered at me.
“Put me to work.”
“Actually, we’re almost done. Take a seat and breakfast will be served.” Arianne flashed me a warm smile, making my insides weak.
“Where’s Vitelli?”
“Taking a call.”
“Problem?” Enzo mouthed.
“I don’t think so.” I took a seat at the breakfast counter. My stomach grumbled at the smell of freshly cooked bacon and pancakes. “This looks great, Bambolina.”
Arianne smiled as she served us each a plateful of food. “This is nice,” she said, taking the stool beside me.
“When are you going to call Uncle Toni?” Enzo asked.
“We have time.”
I needed this.
She needed this.
We’d spent our entire relationship fighting fires, I think we’d earned one morning.
“Nora texted me.” Arianne cut into a pancake, pushing it around her plate.
I held my breath, expecting her to deliver another bombshell. “And?”
“She says hi.”
“You told her?” Enzo groaned.
“No, I didn’t tell her, but she’s not stupid. She knows there’s only one place I’d be if I’m not at the hotel or the apartment.”
“You can’t tell her,” I said thickly. “No
t yet.”
“I know. She knows I’m safe, that’s all that matters.”
“I’m proud of you.” Curving my hand around the back of her neck, I drew Arianne toward me, brushing my lips over hers.
“I keep thinking I should have killed him. If I’d have done it then this would be over...” She shuddered, dropping her silverware onto the plate.
“Hey, you did the right thing.” She didn’t deserve to have his blood on her hands.
“But I could have...”
“Nah,” Enzo said, surprising us both. “You don’t want to carry that kind of burden. You did what you needed to do to protect yourself, that’s what matters. You leave the rest to us.”
The protective edge in his voice soothed something inside me. I needed to know Arianne had people. If things went to shit and I got caught in the crossfire, I needed to know she was protected.
We ate in comfortable silence after that. Arianne seemed lighter by the time we were done. “I’ll clean up,” she said, but I batted her hand away from my plate.
“Me and Enzo can handle the dishes. You go get a shower.”
“You two are going to do the dishes?” She wagged a finger between us.
“Don’t look at me, Princess,” Enzo teased. “I’m not—”
“Grab the towel,” I barked at him. “You can dry.”
Arianne’s laughter lingered as she left us to it.
“You are so fucking whipped, I feel like I need to check for your balls.”
“You just haven’t met the right girl yet.”
“If it turns me into... this.” He pointed at me. “Then count me out.”
My lip curved. “Thanks for looking out for her.”
“She’s family.”
“She is.”
“Well then, it’s that simple. I might not always agree with you, Cous, but we protect our own.” His words hit me square in the chest.
The fact he felt that way meant everything to me.
“But do me a favor, yeah, and keep your PDA’s to a minimum.”
“You just had to go and ruin it, didn’t you?” I chuckled as we got to the dishes.
Before long, we had the kitchen looking brand new.