Elite (Eagle Elite #1)(57)

Grandpa turned on his heel and followed her out of the room. I guess I was supposed to go too because Nixon stepped ahead of me.

What just happened? Why was he acting so weird? It had to be Grandpa. Right? It had nothing to do with me. Dread filled my stomach. What if he was faking it? What if… what if it really was about protecting me, about promises made when we were little? My heart clenched, because a week after those childhood claims I had broken my promise to him, leaving him and his mother with a monster of a father.

I silently wondered how many beatings he suffered at the hand of the man that should have been protecting him instead of striking him.

Suddenly, I wasn’t hungry anymore.

We walked into a large medieval-looking dining room with a long wooden table. The bright flowers in the middle of the table gave the room a cheery look, which was nice considering there were paintings of gargoyles decorating the walls. Everything was in wood paneling and dark wallpaper that made me feel like at one point the dining room was a place they used to take people to kill them.

Cold pastas were set on either side of the table along with a few pieces of salmon and Bruschetta.

The same woman I’d seen before filled each of our glasses with water, and then our wine glasses with a red wine.

So being in a mafia suddenly meant I could drink now? Was that it? This was the second time I’d been offered wine in one day. Funny how, under the circumstances, it seemed so natural that I would need some sort of alcohol to get through the stress.

The silence was going to kill me.

My eyes pleaded with Nixon as I reached for his leg. I needed to know we would talk, that we were okay. I mean, wasn’t I the one who was lied to? Shouldn’t I be the one giving him the cold shoulder?

His nostrils flared the minute my hand made contact with his thigh. He cleared his throat, but didn’t move my hand away.

We ate lunch in silence. Well, if you could count Grandpa swearing in Sicilian while drinking wine silence. I swear I never realized how loud I chewed until that moment.

Finally, everyone was finished.

“Grandpa, may I be excused?” I asked politely.

He nodded his head. I reached for Nixon. “I need to talk with you.”

Nixon looked from me to Grandpa.

Grandpa cleared his throat. “Remember the terms, Nixon.”

“How could I forget?” He sneered and grabbed my hand. Without thinking, I led him up to my bedroom and quickly locked the door behind me.





Chapter Twenty-seven


“Good God, I forgot how pink this room was.” Nixon chuckled, taking one of the stuffed animals off the bed so he could lie across it.

“I must have really liked pink.” I laughed.

“You hated it.” Nixon put his arms behind his head and sighed. “In fact. I distinctly remember your mom putting you in a pink dress and you taking it off in front of the entire dinner party.”

“Please tell me you weren’t—”

“I was nine!” Nixon laughed. “Trust me, I was horrified. I thought girls had cooties. I closed my eyes and pointed though.”

“Rude. You should have saved me.” I lay down next to him, my breath hitched when I realized what I just said.

“I’m always saving you. Even when you didn’t know I was there, I was saving you.”

“Did you ever visit Wyoming?” I asked in a small voice, scooting closer to his body until my head rested on his chest.

He sighed. “Trace, you’re putting me in a hard spot. I can’t tell you everything, because it will just make you sad. I can’t be completely honest and it kills me. It makes me want to scream, but I have responsibilities — not just to you — to my family, to your grandpa…” He cursed. “Everything is pretty screwed up right now. I didn’t know you were going to find out this way. Believe me, if I did I would have…”

“What?”

He licked his lips. “I would have kissed you harder. I would have fought for you more. I don’t know. I would have stolen you away, taken your virtue, made myself so permanently etched on your person that every time you took a breath it was my scent that was permeating the air.”

Well, what was I supposed to do with that? Rip his shirt off? I’m not gonna lie, that’s exactly what was racing through my mind when he pressed a kiss to the top of my head.

“I never visited Wyoming. My father wouldn’t let me and at that time I wasn’t in charge of anything so I couldn’t bully my way into it.”

“When you came to be in charge, you were eighteen?” I asked.

“Yup. Father wasn’t doing well. He wasn’t able to make good decisions. He developed pneumonia and was never the same after that. Always out of breath and what not. So I took over some of the operations and then more and more until I was running everything while he stayed at home and drank whiskey.”

I winced.

“At any rate. That’s done with now.” His hand clenched on my arm and he seemed to realize how tense he was. His fingers relaxed. “I’m sorry, Trace.”

“For what?”

“Not telling you the truth. I knew the day we went shopping, and then when you took out all that money. Damn, I knew for sure then. I had Anthony do a background check on you. Apparently Tracey Rooks doesn’t exist. So I went through all the Tracey’s in our school and there you were, Tracey Alfero, eighteen years old, granddaughter of the second most powerful mafia boss in all of Chicago. The same mafia boss that still blames us for his son’s death.”