Nico (Ruin & Revenge #1)(90)
Frankie lifted an eyebrow. “Without the alliance then you’ve got one vote for sure, maybe two on your side. The drug operation is a big earner and the kick-backs are gonna be hard for the capos to give up.”
“If the vote doesn’t go our way, I may have to break with the family,” he said. “I’m not getting involved in the drug trade. There are too many players—triads, cartels, street gangs, Russians, Albanians—everyone wanting a piece of the pie. The feds will be all over us. And the risks of a long jail sentence will tear the family apart. You tell a guy he’s got a choice of twenty years in lock-up or ratting out his crew, guess which road he’s gonna take?”
He’d thought long and hard about his position after finding out the entire administration of the Las Vegas faction of the Cordano family had no honor. Nico had a solid crew. Loyal men—all but one. And a growing empire that now boasted fifty percent legitimate enterprise. Yes, he still thirsted for vengeance, but Mia had made him see how empty his life had become in the pursuit of that goal, and how tradition could be at once a comfort and burden. He could look ahead and not back, forge a new path. And if that meant breaking with the family to save them, then that’s what he would do.
“Where you go, I go,” Frankie said. “You need someone at your back even when you don’t know you need someone at your back.”
They shared a glance, and Nico felt a tightening in his chest. He still had to deal with Big Joe. And he couldn’t put it off much longer. Damn Frankie and his over-protective nature.
Frankie had gone off the record and given Big Joe a contract to whack Rev. It was meant to be a pre-emptive strike to protect Nico. Frankie had heard rumblings in the underground that Don Cordano had a contract out on Nico, and Rev was his first choice for the job.
But Big Joe had fucked it up, freezing when he should have pulled the trigger. Rev got away but not before calling Big Joe out as a cop. Big Joe had an easy explanation—the cover he’d given his ex, now Rev’s girlfriend, to get her off his back—but the whole situation didn’t sit right with Nico. He needed to call Big Joe in to get to the bottom of it, but part of him didn’t want to know if it was true.
He liked Big Joe. Trusted him. Considered him a friend. Before talking to him, he needed to have settled in his mind what he would do if Big Joe was a cop. Don Cordano clearly had no compunction ordering the traditional Cosa Nostra punishment for the Wolf, and over the years, Nico had handed out his fair of Sicilian neckties. But ten years of pursuing vengeance for his father had almost cost Nico his soul. What would it cost him to have to punish one of his closest friends, too?
After another ten painful minutes watching Luca rake in more chips to the adulation of the drunken crowd, Nico left the casino. He drove aimlessly up and down the streets of Vegas, heading anywhere but the cold, austere hotel penthouse he called home. When he finally wound up outside Mia’s apartment, he realized this was where he’d been going all along. Despite everything that had happened, he needed her. Despite the pain he felt, he wanted her. She moved his soul and filled his heart and gave meaning to a life he had lost to revenge.
For ten years, Nico had buried his needs beneath layers of self-control. But Mia had stripped those layers one by one, laying him bare. Open. Vulnerable. Able to love.
He needed her support and her strength. Her caring and compassion. He needed the connection that calmed the beast, and made him feel whole. He needed to forgive and forget so he could see a clear path when it came time to face betrayal again.
He loved her. And he needed her to know.
*
Mia woke to a hand over her mouth. She drew in a deep breath to scream, and Nico murmured in her ear.
“Shh, bella. It’s me.”
Heart pounding, she clawed his hand away, trying to make out his face in the semi-darkness. With her mind still hazy from sleep, she had a split second of terror, wondering if he had come to punish her for betraying him. But when he stretched out on the bed, gently pulled her into his arms, she knew it wasn’t pain he had come to give her.
“Kat is sleeping on the couch,” she whispered. “The walls are so thin she’ll be able to hear everything.”
“Ho bisogno di te—I need you,” he whispered.
He needed her. Nico Toscani—ruthless mobster, fearsome warrior, powerful capo—needed her. “I’m here for you, Mr. Mob Boss.”
Mia rested her head on his chest, listened to the steady thump of his heart beneath the soft cotton of his T-shirt, breathed in the familiar scent of his cologne, and soaked up the warmth of the man who had been her husband for three short days.
He stroked his hand through her hair, down her back to the edge of her nightshirt, and then up again. Outside, she could hear the occasional rumble of a truck driving past, the bang of a car door, and the faint sound of music from one of the apartments downstairs.
Up and down. Up and down. Always to the edge of her nightshirt where it curled over her ass, pausing for a moment, and back again, as if he were trying to make a decision.
“The day my father died, we went to Prezzo for lunch,” he said softly. “He ordered so much food, but he only ate the pasta alla norma and the caponata. He loved eggplant. I could never understand it. There is no vegetable I detest more. But we shared a sweet tooth and we finished a plate of cannoli between us.”
Wary of interrupting, Mia relaxed against him, not wanting to push him further than he was ready to go.