Chapter 26

CHAPTER 26

NICO

W hen my eyes open, it's to the sight of my wife standing in front of a mirror in our bedroom and getting dressed. It takes me a few seconds to fully wake up, and then I'm sitting up with a frown. I didn't even feel it when she slid out of bed. Usually, I'm up the second there's even the tiniest sound in the room, but since Aurora came back into my life, my insomnia has practically disappeared.

All I need to do is have her in my hands, and then I'm out for the night. It's kind of a double-edged sword, because I hate feeling vulnerable, especially since I have so much to protect.

"Hey, baby," I say in greeting. "Are you going somewhere?"

She turns around in the process of braiding her hair, and her eyes narrow.

"You're finally up," she notes.

"Yeah. And I asked if you were going somewhere."

"I have to go in to work, Nico. I told you, we're in the middle of a small crisis," she says, and there's a note of frustration in her voice. Some of it seems to be directed at me.

Which is to be expected. I sigh softly before getting out of bed and walking toward her. I pull her into my arms despite her small protests.

"You're upset."

"Of course, I'm upset," she mumbles against my chest. "You scared me yesterday."

"Things went wrong during the shipment delivery yesterday. I wasn't expecting an ambush. But I was perfectly safe, I promise."

"You're always making promises, Nico," she says, pulling away to look me in the eye. "But what if something had happened last night? What if you had gotten hurt?"

"Aurora, I'm fine."

She lets out a soft breath. "And you'd better stay that way."

"Yes, ma'am."

She smiles when I give her a mock salute.

"You're so annoying. And I'm still heading in for work," she states, her hands moving back to her hair so she can complete the side braid she was working on.

"How are you handling things there? Do you need me to do anything?"

She shakes her head. "No, I've got it covered. I just need to get to the site, and I'm already late. Can you come pick me up later?"

"Sure. We can go to that skating rink you wanted to try out," I suggest.

"That sounds nice, but I don't think I can. My ankles are a little swollen."

My eyebrows rise. "Why? What happened?"

She shrugs. I crouch down to look at her ankles, which are definitely swollen. It's not really noticeable, though.

"I don't know. I just woke up and found them like this. It doesn't hurt, though. And I think it's because I was on my feet for a long time yesterday," she explains.

I apply a little pressure to one of her ankles. She doesn't flinch, which means she's really not in pain. But I'm still a little worried.

"You sure you don't need to see a doctor?"

She grins. "Over a swollen ankle? Don't be dramatic, Nicky."

I roll my eyes before rising to my feet.

"If you start to feel sick, just call me and I'll come get you, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah. I got it."

She slips her feet into the Converse alongside the mirror and gets on her toes to place a kiss against my lips. My hands go around her waist to deepen the kiss. I'm considering taking her to the bed and making her even later to work. But she pulls away before I can, her eyes narrowed like she can read my thoughts.

"I'm leaving, Nico. Be safe," she says with a smile.

For a second, just one second, I want to say the words. They're right on the tip of my tongue. I want to tell her I love her, but I hold back. Just as I have been for the past couple of months. We're nearing the end of her four-month trial period. And while I have faith that we're finally in a good place, there are still some issues that remain unresolved.

"See you later, mi vida ," I tell her, watching as she walks out of the room.

Once she's gone, I start getting ready for my brunch meeting at eleven a.m. When the time comes, I'm standing on the roof of a four-story building in downtown Chicago waiting for a ghost to show up. A minute or two after I arrive, the double doors of the roof open and a man walks through them.

He's about six-foot-two with short, dirty blonde hair and a chiseled jawline. As I suspected, he's also pretty young. He's probably in his late twenties or early thirties. He walks toward me with calculated precision. The Shadow looks like any other normal man. For some reason, thanks to all the secrets shrouding his existence, I thought he wouldn't be. He offers me a short nod as he stands before me, placing one hand in the pocket of his pants.

"It's good to finally meet you, Don. Although I asked you to come alone."

His grey eyes land on the man behind me, who is waiting for any sign of trouble.

"Sure you did. But Vlad's pretty much my Shadow, as I'm sure you're aware. Also, you got in touch with me after months of being incognito. It's normal to be a little suspicious. I'm going to need you to prove you're actually The Shadow."

He nods like that's understandable, before bringing out his phone and showing me a video.

"That's me and Valerio at a meeting a couple months before he died. He asked me to look into Sebastian's daughter. he wanted me to find her. Apparently, Sebastian had kept her existence hidden from him. He didn't like that, so he needed to gather information about the girl."

And Valerio then passed that information to me before he died. He knew Sebastian would have issues with me becoming Don, so he gave me collateral.

"I couldn't find her though," The Shadow states, and he looks bothered by this, a frown resting on his features. "All I could get was a birth certificate and evidence that the girl and her mother moved away when she was little. After that, the trail went cold. Valerio told me he'd try to investigate further, but we never met up again after that. Do you know if he had any luck?"

I shake my head. "He only told me she existed."

And then I bluffed my way through the conversation with Sebastian when I threatened to expose his secret and reveal it to his daughter. He's a proud man, and the threat of people finding out that he abandoned his child and her mother would have always been enough to get him to do what I wanted. I only told him I knew her location to see if it would trigger him going in search of her. I had one of my men tail him for weeks, but he never made a move. Which means he has no idea where she is either.

"I'm going to find her," The Shadow says, a hard look in his eyes.

"Why?"

The true identity of Sebastian's daughter is frankly none of my business. It would be nice to know, but it's not a priority. I also think the better thing to do would be to leave her out of all this. If she's lived her entire life without a clue where she's from, then she's probably better off not knowing.

"Because it's what I do. And no one is impossible to find," he replies simply.

I believe him. Judging by the look in his grey eyes, he's not going to stop until he does find her. He strikes me as the kind of person who's not great at letting things go. In the meantime, I relax slightly in his presence. The man in front of me is definitely The Shadow. But that's not who he really is.

"Who are you? What's your real name?"

"Dominic," he states.

I arch an eyebrow. "Last name?"

"Sorry, no can do. I'm not at liberty to give that information."

That makes me frown. "All right then. Why did you ask for a meeting, Dominic? All I've gotten from you since I became Don are vague text messages. You're lucky you still have your seat at the table. I'm beginning to wonder if you even deserve it."

He rubs his jaw. "I apologize for my absence in the past two months. I had a personal issue to sort out. But I was still tuned in to everything that was going on at the organization. My job is to reroute any threats to our confidential information. And to inform you if there's any imminent danger."

"I'm guessing there's imminent danger to report now," I drawl.

"Yes," he nods. "Sebastian's planning something against you. I've managed to intercept several messages from an untraceable number which confirm that."

"What kind of messages?"

"Coded ones. Which is how I know he's planning something big."

I cross my arms over my chest, deep in thought.

"Any chance you can decode the messages?"

"I'm already on it. But it'll take me some time—a week, maybe two. I'm also trying to work out who's sending him the messages. I just wanted to warn you. Be careful. You and your wife both need to take care."

My eyebrows rise. "You know my wife?"

He smiles for the first time. It's a small one, but it does make him seem less cold. Aurora likes to call me a robot. It would interest her to meet someone with even fewer emotions than me. His smiles barely even feel genuine.

"I met her once, a very long time ago, when we were kids. I'm sure she doesn't remember me, though."

"You didn't live in the compound. I'm guessing you stayed in Marco's home for some time," I deduce. It would explain how Camila knows him.

"Well done, Don. But a word of advice—don't try to find out who I am. People who know my true identity tend to end up dead."

"Because you kill them?"

He doesn't reply, and my eyes narrow.

"Like I said, you don't need to know anything about me. I'm just here to make sure you don't get killed," he states. "Do you have anything you'd like me to look into?"

"Nothing at the moment. But if you're going to go MIA like that again, I'd like to know in advance. Are we clear?"

"All right. Pleasure doing business with you, Ramirez," he says, offering me a handshake which I accept. "Oh right, before I forget, try to let me know whenever you plan to legally register your marriage. I know a guy."

His grey eyes glitter with amusement for a second before they go back to being emotionless. I roll my eyes. Of course, he knows about our fake marriage. I'm not too worried. I think he just mentioned it so I can be aware that he knows. It's a show of power to make it clear we're on the same team.

"You and I will be meeting again soon, Dominic," I say.

"Of course. One last thing. Valerio always used to talk about balance and how the smallest thing can topple a house of cards, especially from within."

"He liked to make analogies," I say warmly, a little shocked at how he's casually bringing up the late Don.

It makes me wonder even more about their relationship. And how he came to earn his power.

"Yes, and this particular one was in reference to the table and the power each man sitting there holds."

"You're saying I need to be careful when dealing with Sebastian."

"I just think you're underestimating him," he says. "He might not act like it, but he's got resources. Valerio was always worried he'd lose his way. He held him back when he was alive. Plus, Sebastian genuinely cared about his best friend. But now that Valerio's dead, there's nothing holding him back."

"Good. I want him to come at me. Maybe I can finally get rid of the son of a bitch."

Dominic's grey eyes study me for a couple of seconds.

"He would have been proud of you."

"Who?"

"Valerio," he answers simply. "Later, Ramirez."

He walks away then, leaving me standing there to ponder his words.

"What do you think, Vlad?" I ask, turning to look at my senior guard.

He shrugs. "I couldn't get much of a read on him, boss."

"Yeah, me neither," I mutter, placing my hand on the railing and staring off into the horizon.

"Do you want me to put a tail on him? Figure out where he lives or maybe who he is?"

I smirk. "I get the feeling a man that's kept his identity hidden for so long won't be found out so easily. Plus, you heard him—people get killed when they try to find out who he really is."

"So we back off? He seems dangerous."

"This is the Cosa Nostra, Vlad. We're all dangerous. Dominic's an asset. One that happens to work for me," I state. "Instead of wasting time on him, I want you watching Sebastian."

"What do you think he's planning this time?"

"Something that's going to get him killed."

Aurora's in a good mood when I pick her up later that day. She spends the entire car ride singing along to old pop songs playing on the radio. It would be nice if she wasn't incredibly tone-deaf. She nudges my shoulder in the middle of belting out the bridge of Michael Jackson's Smooth Criminal .

"Come on, Nicky, sing along! You like MJ."

I grin. "Sure I do, but I'm one of those normal people who can recognize their strengths. I don't need to sing along when I can listen much better."

"Boo," she jeers. "You're no fun, Nicky."

"I'm lots of fun," I say with confidence.

She rolls her eyes before facing forward and continuing to sing.

I wait until the song is over before ruining her good mood. I hate to do it, but I've got a couple of things I need to say.

"Baby, I need to tell you something," I start.

She faces me again, eyebrows raised. "Does it have something to do with the flowers in the back?"

Before I picked her up, I stopped at the florist to buy three bouquets of white roses. They were my mom's favorite flowers.

"We'll get to that," I say slowly. "First, I wanted to talk about our trip to New York this weekend."

She grins. "It'll be nice to see Lucia again. I miss her like hell, and she's excited too."

"I can't come with you, Aurora."

She falls silent for a couple of seconds.

"Why not?"

I sigh, my hands tightening around the wheel. "I need to go to Russia this weekend. There's some urgent business I have to attend to. I'm sorry, sweetheart. You know I wouldn't go if it wasn't important."

Aurora inhales softly. "Okay," she nods. "It's fine. Lucia will be disappointed, but I guess the both of us can just have fun together."

"I'm sorry, mi vida ."

When I glance at her, she doesn't look overly upset, which I'm glad for. Because she's about to be.

"Who are the flowers for?" she questions.

"I was going to go to the cemetery, to see my parents. And Valerio," I add after a second's hesitation.

When Dominic mentioned him earlier, I realized I hadn't been doing a good job of preserving his memory. I haven't been to his grave once since he was buried. Mostly because I knew if he was watching right now, he would not approve of my relationship with his daughter. Or maybe he would if he could see how much she loved me. I can certainly feel it. The only problem is that I have no assurance of her feelings and she hasn't been able to say anything about them to me. Aurora tenses at the mention of her father.

"Okay," she says softly. "You can drop me off at home."

"You should come with me."

"No, thank you."

"Aurora, it's been months since he died. And you still haven't gotten closure."

She faces forward in the car, tension in her posture. "Nico, I don't want to talk about this right now."

"Baby, you can't keep avoiding things that hurt. It's not healthy."

"I really don't want to go, Nicolas."

The desperation in her voice tugs at my chest. So, I decide to listen. I drive us home and I even go inside with her because it doesn't feel right to visit our parents without her by my side. Her mother's there too. Coincidentally, she was buried at the same graveyard my parents were interred at. And when Valerio died, it was only right for him to be there with his wife. They're all in the same place. Some would call that fate. I call it an interwoven tragedy that managed to bring two people together who care about one another.

We both head up to our bedroom and she immediately starts taking off her jacket. I stop her, grabbing her hand and leading her to the bed. We both take a seat as I decide to reach her in the only way I know how.

"Nico, please let it go," she says when she notices the expression on my face.

"No. I want you to listen to me. You remember how my parents died?"

She's confused by the change in subject, but she does manage a nod. "You said it was a car accident."

"Yeah. They passed away when I was nine. A car crash. Funny, isn't it? How the most mundane things can manage to throw off the course of a person's life forever? When you asked all those years ago, I think a part of me was ashamed to tell you the truth. Because I blamed myself for what happened."

She sucks in a soft breath at that. But she doesn't speak, so I continue.

"They were bringing me home from school when I asked to be taken to the amusement park. It was completely stupid. We'd all had a long day, and I knew they were tired from work, yet I insisted on going to that damn park. And they took me there. I wish they hadn't. We played, we had fun, and on our way back home, as we were driving across an intersection, we were hit by a drunk driver. My parents died. I survived."

It still hurts. Twenty years later and the memory of that day still hurts. I used to see it every time I closed my eyes. It was like a demon plaguing me. I would hear my own voice in my head constantly blaming me for what happened. Then slowly, the voices started to grow quiet. And now I don't even hear them anymore. And it's all thanks to Aurora. She has no idea how much she's done for me. How much she saved me from. Now I've got to be the one to do the same for her.

She looks at me like she can feel every single thing I'm feeling. Who knows. Maybe she can. I could certainly feel all her pain ten years ago. I wished I could have taken it all away. I should have tried harder to do so.

"What happened to the drunk driver?" Aurora asks.

My jaw clenches at that. "He also survived. He was driving a truck that night, so our car took most of the impact."

Aurora's discerning brown eyes land on my face. She can tell there's more.

"Where is he now?"

"I killed him. The day your father put a gun in my hand was the day I put a bullet in his head."

It wasn't that simple or straightforward, though. Valerio helped. I told him about the circumstances surrounding my parents' death. And then, one day when I was sixteen, he informed me that the man who killed them was being released on parole. Seven years after the death of my parents. It wasn't fucking fair. He was meant to serve fifteen years in prison, and even that short time wasn't enough for me.

I remember being so angry. And then Valerio asked what I planned to do about it. He had some men bring in the man and he asked me if I wanted to kill him or if I'd rather he do it instead. I'd never killed anyone before until that day.

But it seemed fitting that the first person whose life I took was the one who took my parents from me.

Aurora reaches for my arm, her touch tentative and comforting.

"Hey, listen to me," she says softly, placing a hand on my jaw and drawing my eyes to hers. "You did the right thing. And I am so proud of how far you've come. I need you to understand that it wasn't your fault. You were a child, Nicolas. The only person responsible was the driver. And he got what was coming to him."

Her voice is resolute, an unwavering assurance within the words she's saying. She looks at me like she understands me, and I've never loved her more than in this moment. Now I just need her to let me look at her the same way.

"I know, mi vida . I know it wasn't my fault," I tell her softly.

"Good," she nods, before her expression clears, growing serious. "But I'm still not visiting Valerio's grave."

I've tried so hard to be patient in the past couple of months. I thought eventually she'd want to open up, but I think I've just been enabling her in her quest to forget all her pain. But pain doesn't just go away. Grief doesn't either, especially when you haven't worked through it. There's no on and off button for these things.

"Would you please just try to see things from my perspective?"

She glares at me before crossing her arms over her chest and getting to her feet.

"Who named you Valerio's advocate in death? Newsflash, Nicolas, he's already dead. He doesn't care anymore. He can't because he isn't here."

"But you're still here," I say softly.

She lets out a disbelieving laugh before running a hand through her hair. I watch as she begins to pace in front of me.

"You know sometimes you're just like him," she says in a low, cold voice. "My father, I mean. Relentless. Unwilling to bend and unwilling to understand that not everything has to be the way you want it!"

My eyes narrow. "I don't think that."

"Nico, wake up! Valerio raised you in his own image. He cared about one thing and one thing only. Everything else was secondary to him apart from the outfit and his position as Don."

My chest tightens at that because I refuse to believe she just fucking said that to me.

"Be very careful what you say next, Aurora," I state.

She doesn't even look at me as she continues her pacing.

"I mean, you're already showing the signs. Case in point, our trip to New York. You're choosing not to go in favor of doing something related to the outfit. That's how it starts."

"That's not fair," I grit out.

"I get it," she says her feet coming to a stop as she finally looks at me. "You wanted me. I'm guessing I was the one that got away, the woman you couldn't stop thinking about. You had to get me back, and you did. It's just like I said. Everything always has to be the way you want it. This entire fake relationship was just a means to demonstrate your control."

Aurora and I, as much as she likes to deny it, are cut from the same cloth. When we're cornered, we bite back, and we make sure to inflict pain when we do so.

"You're so quick to judge and hate Valerio, princess, but that man loved you and your sister until the day he died."

She shakes her head. "You don't know that. He never showed it. He became a ghost to us after our mother died. I know grief changes people, but I don't think he really changed. I think he just stopped trying. He stopped loving us. You have no idea how it was, Nico. You didn't see it. Lucia doesn't remember, but I do. I would have preferred it if that version of Valerio was the only one I knew. But it wasn't, and instead, I had to deal with the loss of my mother and father overnight. I don't know what you think you know, but he didn't love us!"

"He did," I say insistently.

"How the hell would you know that?" she exclaims, her eyes glassy with tears.

"Because his last words were that he wanted me to take care of the both of you. He said your name, Aurora. He was trying to say your name when he died."

I promised to make sure nothing would ever happen to Lucia or Aurora. I plan to keep that promise until the day I die. I just wish I didn't have to tell her this, because it means I have to watch her heart break.

"His last words were for us to be taken care of?" she questions in a whisper.

I huff out a breath before getting to my feet and pulling her into my arms.

"You know, I'm pretty sure you get your stubbornness from your father. As the life was leaving him, I could tell he wanted to see you and Lucia. But he stuck to his beliefs and refused to ask for you. It's why I came to you in the first place, because I thought you both deserved some closure. I think he really wanted to see you, Aurora."