Chapter 13

Aurelio~

I'd been leaving The Den when Nero had texted for me to stop by the house, and it was a good thing that I didn't need sleep. The more shit that Nero tried to wrap up before Kasen had the baby, the more that shit landed on his plate. Though Manny was done with his little trip down trailer park lane, that half-ass gang that Oisin O'roark warned us about was turning out to be stupider than we'd given them credit for. The stupid fucks were trying to hit all three territories, and they could only hope that a Sartori or O'Brien got a hold of them before a Kotov did. While we could extract information with the best of them, we tortured for business reasons, same as the Irish. However, the Russians tortured because they got off on it, and no one was confused about that simple fact.

So, while Nero wasn't overly concerned at the moment, he wanted to make sure that these fuckers didn't gain any momentum. Like he'd said, everyone was getting along right now, so no one needed anyone making any waves.

Walking into Nero's house, I made my way to his office, the house guards already knowing that I had free run of the place. However, if anyone that wasn't me, Elio, or Marco tried to come through Nero's front doors without an appointment was usually met with a bullet to their foreheads. Again, Nero didn't fuck around when it came to the safety of his wife.

Since his office door was closed, I knocked once before letting myself in. No matter what, I'd always show Nero the utmost respect when people were around. Privately, I had no qualms about calling him an asshole to his face.

Surprisingly, Morocco was with him, and I wondered if this had something to do with my requests or Nero's requests on some of the names that we'd manage to get from Oisin.

"What's up, gentlemen?" I greeted as I walked into the room.

"Shut the door," Nero instructed, and that had the hairs on the back of my neck standing at attention.

Doing as he'd asked, I shut the door before walking further into the room. I noticed how Morocco didn't want to look at me, and that immediately told me that something was wrong. Morocco Carrisi was a gifted hacker, and he was so intelligent that he misread social cues often, staring people in the face like he had nothing to hide, which I supposed that he probably didn't, apart from his criminal activity.

"What's going on?" I finally asked.

"I did the background checks on Savina Valentine and all the Olivers like you asked me to," Morocco answered. "And while I was gathering everything that I could on them, I found that Ashton Oliver had a security system on his brownstone."

"Considering who is father is, it'd be a natural assumption that he'd have some level of security," I replied, not liking how Nero was eyeing me.

Morocco glanced at Nero really quickly before Nero gave him a short head nod, instructing him to continue. "Well, I was…I figured it might be worth the risk to look around a bit," Morocco went on. "Granted, once I was in, it was easy to see that their security system was shit, but then so is most of America's security levels." He shook his head disappointedly. "If people only knew…"

"Morocco, focus," I said, pulling him back from the rabbit hole trying to steal his attention.

He glanced at Nero again, and with each hesitation, I grew increasingly wary. "Yeah…no…" Morocco shook his head again. "I…I decided to go back a month because…well, because a month sounded reasonable…"

I was losing my patience. "What did you find, Morocco?"

He looked back at Nero, and that's when Nero finally spoke. "He beats her, Aurelio."

Though my ears worked perfectly fine, he had to be wrong. No way in hell would Savina Valentine ever let a man beat her. She had too much fire in her to ever let a man get away with beating her. Granted, a lot could happen in three years, but not enough that Savina would let a man beat her without her shoving a knife into his chest.

"No way," I said, shaking my head. "There's no fucking way."

Nero gave Morocco another head nod, and that's when Morocco turned on the laptop that was sitting on Nero's desk. "I made a copy of the footage that shows them…uh, arguing."

Don't look.

Everything in me screamed not to look at whatever was on the screen, but like a bad car wreck, I couldn't look away, even if I'd tried.

As the monitor came to life, I watched four different scenes where Ashton Oliver had taken his anger out on Savina, beating her like he knew that he could do anything to her and get away with it. Knowing the horrors of physical abuse from my years on the streets, I could also see that Savina had already learned how to protect herself from the beatings, almost as if this had been going on for years, which it could very well be.

In a span of one month, Ashton had beaten her four times, so I could only imagine how many times he'd done this to her in the two years since they'd begun dating. It was also easy to see that this was normal for them. Ashton really was beating her with no fear of repercussions, and I wasn't sure what was more sickening; that he was beating her or that she was enduring the beatings in exchange for a powerful last name.

When the last clip finished playing, I said, "And that's our problem, why?"

Still eyeing me, Nero said, "Thank you, Morocco. You can leave now."

"Thank God," the kid muttered before grabbing his laptop, then fleeing. However, not before he removed the flash drive, leaving it on Nero's desk.

As soon as the door shut behind him, Nero asked, "You're really not bothered by what you just saw?"

"Would it make you feel better if I told you that I wanted to kill him with my bare hands?" I countered.

"It would if that's the truth," he replied.

"What do you want me to say, Nero?"

"He's beating her, Aurelio."

"I know that!" I roared, no longer able to contain the rage from her coming back into my life. "I know! But what the fuck do you want me to do about it?!"

As a man that abhorred violence against women, those images that I was no longer going to be able to unsee were fueling an anger inside me that only came from women being mistreated. However, seeing it happen to Savina took that abhorrence to an entirely different level. I wanted to kill Ashton Oliver with my bare hands, but for what?

"What do you want me to do about it, Nero?" I repeated, no longer yelling. "She's obviously okay with it, or else she still wouldn't be with the motherfucker. Hell, she's wearing a fucking engagement ring. If she wants to sell her self-respect for a dining chair in the White House, who the fuck am I to say that she can't."

"C'mon, Aurelio. You know that it's not always that black and white," he replied carefully, knowing me well enough to know that I was going to need a good fight or fuck after I left here. "There was no sound available, so we have no idea why she's enduring those beatings."

"There's only one reason that a woman puts up with shit like that, Nero," I bit out. "Usually, the sacrifice is for the financial security of a woman's children, but spoiler alert: Savina and Ashton don't have any kids for her to make that kind of sacrifice." I eyed him, hate and rage bubbling from everywhere. "So, it's gotta be his money. Money-grubbing bitches always put up with abuse, cheating, and neglect as long as the man's pockets are deep enough, and Ashton Oliver's are deep enough."

"Be that as it may, you saw the same clips that I did," he replied. "He's going to kill her one day, Aurelio. Can you live with that if he does?"

No.

"She's not worth going up against a congressman's son," I told him, not answering, but knowing that he could read between the lines anyway. "My loyalty is to those that are loyal to me in return, Nero. Savina left me years ago to chase a dream that meant more to her than I did. I was on my way to being able to give her the world, only to find out that the world that I'd wanted to give to her hadn't been good enough." I let out a deep breath, anger at everything threatening to choke me. "She made her choices, Nero. She doesn't get to use those choices to drag us into a mess that's really none of our business."

"I'd agree with everything that you just said if you didn't still love her, Aurelio," he said, his tone knowing. "That's the problem that I have here."

"Well, don't let it be," I told him. "No matter how I feel about Savina Valentine, I already let her kick me in the teeth once; I'm not about to let it happen again."

Nero gave me a terse nod before saying, "If you change your mind, let me know. While she might not be worth going up against Stewart Oliver's son, you are."

Yeah, I needed to get the fuck out of here.