12. Chapter Twelve

My phone rings as George ruffles his feathers and dunks his head beneath the surface of the water in the inflatable kiddie pool in the far corner of my office.

“You’ve been a good duck today. Just stay in the pool for a few more minutes then we can go home, got it?” I ask as he surfaces.

He looks at me, then dunks beneath the water’s surface again. I’m taking that as a definite yes. So far, he’s been good; all through my morning sessions, he barely even quacked.

I roll my ergonomic chair a few feet from the pool to the desk and answer the phone.

“Hello?”

Silence.

Ugh. “You know, I wouldn’t mind if you threw in some heavy breathing to make this worth my while,” I say, then hang up.

It’s the fifth call I’ve gotten since arriving home from Harmony just over a week ago—three to my office number and two to my cell phone, all from untraceable numbers. I would have blamed it on Nico—some sort of scare tactic—if I didn’t know the man better.

Nico Vitelli is an enigma with a cold, almost inhumanly cruel shell. But somehow, I slipped beneath his walls to the warm, incredibly giving man—the one he doesn’t allow to breathe because, frankly, it could get him killed.

I wonder if I’ll ever see him again. Common sense and self-preservation dictate that I shouldn’t. But try telling that to my body that behaves like it’s withdrawing. I never even had sex with the man. Although, who am I kidding? That soul-destroying kiss alone was more intense than anything I’ve ever felt before. My tongue darts to the healing bump on the corner of my lower lip and I feel a familiar tug in my pelvis.

I sigh, willing the hot memories away, and then reach up for one of the blue folders on my desk. I should make detailed notes for Mrs. Tisdale’s session while they’re still fresh in my mind before heading home.

The office closes early on Tuesday, and Eva has already left, locking the door behind her. I power up my iPad, but before I can load up the secure app, my scrawled note from a few nights ago catches my eye. Notes from days’ worth of research on the Outfit, but mostly on the Vitelli family. ‘Cunning,’ ‘dangerous,’ and ‘ruthless’; these words come up often, but there are other words that have caught my attention, like ‘benefactor,’ ‘restoration,’ and ‘donations.’

Nico Vitelli doesn’t just have his fingers in every illicit pie in the city; he’s also neck-deep in fundraiser events and charity organizations too.

“He’s just like the goddamned freaking Reapers,” I complain to George.

The Reaper Druids MC are arguably the most prominent organization in Harmony, and despite their illicit business and arms dealing, they are a community favorite for their frequent benefit and toy rides. Their motorcycle garage is renowned for unbeatably low charges, and their open fight against drugs and human trafficking makes them very impervious to local police, who have found a way to turn a blind eye to their interstate arms dealing. After all, it’s a problem for the feds, not the local police.

I force myself to focus, finish my notes then start to pack up for the day.

I’m just about to coax George out of the pool when I hear a brief scraping. It’s the faint sound of grinding metal. My office door is open, so it must be coming from the locked door in the waiting area. Odd. I remember the prank call thirty minutes ago and dread settles in my spine.

What now? Have I become a target for every perp in Chicago, then?

I slide my hand down my thigh, searching for the reassuring hilt of my dagger, and feel…nothing. Oh, shit, I left it with Nico. A dangerous move that I like to think eventually paid off.

Is it weird that I knew Nico wouldn’t hurt me even before he realized it himself?

I grab a fountain pen and move toward the waiting room to investigate. When the outer door suddenly opens, I gasp.

Nico appears in the doorway. All hard, chiseled six-foot-plus inch of him. He stops when he sees me, his gaze heating up. Then he stalks toward me, kinda like he did when he was trying to kill me eleven days ago.

Speak of the fucking devil.

I take a few steps back and position myself between Nico and George—which is ridiculous. Somehow, I don’t think he’s here to take down my duck.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, because ‘how did you get in here?’ seems like a moot point with the sleek lockpick kit dangling from his hand.

His bright blue eyes rakes me from my feet up and stops at my mouth. I resist the urge to lick my lips. I know, without a doubt, he’s thinking about the kiss. Then he looks past me into the office

“You brought the duck to work?”

I shrug. “I feel like this isn’t the most relevant conversation we could be having, but okay, yes. I feel bad leaving him at home for too long so I bring him to work on Tuesdays.” And there’s the small issue of the havoc George manages to wreak when he’s alone and upset.

Nico shakes his head and drags a hand down his face. “Of course, you feel bad for the duck,” he mutters under his breath.

“Is that somehow a problem?” I ask, weighing the situation. He doesn’t look poised to attack. He looks… uncertain, which is not a way I’d imagined a man like Nico could look.

“You’re the problem,” he sighs as he reaches me. I can practically feel the heat radiating off him. He still hasn’t stopped staring at my lip. I suppose it’s the small bump drawing his attention like a beacon.

I raise my eyebrows. “If you’re here to dole out more threats, don’t bother.” The last one about Mags had cut deeper than I’d expected, but it hadn’t scared me. He doesn’t scare me anymore. But somehow, his threatening someone I love hurt me more than I could say.

“You like to psychoanalyze me, don’t you? Well, you have the next ten minutes. Sit down.” It comes out like a command, but there’s a hint of desperation in it, a plea.

I cross my arms over my chest like armor and force an eye roll. “I thought you couldn’t stand therapy. Besides, we’ve already established that this,” I motion between us, “doesn’t work—and that was even before you threatened the people I care about.”

He looks at me for a moment, his expression closed. Who the hell knows what he’s thinking right now?

“I’m sorry, Sophie,” he says suddenly—and it actually sounds sincere, not sarcastic.

Whoa. I hadn’t expected that. “You don’t strike me as a person who’s often sorry,” I muse.

“I’m not,” he says, meeting my gaze head-on. “I’m never sorry.”

“Until now?”

He nods. “Until now,” he says quietly.

Well, damn. I’m desperately trying to hold onto my detachment, but it’s kind of difficult when the big, tough mafia guy is apologizing like he means it.

“All right,” I say tentatively. “But just so you know, Mags grew up in a house full of military men. She learned how to shoot when she was five and how to tear out a man’s throat when she was eleven. And she was the one who taught me how to use the karambit knife.”

He looks at me for a moment, then nods. “Now that’s admirable. I really like that,” he says, then walks past me and sits down on the leather sofa.

A very large, stupid part of me wants to sit down beside him. All right, that part of me wants to climb right on top of him. The man can be an asshole, but he’s also an Adonis who has a whole lot more heart than maybe even he realizes.

But wise woman that I am, I take a seat in my ergonomic chair, a safe, professional distance away while George flaps his wings like he’s about to take flight, then shoves his beak into the eight inches of water again.

I’m too curious about his statement not to ask, “You say you like that about Mags. Is that because you generally prefer your women to be tough? Women you won’t have to protect?”

“My world can be dangerous, so yes, generally toughness is always an appealing trait,” he states. “But has nothing to do with the women I fuck.”

Asshole, I want to snap, because that statement brings to mind indiscriminate fucking with nameless women. Which irritates the hell out of me.

There are so many follow-up questions I want to ask him. Like where he stashed this asshole when he gave me a much-needed physical outlet for guilt and pain and whatever other confused emotions I was feeling back in Harmony.

When he bound the hand I slashed on a whim.

When he kissed the living daylights out of me and then let me go, to the disbelief of his men.

When he sent a car to take me home because he’d dropped me in the middle of nowhere.

But I shut my mouth, waiting for him to talk. It’s his session, after all.

“Maria called you,” Nico says into the silence.

Shit. Can the woman not keep a single secret? “She did,” I reply smoothly. “She wanted to make sure I was still breathing.”

He nods like this comes as no surprise.

“And you told her she needs to do exactly what I say,” he states, though his tone is slightly questioning, as though he can’t quite believe I’d said that.

The woman probably relayed the entire conversation back to Nico verbatim. “More or less.”

“Why did you do that, Sophie? Was it out of fear?”

I sit back in my chair, shoulders relaxed, and arch an eyebrow. “Do I seem afraid of you?”

He chuckles, but there’s little humor in the sound. “No, you don’t. So, why did you advise her to trust me?”

“Because as much as it doesn’t fit in my ‘perfect, new-life box of black and white,’” I snap, throwing his words back at him because I’m still sore about that comment, “I believe that a man like you has a better chance of protecting Maria and her daughter than WITSEC does.”

He looks at me, but he’s not wearing his happy face. “You think you know me, Sophie Kellan?”

Right. He doesn’t like it when I show that I can read him so easily. Too bad. Well, he should stop talking to me then. “I know you better than you think, Nico Vitelli.”

“I was going to kill you,” he grinds out, watching my response closely. “Did you know that?”

“Yes, on the plane,” I say with a feigned air of boredom. “At least, you thought you were going to.”

“You couldn’t have stopped me,” he says quietly.

I shrug. “Maybe not, but I didn’t have to, Nico. You were never going to pull that trigger.”

“Is that so?”

“Tell me I’m wrong,” I say, meeting his eyes.

His eyes take a faraway look and his jaw clenches tight. “No,” he admits. “I couldn’t go through with it.”

I nod, satisfied.

He shakes his head like he’s exasperated with me. “That is not a good thing.”

“Actually, I have to say that from my position, it kind of is—the whole I’m still breathing thing, you know?”

“I’ve done far worse things than put a potential threat in the ground. And I have always done what needed to be done. You fucked with that,” he says, his voice harsh.

Hmm, he isn’t just conflicted here; he’s pissed—at me, it seems.

I sit up straighter in my chair. “I didn’t fuck with anything, Nico. It wasn’t me who broke into your office. I didn’t invite myself along on your trip back home. You did those things, and if you don’t like what came of it? Well, that’s on you.”

And then it hits me why he’s here—what problem it is he wants me to solve.

“You want me to tell you how to turn it off,” I say, shaking my head slowly.

He doesn’t deny it.

“There’s no button to push or faucet to turn, Nico. You care, and you hate it. And fear it.”

“I don’t—”

“Yes, you do,” I snap, cutting him off. “You liked the clever setup Reaper Druids MC have and the way they dominate Harmony, similar to your ownership of Chicago. You admired Phoenix, Grease, and Razor. Mud Night was like one of your clubs, albeit with a rawer edge. You’re used to refined spirits, Nico, but Harmony is like that gritty, unfiltered ale that captures you with its full-bodied charm.”

“Fine, woman!” he concedes, “I care, and I want to shut it off. But it’s not because I fear it, but because it needs to be off, Sophie. In my world—”

“I know your world, Nico,” I interject again. “And you know what? I know my dad’s world too. It’s every bit as cunning and ruthless as yours, but he doesn’t see an enemy in everything that doesn’t belong into his world. You complain about my ‘perfect, black and white box’, but you sure seem to be trying to cram all your limbs into a tiny gray box of your own.”

He suddenly stands up and crosses the space between us, reminding me how much bigger he is, how he pretty much towers over me when I’m standing up, never mind when I’m sitting down.

“I should want to punish you for the way you speak to me.”

A shiver runs down my spine, but it’s not cold; it’s hot, just shy of scorching. It has me thinking about the ripped planes of his chest and his perfectly etched abs beneath his suit. I can practically feel the hard length of his cock beneath my hand and the tantalizing piercing I’d never quite gotten to see.

He leans over me, bracing one hand on the arm of my chair, his face inches from mine while his eyes take me in from head to toe and back up again.

“Instead, I find myself wanting you more with every brash, insolent word that comes out of your mouth.”

He reaches up and traces the bump on my lip with one finger, making it tingle. When he meets my gaze, it seems the blue of his eyes is darker, filled to the brim with fire and lust and promises of so much pleasure.

He runs his finger from my lips down my neck, sending ripples of sensation everywhere he touches, all of that coalescing between my legs where a throbbing starts. Wetness pools in my panties at the thought of what that piercing would feel like inside me.

But Nico only continues to stare at me.

“Why did you really come here today?” I ask, already somehow knowing he didn’t come here for sex. Nico is very straight to the point. He usually doesn’t hesitate to take what he wants, or give me what he thinks I need, which tells me there’s more on his mind.

He looks me over suggestively. I swear I can feel the path his eyes take down my body.

Please say sex, my sex-starved brain cries, even though I know he won’t.

“Take down your hair and I’ll tell you why I came here,” He straightens and returns to the couch, but this time, he lies back on it, his hands folded behind his head as he stares straight at the ceiling.

My heart pounds. He might as well have asked me to strip for all the effect it’s having on me. But seeing him stretched out on my too-small couch, ready to bare his mind to me is too much temptation. He glances at me, then arches a single eyebrow as if to say, “What are you waiting for?”

With a shaky hand, I reach up and unwind my hair, letting it fall in waves down my back. It’s way too long now but somehow in the last four years that I’ve been away from Harmony, I’ve not had the heart to cut it short.

Nico must have noticed that everyone back home seems to sport overly long hair, which is probably why he’s making me do this. My face suddenly feels too hot.

He likes to see that part of me.Which is precisely why Im feeling so… naked and exposed right now.

“Fuck, Sparrow. You’re breathtaking when you blush for me,” Nico’s gravelly voice pulls me deeper into a sensual haze, transforming the throbbing in my core into a raging inferno. I don’t even try to resist clenching my thighs together.

Still, I forge on. “So, Nico, what’s on your mind?”

“You. I can’t get you out of my head, fiammetta. And I have to do something tonight; I need my head clear.”

“What is it you have to do tonight?” I ask. It seems his conscience is weighing on him.

He looks at me, brow raised, silent.

I roll my eyes. “I know we are not talking about a late-night trip to get some ice-cream, Nico.”

He nods then faces the ceiling, “Okay. I plan to retaliate. For Leo.”

“All right.” I’m silent for a moment, mulling that over. Sometimes wanting to get revenge is easier than following through on it. But I imagine this isn’t the first time he’s inflicted violence. So, there’s something different about this time.

“For Leo’s death?” I question. “But he betrayed you.”

He nods. “Yes, but he was enticed by a rival family. One that is in open rebellion to the Outfit.”

“You mean Romano?”

He slowly huffs out a breath. “Who told you that?”

I shrug, “When you find yourself in a mafia don’s crosshairs for no reason, you obsess over who he is and why he wants you dead, so yeah, I’ve been busy this past week.”

He simply nods “Fair enough.”

“I have a feeling the retaliation isn’t the problem here, Nico,” I say, getting back on track.

“No?” He seems intrigued.

I drag my fingers through my hair and then push it behind my shoulder. “I think, so long as you’re caught up in seeking revenge, you don’t truly have to face what Leo did to you. Once you avenge Romano’s disrespect and the demons are slayed, you’ll have to face the pain of Leo’s betrayal.”

“Is that so?” Nico’s tone is a cross between curiosity and sarcasm, but I don’t let that faze me.

“Did Leo ever say why he did what he did? Did he ever get the chance to tell you?”

Nico nods. “He was ‘tired’ of the life. Haunted by the things he’d done for my father.”

“So, now you feel even more guilty because you finally understand what that’s like.”

Nico simply looks at me, waiting for me to elaborate.

“You didn’t kill me, Nico. Imagine if it was your Don who gave the order. Would you have disobeyed?”

“No,” he says, his tone harsh.

My heart lurches. The only reason I’m still breathing is because Nico is the one calling the shots.

For long moments, we say nothing. Then I ask, “Why didn’t you send one of your soldiers, Nico? It seems like an awfully mundane task to take on yourself.”

“Because I would never send my men on a path I’ve not tread on.”

A criminal with a code of honor. It’s a testament to how sick I am because that just made me melt for him. Done with talking, I throw my legal pad to the side.

“Nico...” My voice comes out in a needy whisper.

“Don’t say my name like that, Sophie.”

“Like what?”

“Like youre ready to break out of your box.”

I remain silent.

Nico shakes his head, and mutters to the ceiling, “She’s trying to leave that part of herself and searching for a ‘new life’ where everything is black and white,”

I respond, “And his world is the darkest and murkiest shade of gray.”

Nico sits up and then pins me with a look. “But everything about you screams that gray is your true comfort zone, Sophie Kellan.”

A denial is at the tip of my tongue, but George chooses that moment to make a break for it, flapping out of the pool and making a beeline for the open doorway.

I’m on my feet in a flash, but Nico’s already up, too, cutting him off and picking him up. I’m surprised to see the careful way he handles George.

“And where exactly were you planning to go?” I ask my duck sternly as I sit back and hold out my arms as Nico transfers George to me.

George quacks, then buries his head beneath my elbow, cuddling in close.

“Suck-up,” I mock-chastise him, then stroke his feathered back.

Nico stays close, watching me. I’m acutely aware of his eyes on me even as I focus on George’s vibrant green and brown feathers.

“You’re stunning, Sofia Lauren.”

Oh dear God. I melt again—even more so because I know exactly what he means: my roots, the parts of me that people have taught me to be ashamed of.

I feel the hum of sexual energy sparking in the air all around us. It makes my whole body hyper-aware of the brush of my skirt’s hem against my thigh, the silky feel of George’s feathers, the faint brush of warmth against my cheek as Nico breathes out.

I remember the feel of his hands on me, the possessive press of his mouth over mine, the faint sting from his teeth digging into my lips.

He’s remembering too—I can feel it in the pull like a magnetic force between us.

“Put him down,” he whispers.

I let George go, not even caring that a minute ago I was hot on his tail. He immediately returns to his pool of water as if contrite for his behavior.

Nico drops to his knees in front of me and then drags up my skirt. He reaches into his breast pocket for something. A moment later, I see it’s my dagger and thigh holster. He slowly buckles it around my right thigh, taking his sweet time while I shake with desire.

When he’s done, he takes my hand and stares at the pink healing scar for a long time. Then he pushes back on his feet, stands, and takes a step back.

“One week, Sophie. Think about what you want. Buonanotte,” he says, reaching down to graze his thumb against my bruised lower lip.

And then he spins on his heels and leaves.

Damn. Damn. Damn.