After taking a long, hot shower the next morning, I headed downstairs to the kitchen. I might have let my inner rebel out last night, but I still didn’t have the balls to walk around sticky and smelling like Nikolai’s cum.
Just the thought was enough to turn my cheeks permanently red this morning. All the tumbling emotions growing in my chest had finally reached a fever pitch, like a kettle on the stove, boiling too fast and needing to blow.
Last night I’d blown, all right. I couldn’t find anything in me that regretted it today. Nope, I was fresh out of guilt and shame, it seemed, which was a new feeling for me.
Carmella was up to her elbows in flour, and the sight was comforting. After my mother had died, she’d been the only maternal figure in my life.
“Ah, there you are. Come and help me. I don’t know where everyone is this morning, but Angelo here is a closed book, like always.”
My bodyguard sat at the kitchen table, reading the sports pages and catching up on the latest Italian soccer news. He creased it and frowned at her but continued eating. No one came between Angelo and his breakfast. Well, maybe Chiara, but that was not a line of thought I wanted to pursue.
“My father went to Atlantic City today, so probably most of his entourage went with him,” I muttered, pouring myself a cup of coffee as soothingly dark and bitter as my soul this morning.
The way the family worked was that De Sanctis men were busy on any given day. There were the ones who were assigned to the compound, such as Gino, and the ones assigned to people, like Angelo. The rest had duties in different places. My father had a few warehouses in Jersey at the shore where he conducted all sorts of unsavory business dealings. Then there was the protection—read intimidation racket—that needed men to do the rounds on a weekly basis. Add in hunting down late payers and moving products, and the De Sanctis men were busy little worker bees.
Not me, though. As my father had so plainly pointed out last night, I had one purpose, and the day was coming that I’d have to fulfill it.
“Well, let’s enjoy the quiet while we can,” Carmella said, and crossed herself superstitiously. “Excitement never spells anything good around here.”
“Amen,” Angelo muttered.
“You look different today,” the shrewd older woman commented, watching me from the stove as she kneaded dough.
“I slept well, took a shower…” I evaded.
She narrowed her eyes at me. Distraction was the best course of action when Carmella smelled a secret. My gaze landed on a bruise on Carmella’s cheek.
“What happened to your face?”
She shrugged off my question.
“Was it Silvio again?” Only Silvio thought he had the right to knock around the staff at Casa Nera. He was picturing himself as capo one day and thought that Angelo and Carmella should show the same deference that they did to Renato and me.
“You should tell my father, or at least Franco. He should know what his son is.”
“You think Franco is going to reprimand his spoiled son over an old woman like me, a maid? Don’t be silly.” She crossed herself. “Let’s just pray that Antonio stays in good health for a long time.”
I couldn’t stop the soft snort leaving me at her gesture. “You really think God cares about men like my father? He’s hardly going to Heaven.”
Carmella tossed her head. “He protects his family. That has its own type of honor. Would you condemn soldiers to Hell?”
“Antonio and men like him, Silvio, Frank… they aren’t soldiers. They only care about power and more money.”
Carmella turned and fixed me with a look. “And what about your brother? What about Renato?”
I opened my mouth to speak and found no words there. “It’s different. He doesn’t have a choice,” I said slowly, trying to gather a defense. The idea of lumping my brother in with my father was jarring. Another man brushed the edges of my mind. Nikolai isn’t like them either. “Not all made men are terrible. Some have their own code, and some never chose this life. It chose them.”
“And maybe Antonio feels the same way about himself. Don’t forget, Sofia, all people, no matter who they are, where they are, or how they live want to do just that. Live. People will make peace with a lot of things to survive.”
“Silvio isn’t beating a prisoner within an inch of his life just to survive. Have you seen the Russian downstairs lately? We aren’t meant to be messing him up too badly. That wasn’t part of the deal. If it was a fair fight, Silvio would cry and beg like a little bitch on his knees to survive,” I muttered darkly, and tossed a green bean into the bowl. I felt Carmella watching me. “What?”
“Be careful, tesoro, your partiality is showing,” Carmella said, barely above a whisper.
I stared at her, my cheeks flaming. I felt like I’d been caught with my hand in the cookie jar. The screech of Angelo pushing his chair out made me jump. He left the kitchen with the paper in hand, and silence fell between me and Carmella.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I told her.
“Sure you don’t. And Chiara isn’t sneaking around with a man nearly twice her age,” Carmella muttered, confirming what I’d already known. She could have been a brilliant detective.
Alarm worked through me. “About Chiara…”
Carmella pushed the brimming bowl away and tutted. “It’s not my business. I’m not involved. Only you are my business. You know your mother was my best friend, and when she passed”—she stopped a second to cross herself—“I promised I’d look after you. You don’t think I could have retired to Atlantic City by now and be playing the slots and wearing a velour tracksuit… living the dream?”
I reached out and grabbed her hand, still holding her little paring knife. My heart thumped uncomfortably. I couldn’t even imagine my childhood in Casa Nera without Carmella. She and my brother had been the only source of happiness and family I’d ever felt at home. Nikolai had been right, after all. If my father died tomorrow, it wasn’t mourning that would make me cry at his gravesite, but fear of the future. Fear of worse men than him taking over.
“It won’t be like this forever. When Ren comes home…”
“I know.” Carmella smiled at me. “I know everything will be different, but that day isn’t this one. You need to be careful, Sofia. There’s change in the air, and it’s dangerous.”
“Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.” I tried a smile, but it felt awkward.
In truth, I was as scared as she was, but not only for myself. I was scared for Carmella and what Silvio and Franco might do if my father died. I was scared for Angelo, the older man who had fallen for an off-limits woman. And most of all, I was scared for the tied-up maniac in the basement.
The memory of last night was foggy and painfully clear at the same time. Not only had I finally done it, lost my virginity, but I’d done it with Nikolai, my family’s sworn enemy. I didn’t regret it. No matter what would happen to me in a terrifyingly unknown future, rushing quickly at me, I would always have last night. A tiny piece of time carved out of my life just for me, an act of defiance and will so great, I wasn’t sure I was capable of it until it was happening.
Last night, for the first time, I stepped outside the control of my masters, and it had felt better than I could have ever dreamed. I was free, for once. Nikolai talked about the cage around his heart, the one that couldn’t be broken. I pictured it as his ribs, with bone-like bars, something he was born with. A necessary part of him.
My cage, as he’d known, was inside my mind. A bird with clipped wings wouldn’t get far in the wild. To break my wings free, I had to escape the prison of my mind. Niko had brought me closer to that than ever before.
“Sofia?” Carmella’s voice broke me from my reverie.
I blinked at her.
She narrowed her eyes and watched me steadily for a long moment before nodding. “Va bene, I’ve delivered my warnings. You’re a smart girl. Be careful.” She crossed herself again, this time pressing a kiss to the tiny gold cross around her neck.
“What happened to your neck?” Chiara asked as we walked around the gardens of Casa Nera.
Technically, we were supposed to be jogging but were walking and gossiping. Maybe because he hadn’t had his hands to mark me with, Nikolai had managed to suck a string of hickeys along my collarbone.
“Nothing. An allergic reaction,” I muttered, wrapping my arms around my middle. I should have worn a scarf.
She narrowed her eyes at me. She knew something was up, which made sense. Chiara was one of the few people who knew me. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you had hickeys.”
My eyes skittered from hers. “What’s up with you anyway? I thought everything was roses?”
She was looking dejected as hell, her usually sunny disposition visibly dimmed.
She swallowed, her slim neck bobbing with the motion. I saw the moment she let her worry show and the moment she got it under control. She tossed her head. Her dark caramel-blonde hair had always been an envy of mine. She had brown eyes and blonde hair and drew eyes wherever she went. That aspect of being so beautiful wasn’t enviable. When you lived around so many men, always being watched wasn’t fun.
“It was, I mean, it is… with my man.” Her pink lips curved at the thought of Angelo. “But my father has decided that I’m becoming a little too much to handle, being twenty-two and unmarried. He’s shopping around for a taker,” she muttered.
I stilled, fear for my friend filling me.
“And before you ask, no, Angelo’s not an option, and it’s not an age thing. The guys he’s considering are older.”
At thirty-five to Chiara’s twenty-two, it would be easy to imagine that the age gap was the reason Chiara’s father might object to the match, but clearly, that wasn’t the case. It was all about position. Angelo, although well-paid and respected in the De Sanctis family, was still just a bodyguard. He didn’t command other men or take a hefty cut of any deals. He wouldn’t net the biggest gains for Chiara’s family.
“How old?” I nearly whispered.
Chiara let out a bark of a laugh. “I don’t know if any age is off the table. One guy is sixty, so…” She blew out her breath and cracked her knuckles. It was an old sign of nervousness, and one her father had tried to train out of her. He’d always told her it looked too masculine.
“Renato would stop it.” Anger simmered in my belly.
“Yeah, well, Renato isn’t boss, is he? Your father won’t stop it, and you know it.”
Her words stuck in my throat. It was true. We were alone, she and I, and any other De Sanctis girl who was within throwing distance of marriable age. Somehow, despite living where we did and being as rich as we were, we had the same prospects as women who had lived hundreds of years before us.
“I can commiserate. Antonio has his eye on a new match: Vincenzo Moroni, out of New York.”
Chiara visibly blanched.
“What?”
“Nothing, I’ve just heard about that family. His daughter was a few years above us at school.”
“So, she’s older than us?”
“Yeah. Classy, right? That would make his new fiancée younger than his daughter.”
We walked on in downcast silence.
“Anyway, this is depressing as shit, and this outfit is too cute to cry in,” Chiara muttered, pulling herself together. She chewed her lip for a second and then turned excited eyes to me. “Speaking of arranged marriages… I want to see the Chernov.”
“What?”
Chiara spun on her heel, grinning at me in a way that always meant trouble.
“I want to see the family you nearly married into.”
“But it’s not Kirill Chernov… It’s his brother!” My protests fell on deaf ears.
Chiara turned and took off at a brisk pace toward the house. I followed, my heart racing at the thought of seeing Nikolai.
I’d never told Chiara anything about Niko and me, not even in high school when I’d first met him. I’d been too afraid she’d go to her father and confess it all, and Antonio would respond by reeling in the already short leash I’d lived on. She probably wouldn’t have said a word, but we hadn’t known each other as well then. Now, she was my only girlfriend, save for Carmella, who would probably disagree with that label.
“Chiara, stop. He’s not a zoo animal. We can’t just stare at him,” I hissed at her as she blazed into the house and headed down the stairs at the far end, which led to the basement. I wondered for a second how she even knew where they were.
“Just a peek, and then we’ll go. I want to see if he’s as hot and crazy as people say,” Chiara tossed over her shoulder. “Come on, Sofia. Live a little.”
She had no idea how much I’d lived last night, with the very man she was curious to see, but I held my tongue. I never knew where someone was listening in Casa Nera.
We reached the lowest floor.
“How do you even know about this place?” I wondered as I followed her along the hall. There was only one closed door, so it was pretty obvious where Nikolai was being held.
“I’ve been down here… when looking for privacy, if you know what I mean,” Chiara said and wiggled an eyebrow at me.
“You’re kidding,” I muttered. It was hard to imagine a less romantic place than a literal dungeon.
“Needs must, and besides, we have to take what we can get, while we can get it,” Chiara said with a heavy voice. “You know how hard it was to even break those walls down… never mind worry about how romantic places are.”
I swallowed the rest of my protests. She was right. When we’d graduated high school, Chiara had already fallen hard for my older, stoic bodyguard. She hadn’t known he’d felt the same and had pushed him every single day to get him to notice her. I still remembered the day his control snapped. Luckily, I was able to leave them to it on that occasion, but I knew better than anyone what it was to want someone off-limits. I knew all too well how fragile those secrets could be and how they could all tumble down in death and destruction.
We arrived at Niko’s door, and Chiara slid open the metal grate at the top that allowed the guards to look in without opening it. Antonio had them all fitted after a prisoner had escaped their bonds and waited to ambush the guards when they opened the doors.
It was dark and still inside.
“Is he sleeping?” Chiara whispered, narrowing her eyes as she gazed into the dimly lit room.
“No, he’s awake,” I muttered. I could feel him watching me, waiting to see what we’d do.
“I can’t see shit,” Chiara grumbled, and reached for the deadbolt and edging open the door.
“Chiara, leave him alone.”
“Why? I’m not going to hurt him or anything,” she muttered.
“Well, that’s good to know.” Niko’s mocking tone floated to us in the dark.
Giving in to my desire to see him, I headed to the wall and flipped on the small bare light bulb that hung in the middle of the room.
He was sitting against the wall with his arms pulled back. His gray eyes met mine immediately, and the warmth in them sent a jolt right through me.
“Hello, lastochka. Nice of you to visit,” he murmured.
His eyes ran over me, turning nearly silver as they caught the light. My body heated, and my skin felt tight. I smoothed my sweaty palms down my thighs and tried to get a grip. I was wearing tight yoga pants and a crop top for working out. The look in Niko’s eyes told me he approved of them a lot.
“Wow, so you’re him… the great and terrible Nikolai Chernov.” Chiara folded her arms over her chest, her flair for the dramatic delivering, as always.
“At your service. It’s Nikolai Viktorovich Chernov, if you want to get technical about it, and the great and powerful is my preferred nomenclature.” Niko grinned.
Chiara fanned her face and nodded decisively. “Okay, I get it. He’s worth the hype.”
Niko nodded to her.
I rolled my eyes, feeling on the spot and oddly possessive of Niko’s grin.
“You’re her, aren’t you? Angelo’s Chiara?” Nikolai’s words sent all the air out the room for a moment.
Chiara tensed, her hand curling into a fist. “How do you know that?” she nearly whispered, turning pale.
Niko smirked. “I know a lot of things.”
Chiara frowned and turned to look at me. “How does he know that?”
“It’s just a good guess. He does that. Observes things,” I told her quickly. Footsteps above reminded me how bad it would be to get caught here. “Look, we have to get upstairs before someone checks down here. Carmella is making lunch. I need to bring him some. You wanted to see him, and now you have.”
I took her arm and dragged her toward the door. I pulled it open just as Angelo’s enormous frame appeared. He was holding a lunch tray.
His eyes lit up at the sight of Chiara.
“Well, well, if it isn’t the sexiest bodyguard on the East Coast.”
“Just the East Coast?”
“Kevin Costner lives on the West Coast, so yeah, big guy.”
“Costner’s too damn old for you,” Angelo growled at his girlfriend.
“And you aren’t?” Chiara giggled.
I knew this dance, and I wasn’t about to sit around and witness the foreplay. I took the tray out of Angelo’s hands. “I’ll handle this. You two go get a room, preferably one I can’t hear you from.”
I went back into Nikolai’s room with the tray. He was grinning at Angelo and Chiara.
“Young love, it warms the cockles of my cold, dead heart. Just like you do, prom queen.”
I moved to his side, hyperaware of his gaze on the side of my face. After last night, I should probably feel more embarrassed, but I didn’t. There was an absence of shame inside me as I picked up the small pieces of sandwich that Carmella had prepared.
“I suppose I should explain about last night.” I reached out and fed him a piece of sandwich.
“If you want to.”
He was watching me steadily, his eyes never leaving me. That look felt like an arm around my shoulder.
“Apparently, I’m going to be engaged again soon. I think I might be already.” The words embarrassed me for some reason. I couldn’t meet Nikolai’s eyes. I felt weak and useless, like a pathetic little girl who played at being strong but in the end, just shut up and followed her father’s orders. I felt unworthy of Niko’s praising words. I knew nothing about courage or breaking cages, not compared to him.
“Is that right?” he mused softly.
“The head of the Moroni family in New York. You probably know him.”
Nikolai nodded. “I do. He’s old and cruel if you’re wondering. Dumb as well.”
I nodded, looking down. Tears threatened to fall, and I fought them back.
I fed Nikolai quickly, and he didn’t push me to talk.
“Viktor wanted me to get engaged once. I was twenty, and her name was Tatiana. She lived in Moscow, and her father was one of the biggest human traffickers in Eastern Europe. I forgot all about her until now,” he said, his tone musing.
I risked a glance at him. The thought of him getting engaged bothered me more than it should have. “You didn’t want to marry her? Was she beautiful?” I heard myself ask. What the hell?
“The answer to both those questions is the same,” he said, and his lip ticked up into a smirk. “No, because she wasn’t you.”
I froze with my hand in mid-air, holding the coffee cup. It shook with some repressed emotion threatening to burst out. Coffee spilt on my hand and Niko’s leg.
“Shit, that’s hot,” I said, and grabbed a napkin to dab at his leg. “What happened?”
“Let’s see,” he said, blowing out a breath. “I’d only been in Russia six months, and I’d met you a couple of months before that. When Viktor mentioned the match, I told him I wasn’t interested. He could have forced me, however, so I made sure he couldn’t.”
“What did you do?”
“I crept into Tatiana’s house at night and killed her father in cold blood. His second-in-command, too. The family had an heir I didn’t know about, a man about my age, off in a Siberian work camp, so I couldn’t get to him. They covered up the murder, but I still went to prison for four years there for some crap they made up. If you think the NYPD is corrupt, they have nothing on Moscow. Last I heard, their entire operation was failing under the new leadership of the son. I can’t say I was sad about that. I don’t know what happened to Tatiana. Honestly, I didn’t care enough to find out. I came back to New York as soon as I was released, just in time to find out about Kirill’s happy engagement news… to you.”
His story stole my breath. I pushed away from his probing gray look. I couldn’t stand it. Every inch of my skin that his gaze touched, throbbed.
I stood and put some distance between us, turning to the side as I folded and unfolded the cover of the tray. “So, you didn’t forget about me.”
I really thought he had. After prom night and the things that had passed between us in the dark, I had expected more from Nikolai. When he’d failed to return for me, I’d known then that his promises and possessive words had been a passing whim for him. I hadn’t been surprised when I thought he’d lost interest. Why wouldn’t he? Who would ever care that much about me?
Nikolai was silent, and I couldn’t look at him. I was suddenly scared to see the truth in his eyes. The truth that his interest in me had passed and was only rekindling now as a means to an end. I didn’t think I could manage if it was.
There was a soft clinking sound behind me as Nikolai shifted in his handcuffs. I hated to see him in them. I felt like my world had been turned upside down, and I couldn’t find which way was up.
“Look at me, Sofia.”
I tensed. I couldn’t. I knew I’d cry if I did.
“I should go,” I started. “I can’t stay down here. I’ll get you in trouble, worse than you already are.”
“You don’t have to marry that man,” Nikolai called sharply, freezing me on the threshold of the door. “I won’t allow it to happen.”
I waited to hear what he was going to say.
He waited for me to turn, and when I didn’t, he sighed.
“You’re not alone, lastochka, remember that.”
The words sank through me like stones, stopping up the painful, empty places inside me. I nodded, fumbling with the tray, and stepped out. I had to stick my head in a bucket of iced water and try to calm down. My mask of indifference was cracking at the seams, and I couldn’t let anyone see.
I wouldn’t survive long in Casa Nera without it.
