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“Clean this up,” he barked to the room at large, and the two men who’d brought Olly in and the woman who’d been previously servicing him scrambled into action as he slung an arm around Nicholas’s shoulder. “We have a wedding to prepare for!”
Chapter 14
Nicholas
Sloane was shaking by the time he got her back to his room.
The building had once been a hotel. Papa Dimitri had bought it and taken over as landlord, though many of the “tenants” were his men, and the rest were Russian immigrant families, often second generation, that he was happy to have under his influence.
He’d set up shop in the heart of the Russian-American community in Brooklyn and the popular Russian bakery on the first floor lent an air of respectability to the whole place. Of course the strip club a block down that Papa also ran was far less respectable, but there was a reason he chose to live above the bakery and not the club, after all.
Nicholas closed the door behind them and Sloane spun on him. “Ramona,” she said, her voice frantic as she grabbed the front of his shirt. “I need Ramona.”
“Okay,” he said, nodding. “Go get in the shower. I’ll get her.”
She nodded but her eyes were glazed. She looked out of it. Fuck but that had been a shit-show back with Papa. Nicholas had never spent much time around the head boss. He’d known Papa Dimitri’s tastes could be excessive, sure, but Jesus Christ. He fucking hated that they’d walked into that.
He wanted to stay and say something to make it better but had no clue what. What the hell could he say that would erase the image of— Jesus he wanted that messed up shit scraped out of his memory.
Instead, he backed up. “I’ll be right back.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, but then immediately dropped them when she made contact with her shirt that had the blood and other…bits on it. She shuddered and it was visible.
“Just get in the shower,” he reiterated, and pointed to the bathroom. It was a small room, basically a studio since yeah, it was a converted hotel room.
She nodded woodenly but at least she was walking in that direction when he slipped out. He waited for the door to lock itself behind him before he jogged down the hallway and took the stairs instead of waiting for the ancient elevator.
By the time he got back with the cat, he heard the shower going. His phone buzzed almost as soon as he got back in his quarters. He set the cat carrier down and pulled out his phone. His own hands were spattered with blood and viscera and he dropped the phone as soon as he saw the message from one of Papa Dimitri’s lackeys: You and blushing bride, downstairs in the bakery at 6pm for ceremony.
Shit, he should’ve known when Papa Dimitri said he wanted to preside over the ceremony, he meant right away. Nicholas checked the clock on his phone. It was 5:15. Just forty-five minutes till he had to get Sloane in the right head-space to walk down the aisle.
He knocked on the bathroom door, then stepped inside.
She shrieked and her head appeared out one side of the curtain. “What the hell are you doing in here?”
“I got Ramona. She’s fine. We need to talk.”
“Go away.”
He let out a frustrated sigh. “Look, we don’t have a lot of time. You need to shower quickly.”
Her mouth dropped open and she looked like she was ready to rip his head off. Good, that was better than the catatonic look she’d been sporting earlier.
“Our wedding is scheduled for forty-five minutes from now. Well,” he glanced back down at his phone. “Make that forty-three minutes and counting.”
“What the hell are you talking about? We just got here. And— And that man—” She swallowed and then slammed the curtain shut again. Steam wafted out the top of the shower, as if she’d just turned it several degrees hotter.
Nicholas heaved out another frustrated breath. “Look,” he said, speaking loudly to be heard over the spraying water. “I get that these aren’t the ideal circumstances, but we have to play this carefully. As you saw, Papa Dimitri can be… volatile. But if we—”
“Volatile?!” she said, her voice so high-pitched it almost hurt his ear-drums. She yanked the curtain back, and this time her hair was full of suds. Good, at least her shower was progressing. Her eyes were burning with fury, though, so maybe progress was too hopeful of a word. “That man is a psychopath,” she hissed.
Nicholas shrugged. “Maybe. But he’s a powerful psychopath. And he’s good to the people who are loyal to him. Which I am.”
Her mouth dropped open again, and suds ran down her face. She jerked back, slamming the curtain shut again.
