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NICU
One mistake and my life had turned into a clusterfuck. Jewel was furious with me when I left Cat’s house, escorted by Luca. Still buzzing from the fight, I only later realized how thick I’d laid it on during our argument. I hadn’t meant to sound so barbaric. I was listening to her, or at least, I thought I was. In my defense, I was trying to emphasize that her safety was paramount, and for that reason, there would be no negotiations. At least, that’s what I thought I was doing. Jewel was new to mafie life, and it hadn’t been the best time to hammer that point home.
As for lying—that had been a bad miscalculation. I wasn’t in the habit of lying. Nor was I afraid of her reaction, assuming it would be negative. The walls in these houses were paper thin, and I didn’t want to have an in-depth argument with the entire Popescu family listening to every word we said. So I’d tried to cut it off before we got into it.
It blew up in my face.
In the end, I was grateful for Cat’s interruption because I kept digging myself deeper with every word out of my mouth. Only now, with things left hanging between us unresolved, I was left agitated and restless.
When Luca deposited me at the threshold of Alex’s office, I had another surprise waiting for me. I was to be banished to California.
For the time being.
I felt ashamed, frustrated, and borderline desperate to be going so far from Jewel, but I had no choice. Alex was pissed. Even if it was the first time, I could say with absolute certainty that I’d do everything in my power to avoid a repeated performance. Luca had called Alex in advance to take control of the narrative and save me some grief, but Nelu had beaten him to it. Whatever the bastard had told my eldest brother, he was in the kind of mood I hadn’t seen since the time he and Nina broke up. And that was saying something.
Having my ?ef ream into me gave me a new level of respect for Luca. How many times had Luca gone toe-to-toe against Alex? Too many to count. It was more proof that my father must’ve really beat the shit out of him to engender such unyielding fearlessness.
Despite my arguments, there was no getting around my main offense of breaking into the home of a ?ef. It didn’t help that we’d recently cemented a peace treaty with a clan that we’d struggled against for decades, a dream my father had worked toward but wasn’t able to achieve in his lifetime.
I was currently on a late-night flight to L.A. to meet up with Tatum and Sebastian, who were in the middle of a budding fight with the Hagi clan. Since Jewel was still furious with me, the only silver lining of being shuffled onto a plane this late at night was that it gave her space to calm down and, if I was lucky, come to miss me a little. Luca escorted me to the airport, and I spent that time convincing him to help me and make sure Jewel remained safe. I didn’t know what Cristo would do. He wouldn’t hurt her, if only because she meant everything to Cat, but that still left a lot of leeway for inflicting damage.
Worry slithered in my gut.
Would she end up missing me? This was our first argument. People didn’t break up after one bump in the road, did they? I wouldn’t know since I’d never been in a real relationship. My only reference points were my parents’ marriage, which turned out to be a farce, Alex and Nina, and finally, Luca and Cat. A helluva lot more went down the time Alex and Nina broke up or the time Luca ended things with Cat. I mean, those were major relationship-defining moments, not a fleeting scuffle with a rival followed by a verbal disagreement. Couples didn’t split up over that, did they? Shame reared up as some of the things I’d said to Jewel came back to me. Heat pricked the back of my neck.
Fuck, I better be right because after the week we’d spent together, I couldn’t let her go. Not that I had the slightest clue how I would win her back.
The other thing that stuck in my craw was how Cristo got involved in laying out the terms of compensation for my blunder… As if reading my mind, my phone lit up, and I saw that my twin was calling me. She was up with her baby again, and likely sensing I was available, she was trying me.
With a row to myself in first class, I figured I had enough privacy to take the call. Staring out through the small oval window into the dark night sky, I put the phone to my ear. Tasa launched right into a tirade without so much as a hello.
“Holy shit, Nicu. You attacked Cristo in his father’s house? Are you out of your mind? No, don’t answer that. You weren’t thinking. I know you, and this has ‘outburst’ written all over it. It’s a throwback to when you were a boy, except now, you’re a full-grown adult and there are consequences when you pull this shit,” she ended, finally stopping long enough to gulp down air.
I rolled my eyes. Family. How could I forget this busybody aspect of being part of a tight-knit family? And especially of having a twin sister. Even far away, she knew me better than I knew myself sometimes. Tasa could home in on a problem with the precision of a surgical knife. Having a twin who was invested in my success could sometimes be a double-edged sword, like right now.
“Who told you?”
“Luca.”
“Judas,” I grumbled.
“Whatever, Nicu. This was of your own making, and I don’t want you backsliding after so many years. So what happens now?”
“What happens now is that I’m on a flight to L.A. to provide backup for Tatum and Sebastian. I’ve been banished for a week, possibly two.” I gritted my teeth, pounding the plastic arm of the seat with my clenched fist. “Gonna be the longest weeks of my life. The only upside is that it will give Jewel time to cool off. When I return, I have to make an official, public apology to Cristo. Him dictating terms to me via Alex pisses me off, but Alex thinks it’s what I deserve, so he’s backing the punishment.”
My pride smarted at my brother taking my enemy’s side, but he wanted to make the consequence painful enough that I didn’t forget the lesson. It was working.
“You did go overboard,” she muttered. “You know I’m no fan of Cristo, but this warrants a gesture of humility toward the entire Popescu family.”
“What does Cristo want? For me to rent out ad space in Times Square?” I huffed out.
“Ha,” she barked out. “I don’t even think that would satisfy him, but you’ll have to do something impressive to pacify him and his father. You said your girl is mad at you… Was it the fight alone or something more?”
I squeezed my eyes in pain. Worry about my future with Jewel, shame at disappointing her and Alex, and disgrace of having lost my shit kept me on edge. Bouncing my knee up and down, I confessed, “Oh, she was furious that I got into a fight with Cristo, no doubt. But I also put my foot in my mouth. More than once, I might add.”
“Oh, no, you didn’t,” she replied with a laugh.
“Are you laughing at me?”
