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So it’s a surprise when a man wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses slides into the chair across from me.
I’m about to tell him to go away when he takes off his sunglasses, and my words get caught in my throat.
Nico.
For a moment, all I can do is stare.
But then it hits me.
Exactly who I’m sitting across from.
He’s not just Massimo’s dead brother. He’s the man who killed my father.
I get up to leave, but Nico stops me with a tone that is both a warning and a threat. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. The best thing you can do right now is listen.”
I want to tell him to go to hell. But a bigger part of me wants to know why he is here.
“Fine, say what you’ve come to say. But I swear to God, Nico, if you try anything stupid—”
“Like what?”
“Like hurting me.”
“Why the fuck would I want to hurt you? My brother is in love with you.”
“Don’t say that.”
“It’s true. And if I laid one finger on you, he’d break all of mine. But I don’t have a reason to hurt you, do I?”
“I’m not blabbing, if that’s what you mean. Your secret is safe.”
He studies my face with those ink-black eyes. “Why would you keep quiet about it?”
“Because this bullshit rivalry between the Bamcorda and the De Kysa has already caused too much pain, and I don’t want to be a part of it anymore.”
“What do you want?”
“To live in peace. To be able to come to my local coffee shop and not be accosted by some supposedly dead Mafia don who insists on talking to me.”
“We don’t have to be enemies, Bianca.”
“You’re not seriously suggesting that we can be friends.”
“At least friendly.”
“Hmmmmm. Let’s see, you killed my father, and your brother stole all my money. Sorry, but I can’t see the appeal of being friends.”
“Yes, I killed your father, and if I had to do it all over again, I would. He kidnapped my wife. He put his hands on her, beat her, was going to rape her—”
“Stop.”
“He had her strung up. He repeatedly hurt her. Put a gun at her head and was about to pull the trigger.”
“I said stop,” I snap.
I can’t stand what my father did.
But forgiving Nico for taking his life is a mountain too high for me to climb right now.
He was my father.
Nico remains as cool as a cucumber. “Tell me, what would you have done in my position?”
It’s a fair question, and one I’ve considered every day since it happened. But sitting here across from Nico now, it feels too hard to tell him the truth.
I would have done the same.
I don’t want to admit it because that would mean showing forgiveness, and I don’t know if I can.
“Did Massimo send you?” I ask.
“My brother doesn’t need me to do his bidding.”
“Yet, here you are.”
“Massimo doesn’t know I’m here. He’s out of the country.”
That explains why I haven’t seen or heard from him. He’s vacationing overseas. Getting on with his life after sending a nuclear bomb into mine.
“What do you want, Nico?”
“To leave this city, and go back to my wife and child who are waiting for me on our island home, where I can take lunchtime naps in the sun and drink sweet berry wine and forget about this damn city and all its ugliness. But I can’t do that, not until you and my brother work out whatever there is to work out.”
“Nothing. That’s what there is to work out. Nothing at all.”
“Wrong answer. You look miserable.”
“Thanks. That beard isn’t exactly working for you, either.”
He ignores me. “And I don’t know what you’ve done to my brother, but I think you broke him.”
“What do you mean?”
“He seems determined to win you back, no matter what.”
“And yet you’re here, and he isn’t.”
“There are things in play that I can’t explain.”
“You’re speaking in riddles. What do you mean I broke him?”
“He’s different. Like a damn piece of him broke off when you walked away. He didn’t take your money to hurt you. He took it to protect the De Kysa and everyone in it.”
“I know,” I say. Because I get it. It was a smart move. Wound the enemy to see who shows up to help them. “But he should’ve come clean about it before I pulled a gun on him and forced it out of his mouth.”
“Do you know why I was on my way to visit you both in the cabin?”
Jules said Nico was on his way to kill me, or to help Massimo dispose of my body. But we’ve established what a lying psychopath my ex-best friend was and how she manipulated the truth to suit her narrative.
And surprisingly, I never circled back to ask why Nico was on his way to the cabin.
