Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 52592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 263(@200wpm)___ 210(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 263(@200wpm)___ 210(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
“I don’t believe you,” I say, even though I know in my sinking heart that what Nico is saying is true. Perhaps deep, deep down, I’ve always suspected it.
“You don’t have to,” he says as he pulls a small recording device out of his jacket pocket. He presses a button, and the sound of my father’s voice fills the car.
I listen with tears streaming down my face as my father confesses to having orchestrated my mother’s murder. And by the time the recording is finished, the front of my shirt is soaked with tears.
My father betrayed me, and Nico watched it happen.
CHAPTER 18
ELLE
Idon’t say another word for the rest of the car ride as Nico drives us back to his apartment. This time, he doesn’t take me to his safe house out in the middle of the desert. This time, he winds down a few city streets until he reaches an unassuming-looking building that could double as both an apartment building and an old factory. It’s set off the Strip, out of plain sight, but not in the middle of the sandy stretch.
At some point on the drive, he tells me why he doesn’t want me to be alone in my apartment tonight. It has something to do with my “stunt” at the nightclub and the chance that one of those men might still be a threat to me. But I can read between the words that he is saying and what he really means—Nico is worried that my father is a threat to me now, just like he was to my mother.
The funny thing is, though, that I don’t think my father could possibly hurt me any more than he already has. He took away my mom, and he set my life on a course of pure obsession for more than a decade after that. I’m not sure there’s any physical damage that he can do to me that would hurt any worse.
“If my father wanted to hurt me, he’s had a million chances to do so already,” I say when Nico opens the car door to let me out.
He gives me his hand, but I refuse it because I just feel like sinking into my own self-despair right now as I follow him into the building. He doesn’t say anything until we get into the elevator and start to go up.
“Your father had no reason to hurt you before,” he says quietly. “You didn’t know about his involvement until tonight. Until his confession a few hours ago, everything has been speculation and hunches. Now there is concrete proof that he was behind your mother’s murder. This whole time up until now, you’ve mostly just been—”
“Chasing ghosts,” I interrupt as I finish his sentence for him.
“Yeah,” Nico says, taking my hand as the elevator doors open.
This time, I let him.
“He won’t hurt me,” I say as I step out.
Nico stays quiet while we walk into his modest place, and he flips on a light. I stand in the middle of the room and stare out the window at the Vegas Strip off in the distance. I haven’t been to this part of the city before; it’s more removed and quieter here, and it suits my mood.
He reaches into his fridge and takes out a beer.
“Do you want one?” he asks. “Sorry, I don’t have any fancy wine or top-shelf liquor. I’m not a fancy-pants higher-up like your friend’s husband is.”
“Do you mean Valentina?” I ask, nodding in response to accepting a cold beer. Anything to dull my senses a bit more after hearing that my father is a monster is something that I will gladly accept.
“Yeah, Luciano is a wealthy man, even though he’s essentially just a right-hand man still,” Nico says as he hands me a beer before going to sit down on the couch. “I heard he was trying to take over Vincent’s whole crew for a while, but I guess Valentina cleared him of that idea. It was for the best; leadership isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. Heavy is the head that wears the crown.”
I take a swig from the beer bottle and join him on the couch. “Your head seems pretty heavy too, even without a crown to wear. Is it all worth it?” I ask.
“What?”
“All of it—being involved with the mafia, carrying the weight of regret over things you’ve done or not done,” I say as I sink back against the cushion. “Never allowing yourself to trust anyone? I think that maybe you’re on to something there, actually. Hell, if my own father has been lying to me my entire life, I guess there really isn’t hope of being able to ever trust anyone at all. It’s like the whole world is out to trick me. Maybe my old therapist was right. Maybe everything that I’ve done has just been one big, useless coping mechanism, and none of it changes anything.”