Secret Baby For The Italian Mafia Don

Part 11

NICO POV:

Hot lights blaze down into the ring. The crowd teems tonight, swarming out
of focus just beyond my vision. I swipe the sweat off my face as I pace the
edge of the cage, eyes locked on my opponent. I watch his every step just as
he watches mine. The fucker is built like a bull and he likes to charge like
one, too. I don't know what kind of gear these guys are on these days,
muscles all swollen out like twisted-up balloon animals.
Muscle is good for a fight, and street smarts can give you an edge, but rage
—that's the real secret sauce.
I haven't seen Ava St. Clair in days, and I'm going to make this man pay for
every hour between me and her.
I promised Ava that I would leave her alone if I was wrong. I wasn't wrong,
so instead, the girl hid. She puts a locked door between us and dodges all
my late-night texts. Hell, maybe it's for the best. I bet her cunt still hurts,
but if she were smart, she'd let me kiss it better.
The charge comes and I weave away, then follow up once his momentum
burns out. We lock arms, trying to take each other down. He's got weight on
me, but I have leverage. I sling him over on his own size, tripping him up
and getting him on the ground. He goes down hard. He gets his hands
around his face like a shield, lets me burn out my energy on useless hits.
I should have known Ava would ask me to lay off her brother. It's the one
simple thing that I just can't give her. Non-negotiable. It's not about my
pride. I could swallow that for her, if she asked. It's about something bigger
than me, bigger than her, and it presses all around me all the time. I feel it in
the eyes that are staring at me now, shadows in the crowd watching the fight
with folded hands and straight faces.
I don't always make the rules. Not anymore.
There's only one way I get this boot off my throat, and that's through
Marcel. Like it or not.
My opponent climbs back to his feet. He swipes at his bleeding nose as our
eyes lock. We size each other up again. He doesn't have much left in him.
From here, it's a matter of endurance. Whose body gives up first, even
when the spirit doesn't. My ear hums loudly, maybe busted, but it's no
concussion. I can make it.
When we lock again, it'll be the last time. I feel it in my body, taste it in the
blood in my mouth. He feels it too, his movements sluggish and dazed.
We pace around each other, sniffing for a weakness, a single misstep, an old
wound that needs the right kick. On the edge of the ring, someone parts the
crowd. I catch movement out of the corner of my eye—standing front and
center, Marcel stares up at me, his arms crossed over his chest and hatred in
his eyes.
My eyes are on Marcel, but my attention—that's on the brute who thinks
he's finally found his opening. His moment. I turn back at the last second,
and I snatch that moment from him. I fall on top of him, and I give Marcel a
lengthy and merciless demonstration of exactly what I would like to do to
him, one hit at a time.
The crowd roars, and the cash flows.
In the aftermath of the win, I walk through the back, past a dozen hands
clapping me on the shoulder. I scrub sweat and blood off myself with a
towel. In the backroom, I find a small group of men waiting for me. Five
familiar faces. My supporters, my investors. If you stretch it, the word
friends might even cover a couple of them, but we all have one thing in
common. The only thing that matters. Blood.
Angelo tosses me a beer instead of a painkiller.
Whatever elaborate cocktail of mental illnesses the man had before, they
must have gotten worse while I was on the inside. He's inked up with face
tattoos now, his canine teeth filed into sharp points. He always liked that
weird satanic shit, only to get nicknamed "Angel" for the trouble. I guess
that's just how it goes. Every man named Christian I've ever met has been
an atheist. Back in the day, Angel's calling card was two burning wings
tattooed on his shoulders. Now, he's got horns and blacked-out hollow
cheeks to match. One of his eyes is completely shot, milky and gray where
there should be white. He says he lost it from a "bad eye tattoo"—as if
there's some other kind.
"Good shit," he tells me, the "s" scraping weird with how he's jacked his
teeth up. "Thought maybe you'd met your match for a minute there."
"They haven't made my match yet."
"That's good, man, that's good," he says, all friendly. His tone and his body
language draw me away from the others. The man teeters in place like a
scarecrow caught in the wind, all awkward and squirmy. "'Cause I've been
hearing otherwise from up top, you know."
"The fuck are you talking about?"
"The suits. Come on, Nico, what do suits always want?" he asks, as if he's
just as exhausted with the bullshit as I am. "They want progress, they
wanna know that now that we've all hopped on, this train is going
somewhere. The fights, those are good. Everybody's happy while the
money's coming in. But you can't win them all, Nico. You made bigger
promises than this. It's no surprise that Sal isn't playing ball, we knew he
wouldn't, but it sounds like Marcel's a bigger roadblock than we
anticipated."
"This shit doesn't happen overnight. It took seven years for them to get me
out of prison. How about you tell the suits I'll have that favor repaid in half
the time."
Angel grimaces at my attitude.
It must be bad if something really has him spooked.
"I'm just letting you know," Angel sighs, his voice dropping again as the
heavy door creaks open on its hinges. "The clock's ticking, Nico, and
people are checking their watches."
I put my back to him, looking in the dirty mirror and cursing at a bloody cut
running through my eyebrow. Suddenly, the room goes cold and quiet, like
a haunting. In the reflection of the room behind me, the men silently turn
and file out. They leave only one person behind—Marcel. His mirrored
image appears over my shoulder, his gaze sharp and his hands buried in the
pockets of his slacks.
"If you came here hoping to see me get my ass kicked, you're going to have
to start finding better fighters," I tell him. I turn around to size him up. "Or
maybe you came here to settle our differences like men. Cage is empty."
He ignores my goading.
"What happened with Ava?" he asks instead, no segue to soften the impact.
Questions tangle up at the back of my skull. I try to read him, try to figure
out what he's talking about—how much he knows and why he cares—but
Marcel is cold as ice. Under that calm demeanor, though, I can see a little
spark. Maybe that's where Ava gets her spirit from, that little temper she's
trying out like test-driving a car.
"Why the fuck would I know?" I ask. I try to turn back to my locker, but
Marcel slams it in front of me.
"You were the last person who was with her. Thaddeus saw you outside the
restaurant; he saw you talking to her. After that, neither of you came back to
the house until the next day. The guards say you came back together
sometime in the afternoon. I'll give you one chance to answer: what
happened?"
"Why are you here asking me about this now?"
That was days ago, and I haven't heard a word about it. Not from anyone.
"I'm not losing my little sister again. I barely got her back the first time.
And if I find out you had anything to do with this—"
"To do with what?" I demand.
Is the girl hurt? Did she do something?
There's a panic in my head, a rush of what-ifs that make it hard to think
clearly, and I'm tempted to start swinging on him until I have Marcel
spitting out the truth with some of his teeth. Finally, he says,
"Ava's barely left her room since she came back with you. She won't talk
any more than she has to just to confirm that she's alive." His voice lowers,
hovering somewhere between a secret and a threat. "She already spent
months in there when she lost Vinny. The last thing she needs is someone
like you setting her back and fucking with her head."
Oh, I fucked more than that.
"You ever think maybe she's sulking because you've got her lined up to
marry some greasy-haired weasel in a discount suit? Seeing as how you
threw her future in the meat grinder so you could make your dinner with it,
I can see why she'd be a little upset—"
His hands come up fast on my chest. I let him push me back into the
lockers, a laugh already half out of my lips. The kid has a lot of goddamn
steel in him, I'll give him that, but he's out of his game. Angry, emotional
outbursts—that's my home field, not his, and it shows. He's still holding
himself back.
"That's between her and Sal," he says. "You think I don't want to beg her to
reconsider? You think I haven't begged Sal to let me try?"
I step closer to him.
"You touch me again, Marcel, I'll break both your hands." I grin, clapping
him on the shoulder and drawing him in closer. It's not friendly. "Your
problems have got nothing to do with me. The world hurt your sister. I
didn't. When I'm finally in charge again, then you can start coming to me,
groveling for me to fix your problems."
I give him a final clap on the shoulder to send him on his way.
"This is my warning, Nico," he says, somber and serious. "You stay away
from her."
I give him the courtesy of letting his footsteps fade out of the room before I
slam my locker open and grab my keys—to drive straight home to his little
sister.
I've never been good at doing what other people say I should. Orders,
advice, it's all wasted on me. My will is an iron thing, and it doesn't bend
easy, not even when I want it to. Hell, I could make my own life a hell of a
lot easier if I weren't so damn stubborn—but I can't. It's not how I'm
wired.
I swore I'd never get wrapped up in a woman like this again. I told myself,
the second I set foot out of the pen, I was done with the whole goddamn
species. I couldn't trust myself around them, always getting in over my
head, falling hard and fast and for forever.
And that same night, Ava St. Clair happened.
The house is quiet at this hour.
Or it is, until the sole of my boot slams against Ava's locked bedroom door
and cracks it off its hinges.

Words 1939