Page 110

Story: Love Loathe Devotion

Black jacket. Dark slacks. No tie. His presence shifts the air in the room—less like a bodyguard, more like a goddamn war general walking into a fight he already won.

“I’m Nico Mancini. Mr. Crowe’s personal security advisor,” he says calmly, flashing credentials I’ve never seen before but that immediately make both plainclothes detectives straighten. “This interview is over. He won’t be saying another word.”

I smirk at that, security advisor must be the new name for Cosa Nostra Underboss.

One of the cops opens his mouth, but Nico steps between us.

“You can coordinate next steps through his attorney,” he adds, “who is being looped in now. In the meantime, you’re going to want to look into your source.”

He sets a single folder down on the coffee table. The edges are sharp. The contents inside are clearly dense.

“Background. Witness statements. Video evidence. Pattern of behavior. You’ll find Tasha Monroe has made similar allegations before, each time following a rejection. Each time dropped. Each one conveniently forgotten when NDAs and settlements were involved.”

Reggie gapes. “Wait—what?”

Nico doesn’t even look at him. “Run her through Interpol. You’ll find a sealed case in Lisbon. A domestic complaint in Florence. And two in California that never made it to trial. You’ve got her fingerprints all over this.”

The lead detective picks up the folder, flipping it open, scanning the first page. His brow furrows. “You had this ready?”

“Because this was always where it was going,” Nico says. Calm. Brutal. “She was told to back off. She didn’t. And now she’s burned her last bridge.”

“You knew?” Reggie hisses at me, eyes wild.

“I suspected,” I snap. “After Madrid, when she wouldn’t drop it. I told you to keep her away from me. I told you, Reggie.”

“I thought it was just drama. Flirting gone sour!”

“It was delusion gone dangerous,” I growl.

Nico glances at me then, cool and calm. “That’s not all. You wanted the dirt on Gerald Whitmore?”

My jaw clenches. “Yeah.”

Nico slides another, thinner folder from inside his jacket and places it on the table. “There’s enough in there to send him into early retirement. Corporate blackmail. Coercion. And I know exactly which journalists will care.”

My chest rises. I stare at the folder. “Jesus.”

“I told you,” Nico says simply. “Handled.”

The detectives finish scanning what they can. One mutters something into his comm. Another snaps photos of the documents. But the heat is shifting. Away from me. Off my shoulders. Onto hers.

They don’t apologize. But I don’t need them to.

They just leave.

And the door shuts behind them with a quiet click.

I exhale. Drop my head into my hands. My whole body still feels like a live wire.

“That bitch,” Reggie mutters. “That crazy bitch.”

I shoot him a look. “You don’t get to say that. You enabled her. You gave her access. You didn’t listen when I said no.”

Reggie holds up his hands. “We didn’t know—”

“You never asked.”

He backs up. For once, speechless.