Page 16

So much for our romantic date.

He’s acting so weird.

He came bursting into my apartment like it was on fire and he had to rescue me from the flames. Then he was rude to me again, and now we’re driving to…Actually, I have no idea where we're going, and he hasn’t said a word.

“Where are we going?” I huff, folding my arms across my chest as I glare at him across the car. His jaw muscles twitch as he clenches his teeth.

This afternoon, I let it slide when he tried to brush away his reason for snapping at me when I told him about the discrepancies.

I know he wasn’t just taking out his anger on me accidentally; there was more to the story than he let on.

I dismissed the fact that he wanted to keep it private and figured that he would speak to me when he was ready, but now, he’s acting so weird, and if he tries to give me some lame excuse about this, too, I am going to go straight home and not speak to him for a week.

Okay. Fine. I won’t do that.

I can’t be away from him for a week.

But he has to be honest with me. Secrets are only going to create a wall between us, and they will tear us apart.

“Nico, where are we going?” I demand.

But as I ask, I see him turning down a familiar street. We’re going to his penthouse.

“You’re taking me home? I don’t understand,” I say.

“I’ll explain everything when we get there, okay. Just let me focus for now,” he says. There is no sass in his tone, no anger or attitude. He speaks gently and reaches out to touch my leg, but his eyes stay glued to the road ahead. He’s hyper-focused, more alert than I’ve ever seen him before.

My eyes trace over him, examining his face, his clothes, his hand on my leg.

That’s when I notice the bulge of his handgun, tucked under his jacket.

My stomach churns.

I really hope he doesn’t try and tell me some made-up story to cover up whatever is going on.

I take a deep breath and hold it in for a moment, letting the air push against my lungs while I prepare for the fact that I’m probably going to have to fight with him to get the truth.

But I’ll wait until we’re at his place.

For now, I’ll be alert, too, looking for whatever it is that has him so tense.

Nico doesn’t let his guard down until the front door of his penthouse apartment closes behind him and the lock snaps into place.

I watch as he takes a deep breath, pushing the air out as though he’s trying to push his worry away.

I sit on the sofa in the living room and wait. When he opens his eyes and they lock with mine, I tilt my head to the side and say, “I think you need to tell me what’s going on. And I want the truth.”

He nods, walking towards me. He drops his car keys on the coffee table and sits down too.

“Serafina, my angel, I wanted to protect you from this, but after today, I realized that not knowing will put you in more danger than knowing.”

He rubs his hands over his face. He looks exhausted and worried.

“Danger?” I ask, frowning as I watch him.

“It’s about the issues you discovered in the statements this morning.”

“Okay,” I say carefully. My hands are twisting in my lap, fidgeting and tense.

“The real reason I got so defensive and angry when you pointed them out to me was because I thought they were related to a side of the business I was keeping hidden from you. And they were—just not in the way I expected.”

He moves so that he’s facing me fully.

“I am in the Bratva.” The words hang in the air between us. For a moment, they just ring in my ears, as though they aren’t real sounds, but the longer the silence that follows, the clearer they become.

I am a part of the Russian Mafia.

I haven’t said anything because the shock has closed my throat up. I don’t believe him. It can’t be true.

He sighs and carries on.

“At first, I thought the money you stumbled across might have been the laundering processes put in place by our accountant to flush money through the company, because that is the main purpose of our business. It’s a cloak, covering the true nature of where our money comes from.

But it wasn’t that. Someone was actually stealing from us.

And because of that, it’s so much worse that you’re the one who found it. ”

He’s explaining things to me, and I feel like I’m underwater. Sometimes my mind goes numb, and the words echo around; sometimes they are distorted, and I have to squint my eyes to try and focus on his mouth to hear what he’s saying.

“So that means that someone inside the business is a rat. A very dangerous rat who might know that you know his secret, and that type of person—they wouldn’t hesitate to hurt you, Sera. I’m so sorry.” He sighs.

“You’re sorry?” I murmur.

He clenches his jaw, reaching his hand out to take mine. I snatch my hand away from his touch.

“This is a joke, right?” I laugh nervously. “It has to be a joke.”

He shakes his head.

“Of course it is,” I shout.

Please let this be a really bad joke.

Tears are stinging my eyes. I don’t move to wipe them away when they spill down my cheeks. Nico clenches his jaw tighter, and I can see he wants to reach out and hold me.

I throw him a look that says if he dares to touch me now, I’m going to scream bloody murder.

“Sera, just think about the size of my business. It’s my family business, right? Now think about the extravagant lifestyle I live, and the lifestyles my brothers and sisters live. Private jets and penthouses, the latest, best cars—anything we want whenever we want it—“

I narrow my eyes at him, listening intently. “So?” I murmur.

“Do you really think that the income from my business is in the league of being able to fund that lifestyle for my entire family?” he asks, and the weight of understanding hits me like a ton of bricks.

I sink into the sofa with a small welp as reality smacks me.

I can’t speak, even though I open my mouth to say something, nothing comes out.

Nico shifts closer to me.

“Sera, are you ok?”

His question is stupid. It’s a stupid, pathetic, stupid, bad question. Why the fuck would he ask me such a stupid question?

I glare at him, my eyes shooting lasers.

“Am I ok? Are you kidding me right now? You’ve been lying to me,” I shout as I scoot away from him on the sofa.

“You’ve been lying to me from the moment I met you.

You’ve been fake. Pretending to be a good, normal person with a normal job, living a normal life.

I thought you were a good person, Nico .

But you’re not. You’re a criminal. You’re literally a criminal.

” My voice breaks as the understanding sinks deeper and deeper into my heart.

The man I’ve fallen in love with isn’t even real.

Nico, the Nico that I know—he isn’t the real Nico, which means he doesn’t exist, and I’ve been hanging out with an impostor. Someone who tricked me. Lied to me. Kept dark and dangerous secrets from me.

“I fell in love with you, but you aren’t even you,” I stammer, the tears streaming like a flood now.

“You—fell in love with me?” he asks, shock widening his eyes. He tries to move closer to me again, and I practically fall over the back of the sofa, scrambling away from him.

“I fell in love with someone who wasn’t real,” I cry out.

“Sera, I—“

“Don’t you dare say it,” I snap. “Don’t you dare tell me you love me, too. ”

I hold my hand up and take a deep breath. The penthouse, despite its massive size, suddenly feels claustrophobic. The walls are closing in at an alarming rate, and I have to get out of here.

I glance at Nico, then at the door.

Grabbing my purse from the sofa where I was sitting, I sling it over my shoulder and rush towards the door.

I’ll get an Uber downstairs.

My thoughts are mayhem, and I need space to think.

The door handle wiggles in my hand, but it’s locked. Dammit.

Of course, it’s locked.

“Let me out,” I snap.

“I can’t do that,” he sighs, standing up and shoving his hands into his pockets.

His mouth is tight.

“Nico, let me out. You can’t keep me in here. I need time to process this. I need time to think. I need space away from you to figure out if I want you in my life. ”

“I can’t let you out, Serafina. It’s not safe. I don’t know if Ivan Orlov knows about you or not, and I’m not willing to take the risk.”

I shake my head in disbelief. “So, it was fine to risk involving me in your life in the first place, keeping those secrets from me, and what, hoping for the best or something? But now suddenly the risk is too big? Let. Me. Out .” I stomp my foot like a child, frustration running so deep that I’m crying again.

Nico’s face is pained as he shakes his head again.

“You’ll be staying here until I can solve this issue.

You need to be patient. I’ll sort it out as quickly as I can, Sera.

But until I’ve figure out who the rat is in the office—and make sure they aren’t coming after you—you’ll be my guest here at the penthouse. ”

I’m getting nowhere with this, and for tonight, at least, I can see he isn’t letting me go. But that doesn’t mean that I have to sit here with him and be pleasant.

In a frustrated huff, I spin away from him, angry tears spilling over my cheeks. I march to the spare room upstairs and slam the door closed behind me. He better not dare come in here and try to talk to me again tonight. I want nothing to do with him right now.

I want to be angry. That’s what I want, because anger is easier than acknowledging that my heart is busy shattering into a thousand tiny little pieces.

I sit on the edge of the bed, gasping for breath between sobs as they begin to overwhelm me.

No matter how hard I try to stay angry, the hurt creeps in.

My heart splinters.

Broken glass spreads inside my rib cage, cutting my insides, tearing me apart.

I clutch my chest as I fall on the bed, rolling onto my side and pressing my face into the pillow to hide my agonized cries.

The man I love doesn’t exist.

And I never even told him how I felt about him.

The person left is a stranger to me.

A criminal.

Mafia.

Underworld darkness creeps into his blood like a virus.

I have no idea who he is or what he’s capable of.

I cry myself to sleep.

I wake up shivering and cold with a dark shadow standing over me.

I cry out in fright, then realize it’s Nico. He’s holding a blanket that he’s trying to wrap over me.

“Sorry, my angel, I didn’t mean to wake you. I just wanted to make sure you were warm,” he whispers.

I say nothing in response.

“Are you okay, Sera?” he asks, the pain in his voice is clear.

I don’t answer.

He sighs and tucks the blanket around me.

No matter how angry I am with him, it still touches my heart that he cares. Whoever he is.