Page 25 of The Woman at the Funeral (Costa Family #11)

Blair

Okay.

It seemed safe to assume that it wasn’t regret or lack of attraction that made things tense earlier that morning. It was probably just the same uncertainty I felt that made him kind of distant.

After he charged into the apartment and completely lost control with me, it was clear I wasn’t the only one who’d really enjoyed our other little tryst.

The taxi hit a pothole, making the lingering soreness from our rough sex ratchet up.

Nico reached out, giving my thigh a squeeze and an apologetic look.

But I didn’t regret it, not in the least.

There was something beautiful about his lack of control, about knowing I did that to him.

So I leaned over behind Goya’s back to rest my head briefly on his shoulder.

The way he turned his head and pressed a kiss to my head had my heart swelling in my chest.

“How does he live above a club?” I asked as we climbed out of the cab.

“He claims it helps him think,” Nico told me as we moved inside and upstairs. “I wasn’t exaggerating, by the way,” he warned when we got to Zeno’s door.

“About what?”

“How bad it is in there. I keep meaning to hire someone to clean for him, but keep getting distracted by something else.”

“I’m sure it’s not that bad,” I said as Nico reached for his keys and unlocked the door.

It was that bad.

It was worse.

But I didn’t even notice that right away.

Because the second the door swung open, Zeno swiveled in his fancy office chair, a gun the size of my forearm raised in our direction.

“Banana bread coffee girl!” he greeted, all smiles as he casually lowered the gun. “And the dog. Hey, buddy,” he called.

I was reluctant to let the leash go with such a mess all around, but Goya tugged until I let go, then bounded over to jump up on Zeno’s chair. But only to grab a chicken nugget out of the little square box on the desk.

“Goya!” I scolded.

“Oh, he’s a good boy,” Zeno said, grabbing another nugget and tossing it to my waiting dog. “Did you bring me any syrup?”

“Oh…”

“We’ve been kind of busy fleeing to the safe house, remember?” Nico reminded him.

“Oh, right.”

“I will make some this week for you, though,” I promised him. I could have Nico pick me up the ingredients. And a jar to keep the syrup in. It would be nice to have something to do when Nico wasn’t around to… entertain me.

“I’ll take ten. Or more,” Zeno said.

“Okay, focus,” Nico demanded as Zeno fed Goya a fry.

I wandered over toward the kitchen, intending just to toss the scattered trash into the garbage. But then I noticed all the mugs in the sink and ran some soap and water over them. Then figured half the job was already done, so I started to scrub them.

The deep timbre of male voices was kind of meditative as I kept finding cleaning tasks to do: scrubbing the coffee pot, cleaning out the expired stuff in the fridge, then cleaning the inside of the fridge as well. That led to sweeping, mopping, and window cleaning.

“Um, do you need this?” I asked, holding up a floppy disk. An actual floppy disk. Like from the ‘90s.

“There that is!” Zeno said, plucking it from my fingers.

“What did you need a floppy disk for?” Nico asked.

“A really old computer,” Zeno said, putting the disk into a drawer that was messy enough that I was pretty sure he was going to forget all about it in no time.

“So,” he said, jumping out of his chair.

“I hear you want to be able to do some work without anything tracing back to your location. I can make that happen.”

He walked over toward the hallway linen closet. It didn’t have a single towel or cleaning supply. But it did have no fewer than fifteen laptops stacked precariously inside.

“Just take one of these handy-dandy laptops. They reroute the IP through about fifty different countries every minute. Only the best hackers in the world would be able to trace it. And I really doubt a fool like Matt would be in contact with any of them.”

“Thank you,” I said, taking the laptop he handed me.

“Don’t mention it. Obviously, don’t geo-tag yourself anywhere. Other than that, post and email to your heart’s content. But after you make my syrup,” he added, shooting me that boyish smile.

“I wouldn’t think of delaying that for something as unimportant as work.”

“Exactly. She gets it,” he said to Nico.

“Anyway, I wish I had more of an update. But so far, I’m not seeing much.

That doesn’t mean it’s not there. The dark web isn’t like going to Google and typing in what you’re looking for.

You need to know where to look and then search it.

It’s very decentralized. I’m digging. But it’s going to be days.

If not weeks. And even then, there’s no way to be one hundred percent sure.

I’d have more to go on if you found his laptop or tablet. ”

“Ronny said it wasn’t at the apartment. And as far as I can tell, he didn’t bring it to my place either.”

“Are you sure you can believe her?” I asked. “She lies as easily as she breathes.”

“That’s true. But I think she was irritated that she couldn’t find it. So I think she was telling the truth.”

“If the laptop isn’t at your place or with Blair, where the hell is it?” Zeno asked.

“The storage unit,” I said, stomach dropping.

“What?” Nico asked.

“Matthew had a storage unit. I made him get one when his junk kept filling up the apartment. I meant to have the Ferraros go and clean it out, but then I forgot all about it until just now. But if he was trying to hide something, that’s a good place, isn’t it?”

“It could be,” Nico agreed. “Do you have the key?”

“I… no. I have the paperwork, though. I don’t know if that helps.”

“Is your name on it?”

“No. We can’t get in then, can we?”

“There’s ways around everything. I’ll just go and get a unit myself. Then we will go to Matt’s and break in.”

He made it sound so easy. So commonplace.

And, maybe, for him, it was.

Meanwhile, I would need to do a search to figure out how to break a deadbolt.

“We can go tomorrow as soon as they open.”

“Perfect. Get me something to work with, and this will go much faster,” Zeno said, going back to his chair and looking around at his many monitors.

“We lost him,” Nico said, moving closer to me. “Thanks for cleaning up. This place looks a thousand times better.”

“There was a bag of celery that had sprouted and grown all up the back of the fridge,” I told him, lips twitching. “It was impressive.”

“Probably one of his noble intentions to try to eat cleaner, but then he tossed the healthy shit in the crisper and forgot all about it.”

“He’s the sweetest guy,” I said, meaning it. “And it feels like you’re the only person in the world when he is focusing on you. But it is very short-lived.”

“That’s him exactly,” Nico agreed. “The women are always wondering what kind of woman might drag him away from his computers long enough to actually build a life with.”

“What are they like?” I asked as Nico called Goya over.

“Who?”

“The women. I’ve only met the men of your family.”

“Oh, right,” he said, watching me. “They’re… all very different, obviously. But fiercely loyal. Some of them are incredible cooks. Others, well, shouldn’t be allowed near a stove unsupervised.”

“Do they all have kids?”

“Most of them, yeah. The others just haven’t gotten there yet.”

“Do they all get along?”

“Of course. I mean, some are tighter than others. Everyone has different personalities and interests. But it’s family. We all love and support each other.”

“I always wanted that,” I admitted, following him out the door. “I loved my grandma more than anything, but there were times when I was younger that I dreamed my mom and dad would come back and they’d have a bunch more kids. I was envious of the people who had big families.

“I think I was really hoping to have that when I married Matthew. His family was so close. I never imagined they would continue to be close with each other, but exclude me.”

“You didn’t deserve that,” he said, his hand slipping to my lower back.

“They included you, right?” I asked. “When you were younger.”

“Yeah. When my siblings were otherwise taken care of, I was always over at the Ferraros. Getting into trouble with Matt, getting some motherly attention from Ronny.”

“This has to be really hard for you. They were like an extension of your family.”

“It helps that we hadn’t been very close the last ten years or so. I still kept in touch, but mostly only saw Matt, not the whole family.”

“Do you think there’s a chance they’re all involved?”

“I wish I didn’t. But… Ronny was talking about moving the whole family to a beach house today. They have never had that kind of money. Maybe it was innocent, but…”

“But Matthew’s betrayal has you questioning everything you knew and thought you knew.”

“Exactly. I questioned every observation and thought I had today. I hate not being able to trust my gut like that.”

“I think we both have a little shaken confidence from all this. I’m almost afraid to find the laptop or tablet. To know what else he was hiding or lying about.”

“Yeah,” Nico said with a sigh as we raised an arm to hail a cab. “But that’s a problem for tomorrow. Tonight, I think we should order in and try to forget about all this shit for a couple of hours.”

“Forgetting sounds really nice,” I said as we slid into the backseat together, this time with Goya sticking his head out the other window, so we could sit close.

Nico’s arm slid around me, pulling me closer.

“It’s hard to believe, but there will come a time when we won’t be thinking about this all the time. When we won’t question our instincts or wonder how much wool was pulled over our eyes.”

“That will be a good day.”

“And until then, we can navigate these uncertain times together.”

“Yeah?” I asked, glancing up at him.

“Absolutely,” he said, pressing the side of his face against the top of my head. “I’m gonna be right with you through all this. As long as you want me here.”

“I want you here,” I said, my voice barely loud enough for me to hear.

But he heard.

He turned slightly, pressing a kiss to my hair.

“Good. There’s nowhere else I want to be.”