Wounded Redemption by Brook Wilder
Chapter 5
Nico
I watched as the scenery passed and the city came into view in the distance. Never had I thought I would be glad to see the city like this, knowing I had left my father back in Long Island for now.
Still, his threat against Rory hung over me like a suffocating blanket. I shouldn’t have expected anything different. After all, he had taken an innocent young woman and ruined her life by what he did. Why would my wife, his daughter-in-law, be any different? After the words had come out of his mouth, it was the image that was now imprinted in my brain, her phantom screams echoing in my thoughts.
My father wouldn’t hesitate to make it a reality, and it sickened me to think he would do something like that to Rory.
I should have killed him when I had the chance back at the hospital, when he was nothing but an old man lying in that bed.
Now he had threatened my wife, the one person I couldn’t live without. “Why did you do it?” I asked softly, my hand clenching my knee. It was the first words she and I had spoken to each other since we had left my father. “Why did you take his agreement?”
“Because,” Rory said. “The last thing we need is for him to wage an all-out war on us, Nico. If he thinks we are on his side, temporary or not, it buys us some time to find out how to defeat him.”
She wasn’t wrong. I couldn’t fight my father and keep Angelica still safe, along with the DA potentially looking for a way to lock me up for the rest of my fucking life.
I just wished Rory hadn’t been there this morning. I wished that my father hadn’t looked upon her like she was some person to conquer, to have under his thumb like Leda and I were.
I wanted to keep her far away from him.
“Did I do something wrong?” Rory asked quietly.
“No,” I sighed. “It was the right thing to do.” She had made me proud today, standing up to my father like that and demanding his word. His word was shit, but it made him pause and reconsider how fucking strong my wife was. She wasn’t a pushover, and it was one of the many reasons I had fallen in love with her.
I just hoped she took my father’s words to heart about his secrets. “You can’t publish anything you heard today,” I told her, keeping my gaze averted. I didn’t want her to see the worry in my eyes. “He’s not going to stop until he crushes us.”
“I’m not going to,” she replied, clearing her throat. “But we can’t let him win, Nico. He’s ruined too many people’s lives, including your own.”
“But at what cost, Rory?” I asked her. “What cost will we be suffering to defeat him?”
She didn’t answer, and the car drifted back into silence until we arrived at the penthouse. I rode in the elevator with Rory until she was safely in the penthouse. “Everywhere you go,” I started, stripping off my coat. “There will be added protection from now on.”
Her eyes widened. “You’re going to let me go places?”
Had I really treated her like a prisoner? Yes, yes I had, for the sake of her safety. “Vincent will be your protection,” I continued, thinking of the plans I had made yesterday.
Rory handed Anthony off to Tilda, shaking her head. “No, he’s yours. I can’t take him without knowing you are protected.”
Her worry about me was legit, but I was far more capable of caring for myself than she was. “This is a good time for us to talk about your protection,” I answered, rolling up my sleeves. “Have you ever held a knife, a gun?”
Her expression grew sad. “Harper took me to a shooting range once. He said in our profession we were targets.” Her lips curled into a smile as she remembered the memory. “Needless to say, I was horrible at hitting the target, and I never picked up another gun.”
I didn’t smile, my gut twisting at the thought of Rory not able to protect herself if, for some reason, I couldn’t. There were far too many enemies I was gathering, enemies that wouldn’t hesitate to hurt me by taking out my wife.
I couldn’t keep my vow to her, and that fucking terrified me. “Well,” I said instead, tamping down my rising panic. “There’s a first time for everything.”
She eyed me. “Nico, are you afraid?”
“Of course not,” I lied. The last thing she needed to hear was that her own husband, a man who had handled his own share of violence over his lifetime, was afraid of his own father. “I can protect you, but I want to make sure you can protect yourself, Rory. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“No, I guess not,” she answered a moment later. “Let me go get changed into something more comfortable, and then I am yours.”
Oh, she was mine all right, and nothing and no one was going to take her away from me.
**
The knife bounced off the target harmlessly, and I tried not to let my disappointment show as Rory looked back at me hopefully. “That was closer,” she answered, clasping her hands before her. We were at one of the warehouses I owned. Vincent was close by, his arms crossed over his chest as he watched my wife take her chance with knives. God, I had never felt so fucking scared in all my life the first time she threw one.
I thought she was going to injure herself.
“Can I take a shot at it, boss?” Vincent finally asked as I raked my hand through my hair. “I think I know what the problem is.”
I nodded, and Vincent walked over to Rory, demonstrating whatever issue she was having with her footing. I took the moment to take in her tight yoga pants and loose shirt, one that looked suspiciously like mine. Her hair was pulled back from her face, and she had no makeup on, but I had never seen anything more beautiful. Rory radiated beauty no matter the time of day.
She had been reluctant to leave Anthony at the penthouse, but I showed her how many guards I had around the place, as well as the tracker that was on him in case someone did try to take him. It was excessive, putting the tracker in his pacifier clip on his shirt, but I wouldn’t put anything past my father at this point.
I had to protect them.
Vincent stepped back and Rory threw the knife, surprisingly sticking it to the plywood target a moment later. “I did it!” she exclaimed, clapping her hands together. “Did you see it?”
“I did,” I joined in, walking over to her. “Good job. You took out his balls.”
She punched me lightly in the shoulder. “It’s as good a place as any, right?”
I gripped her fist in my hand, pulling her against me. “As long as they’re not mine, I’m good. You cut off their balls, love.”
“Not mine, please,” Vincent piped up, causing Rory to burst into laughter. Despite everything that was going on around us, I cracked a smile myself, glad to see the worry leave her eyes. It was there far too much.
Looking over at Vincent, I nodded my head toward the entrance. “Give us a minute.”
“Sure, boss,” he responded, shooting me a grin before he walked to the door.
The door had barely clicked shut before I was kissing Rory, swallowing her squeak of surprise. “Nico!” she exclaimed, tearing her lips from mine. “What are you doing?”
“Kissing my wife,” I responded, moving in for another kiss. She squealed and wrestled out of my grasp, tearing across the vast warehouse. I let a grin slip as I took off after her, my cock swelling at the thought of catching her.
We chased each other for a few moments before I was able to grab her arm, pressing her against the metal wall of the building and trapping her against it. “Gotcha.”
Her eyes roamed over my face. “I like you like this, Nico. I like us like this.”
I knew what she was talking about. She wanted us to have a normal relationship, one where we could cut up and laugh like this without a care in the world. “I know,” I told her, pressing my forehead to hers. “I’m fucking trying, Rory.”
Her hands threaded through my hair, and she forced me to meet her gaze. “I know,” she said softly. “I know you are, and I want you to know that you aren’t your father. You are going to defeat him, and we were going to move on with our lives like we deserve.”
“I can’t lose you,” I blurted out, not caring if she could hear the panic in my voice. “I can’t lose you and Anthony to him.”
“You won’t,” she reiterated, her hands sliding down to frame my face. “I know how to go for the balls now.”
A sharp burst of laughter escaped my chest, and I shook my head, letting the warmth of what she did to me slide past the anxiousness and worry for a brief moment. In this chaos, we were still having a conversation like we were a normal couple, and I wanted to grab it and put us into a bubble that couldn’t be penetrated. I had gone from the man who was hell-bent on killing his father to one that was on the verge of potentially losing everything he loved.
“It’s going to be okay,” Rory was saying. “We are a team, Nico.”
I swallowed my retort aimed at Rory about not being a team, figuring I didn’t need to alienate my wife right now. So instead, I kissed the hell out of her, feeling her hands slip around my neck and pull me close. When I broke the kiss, my hand was up her shirt, and I was cupping her breast through her bra. “Tell me this is okay,” I said breathlessly. I needed her now more than I ever had.
She gave me a little nod as her hand slipped down to my trousers and cupped me through them. “I need you, Nico.”
I growled in response, my hand already slipping down the front of her yoga pants to find her soaking wet. “Fuck, Rory.”
“Nico,” she breathed as I teased out the swollen nub, her body arching into my hand.
My lips found her neck and she ground against my hand, bringing herself to climax a moment later. Dazed at how fast she had come, I shoved her pants to her knees as she fumbled with my buttons. If I didn’t bury myself in her soon, I was going to lose it.
My cock sprang from the opening and I thrust it into her, cursing at the way her pants were tangled up around her ankles now. “This isn’t fucking working,” I muttered, my hands on her hips.
“You’re too impatient,” my wife said as she forced her pants off the best she could. Once she was free, I gripped her hips and lifted her against the wall, causing us to both groan. “Wrap your legs around me,” I growled, burying myself to the hilt.
Rory whimpered but did as I asked, and I drove into her, careful not to have her slide against the metal in case it cut her skin. There were a million other places in the warehouse I could have taken her, but I couldn’t wait.
This was what I needed.
She cried out my name as I brought her to another orgasm quickly, feeling my own build low in my stomach. It wasn’t going to be long before I filled her with my own release, but in this moment, I concentrated on her tight sheath clenching my cock, the way she was sobbing my name as I drilled into her.
This was coming home. There was nothing I had ever felt like it before and nothing that would compare to it for the rest of my days.
I couldn’t live without it. “I love you,” I told her, the words flowing out of me. “I love you so fucking much.”
Rory stilled, and her wide eyes met mine. “Nico?” she asked hesitantly.
“You are everything to me,” I grunted, slamming into her hard, causing her entire body to shudder. “Never leave me.”
“Never,” she breathed, her hands clenching my shoulders tightly.
I groaned and let my release go, filling her until my knees buckled and nearly brought us both down. Rory placed her feet back onto the warehouse floor and pressed her back against the wall as I fought to gather my breath, my hand resting just north of her head.
Finally, I met her gaze to find her watching me. “Truly?” she whispered. “You love me?”
“How could you not know?” I answered, my voice gentle. “Everything I do now is for you; it’s because of you.”
Her eyes teared, and she threw her arms around me. “Oh God, you have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to hear you say that.”
I crushed her against me, my heart hammering in my chest. “You make me happy,” I whispered to her. “You’re the sunlight in my darkness.” She always would. There would never be another for me, and if she left me first, they might as well kill me too. I never wanted to have a life without Rory in it again.
“Stop it,” she begged, her tears wetting my shirt. “You should be a poet.”
“Or a Hallmark card,” I suggested, swallowing my own emotions.
Rory laughed then, pulling back to look at me. “The options are endless.”
I reached up, pushing back her hair that had gotten loose. “I didn’t say it because of what’s going on. I should have said it a long time ago.” If I hadn’t been so stubborn about thinking that I couldn’t actually love her, I might have avoided some of the heartache caused between us.
Her smile was tender as she leaned in and brushed her lips over mine. “As long as you don’t stop saying it. That’s all that matters now. I love you too, Nico, so very much.”
I sighed, letting her words wash over me. How could she love someone like me? She knew all my secrets now, the harsh ones that had driven me to this point in my life and could likely cause my death or even imprisonment, keeping us from each other forever. Rory had pushed all that aside, and for whatever reason, she loved me.
Me, the son of a monster. “We better leave,” I finally said, releasing her slowly. “Vincent is probably chomping at the bit to get us out of here.”
She adjusted her clothing, and I did the same before reaching for her hand, rubbing my thumb over her wedding ring. Now, this fight had taken a whole other turn, and I wasn’t sure if it was for the better.
The stakes were too fucking high now.
