Wounded Redemption by Brook Wilder
Chapter 6
Rory
“So why are you smiling like that? I take it everything is kosher between you two again?”
I smiled over the rim of my coffee cup, unable to help it. “I mean, it’s not perfect, but yes, it’s amazing.”
Emilia rolled her eyes, and I laughed, the giddiness inside hard to contain. Nico loved me. When he had said it yesterday, I had thought I had heard him wrong. All this time I had wondered if he was ever going to say it, and now that we were in the midst of a war between him and his father, he had chosen to finally let me hear those three little words.
Nico had no idea what those words meant to me, but he was right. I had known for a long time that he loved me. It was in the way that he loved me in the privacy of our bedroom. It was in the way he was trying to keep me and Anthony safe from his own father.
The signs were there. I was just glad he had finally admitted what I had already known for quite some time.
Some would think I was crazy to be in love with him. Our relationship had been rocky at best at times, and his temper had scared the crap out of me more times than I cared to admit. Some would say that it was because of him that I didn’t have Harper in my life any longer, that I was flirting with death myself.
But I also looked at it on the other side of the coin. Because of Nico, I had Anthony, my precious son, who was going to grow up one day just as strong as his father was. I had my friends, my sister-in-law, and this life that I had never imagined before.
It didn’t matter that we were looking at an all-out war with his father. I would do it all over again to feel this way about someone and have someone return the love. I had thought I was in love with my ex, but what I felt for Nico ran far deeper than anything I had ever experienced before.
I didn’t want to lose it.
I set my coffee cup on the island, my good mood evaporating. I had asked Emilia to come over to the penthouse for a reason, and it was going to be the hardest conversation she and I had ever had. “I need for you to promise me something.”
Emilia arched a brow. “Um, sure? What am I promising?”
An ache welled up in my chest, but I pushed it aside. “If something happens to me, I want you to take this,” I said, pushing the flash drive across the island. “And go to the papers with it. The password is the first place we met.” I had stayed up late, long after Nico had gone to sleep, thinking about the information that Carmine had shared with us, and finally, after much deliberation, put it down into words. It would be enough to cause some rumbles with the feds, and if we didn’t survive this, I wanted the Mafia don to still go down.
Emilia eyed the flash drive before looking at me. “What’s going on, Rory? What are you not telling me?”
I shook my head. “I’m not getting you involved in this. I just need for you to take it, and if I ask for it back, then you know that everything is going to be okay.”
“All right, fine,” Emilia finally said, snatching up the drive and placing it in her purse. “You know you can run, Rory, if it’s that bad. Nico wouldn’t blame you.”
“I can’t,” I told her. “I love him, and he needs me. I would rather die at his side than leave him to fend for himself.”
Emilia let out a harsh laugh. “You’re a journalist, Rory, and my best friend. He’s a Mafia don’s son. He used to this violence, but you aren’t.” She reached over the island and covered my hand with hers. “Please,” she begged, tears glistening in her eyes. “Please let me help get you out of here.”
I gave her hand a grateful squeeze. “You will know one day when you fall in love why I’m doing this. I can’t; he has no one else, Emilia. I can’t just walk away from him. It would be like walking away from my heart.” Nico was my heart. This broken, tortured man was mine, and I was going to fight with my very last breath to ensure that he survived, or I would go down with him. We were a team.
I could tell that Emilia didn’t like my answer, but she squeezed my hand back. “If you die, I will never forgive you.”
“I’m going to do my very best,” I said honestly, “not to have you hate me in the afterlife.”
She let out a choked laugh and scrambled off her stool to fling her arms around me. I hugged her tightly, tears forming in my own eyes. Emilia was my family, the only person that had been there through it all, and to not have her be in agreement with my current life would be like a stab to the heart. “I know you don’t trust him,” I told her as she sobbed against my shoulder. “But I love him. He’s a good man, Em. I swear it.”
My best friend pulled away, wiping at her tears with her hand. “Yeah, well, at least he makes gorgeous children. Besides, he has to be good in bed.”
“He is,” I said, blushing. Nico wasn’t what I had been expecting in a life partner, but now he was everything I didn’t know I needed. “And I hope to have many more children with him. Gorgeous children.”
Emilia reached out and squeezed my arm. “Good, because I will kill him myself if you die.”
I gave her a faint smile, knowing that she wouldn’t have to. Nico would do it for her.
Neither of us was going to die. We were going to find a way to rid ourselves of his father’s hold on us and move on with our lives.
That was my hope, at least.
**
Later that afternoon, my cell rang, and I debated on answering the call, recognizing the number. It was Preston. Had he learned about our trip to Long Island? Had Carmine gotten his talons into the DA and was now trying to use him against us?
There was only one way to find out. “Preston,” I said in a hard voice the moment I accepted the call.
“Rory, thank God,” he breathed. “I’m assuming you are safe?”
“Far safer than I was with you,” I blurted out, not caring if I made an enemy of him as well. “You made a pass at me, Preston, and got my husband locked up. Forgive me if I’m not happy to hear your voice.”
“A mistake,” he replied. “One that I am more than ready to make up to you. I’ve been doing some more digging, and I want to share the information I’ve found with you.”
I sat up straighter. “Go on.”
“No, not on the phone,” he said quickly. “In person. Let me make amends, Rory.”
I swallowed hard. On one hand, I could tell Preston to fuck off and never talk to the DA again, but on the other, he could be part of the reason that I kept Nico out of jail and put Carmine in one. Despite the asshole he was, he did have some pull in the NYPD, and if it came down to defending any action that Nico took against his father in the near future, I was going to need some help keeping him out of prison and home with me.
“Please,” he tried again. “A brief meeting, wherever you want it to be. You are going to want to hear what I have to say.”
“Fine,” I said before I could change my mind. “I’ll text you an address.”
“You won’t regret this,” he replied before I ended the call.
I already did.
That night, I told Nico what Preston had said to me as we lay in our bed, our bodies cooling off after our last sex session. “I don’t fucking trust him,” he said, his fingers gliding over my back lightly. “I can go for you.”
“Oh, that will work out,” I mused, lifting my head to look at him. There was a grin on his face that made him look years younger, the worry chased away for now. “Hey, I’m Nico, bang. Bullet to the face.”
He lifted his shoulder. “Could you blame me? He made a pass at my fucking wife. I’m inclined to be violent with him.”
My stomach fluttered with his response. Hey, what can I say? There was a part of me that liked my husband when he was prone to being violent on my behalf. “I think I need to go. I want to know what he’s going to say.”
“That he couldn’t tell you over the phone?” Nico asked lightly. “I smell a setup.”
I laid my hand on his strong jaw. “I won’t go if you don’t want me to.” This was all about the trust factor between us now, and if he didn’t want me to do it, I wouldn’t. Every step now was calculating, and I had to keep Nico in the loop so the plans wouldn’t be ruined.
He blew out a breath. “No, it’s fine. You go and find out what the fucker knows. It might be helpful, or it could be shit, but there’s no other way for us to find out.” He captured my hand in his and brought it up to his lips. “But if he makes a pass at you again, I want you to nail his balls to the chair with your knife until I get there.”
“So violent,” I said, shivering not from fear but from the thrill of excitement that ran through me. Maybe Nico was rubbing off on me.
He arched a brow, his hand stilling on mine. “Why did it sound like I just made you fucking orgasm, Rory?”
I pulled my hand away, climbing on top of him instead. “Because I think I’m liking the possessive side of you now.”
Nico’s hands dug into my hips as he lowered me onto his already hard cock. The man never ceased to amaze me, always ready to go at a moment’s notice. “Get used to it,” he breathed as I sucked in a breath myself. “Because you are mine, and I’m not going to give you up.”
I never wanted him to.
The next afternoon, I stepped into the coffee shop I had agreed to meet Preston in, a ways away from the penthouse and Nico. He had all but demanded that I take Vincent with me, but I had compromised, stating that I was going to be a dead ringer for anyone that was watching for his father if Vincent walked in with me.
So, Vincent was parked across the street, and I was wired so he could hear the entire conversation. My knife was sheathed in the leather strap that Nico had strapped to my waist this morning, ready at a moment’s notice if this was some sort of setup. I had no intentions of pulling it otherwise.
Preston was seated in the back of the coffee shop as I bypassed the ordering line and took a seat in the chair across from him, not bothering to remove my sunglasses. Between my required face mask, sunglasses, and baggy clothing, it would be hard to make out my identity. “Rory?” he whispered as I set my bag next to me on the table.
“Preston,” I greeted him. “This isn’t a social call. Tell me what you know.”
He eyed me, a slow smile crossing his lips. Unlike me, he had taken off his mask, and I felt my breakfast sour in my stomach as I saw the gleam in his eyes. Maybe I should stab him. The world would be a better place, or at least the women would be safe. “I have to say, you are taking the mob wife thing to another level with your getup here.”
I leaned in, wanting to rip my sunglasses off my face so that he could see what I honestly thought of him. “I would love to show you what else I learned from my husband, but alas, it would be far too messy for this place.”
I was rewarded with his face losing some of its color, and he sat back, his eyes growing hard. “So, he’s gotten to you.”
I rested my forearms on the table. “Tell me what you wanted to, Preston.”
“Before I do so,” Preston responded, much to my ire. “What does he have on you to keep you there, Rory? Is it your son? I can provide a safe haven for both him and you.”
“I trusted you one time before,” I reminded him, involuntarily shivering inside. “Besides, I might have some information you would be interested in, but you will give me your word that I will be safe.” It was a gamble for me to throw that out there, but if I wanted to keep Preston focused and to tell me what he knew, I had to reel him in slowly.
He arched a brow. “Really?”
I nodded, hiding my smug smile. “I do. Let’s just say I’ve had a run-in with Carmine D’Agostino himself.”
Preston surprised me by reaching across the table in a flash and grabbing my hand, holding it tightly in his sweaty one. “Let me take care of you, Rory,” he urged, something akin to desperation on his face. “We are both in a hell of a lot of trouble, and your husband isn’t going to be able to protect you, but I can. I can give you what he hasn’t been able to.”
“You don’t have anything, do you?” I asked hotly, wrenching my hand away from his and standing. “You are no better than the men you hunt.”
Preston smirked, clearly unfazed by my reaction. “Yeah, maybe I’m not, but at least I can walk away at any point. What about you, Rory? What, do you think you were resigning yourself with when you married a fucking criminal? Face it, you are going down with your husband, but I can help you stay out of the limelight.” His eyes roved over my body, and even though I was covered head to toe, I still felt the revulsion. “If you give me what I want in return, of course. As you may have learned, nothing is free in this business.”
I turned and walked away before I really did something stupid, like pulling out my knife, my angry steps carrying me outside, where I ripped off the sunglasses and mask, not caring if Carmine was having his goons follow me. Vincent was there with the car in an instant and I climbed in, throwing everything in the seat next to me. “He heard it all, didn’t he?” I asked after he pulled away from the curb.
Vincent’s eyes met mine. “Yeah, he did.”
I leaned back against the seat, cursing myself for even thinking that Preston was actually going to bring something good to the meeting. I should never have fallen into his trap, but there was a desperation to at least find something, anything that could put Carmine out of our lives for good.
My thoughts drifted back to one of the first times Nico and I had a heart-to-heart, and his words never meant more to me today than they had back then. The cops saw him as nothing more than a criminal, and keeping him out of prison was going to be far more difficult than I realized.
