Page 35 of Owning Nicci

I dig a burner out of my drawer, dialing the number. He answers on the second ring, his voice clipped.

“Hello?”

“Savio Valenti here. I have some questions about a former associate of my brother’s. I’d like to meet. I’ll buy you a drink, of course.”

By 'buy you a drink,' I meanpay you for your information.Saul knows that, and I hear him clear his throat before he agrees.

“Meet me at Paradox,” he says gruffly. “10 p.m.” And then he hangs up.

I recognize the name of the bar—a place in Brooklyn that was once an upscale martini bar and is now a dive, though the new owner didn’t bother to change the name. With that settled, I try to turn my attention to other things that I need to get done—administrative work for my businesses, checking my accounting, that sort of thing—but my thoughts keep drifting back to Nicci.

She must be going stir-crazy up in that room.Maybe I should give her something to entertain herself with. Books, maybe. A television.I remember her excitement last night at going out, which she tried unsuccessfully to hide. She was itching to get out of her cage, and deep down, I can’t really blame her. I’d be going insane if I were her.

There’s that admiration again. I grit my teeth, trying to refocus, before I finally give up and go upstairs again, changing clothes to go out for a run. Physical exertion seems to be the best way to keep myself occupied, and I push myself hard before returning to shower and order dinner in—part of which I deliver to Nicci.

I don’t speak to her when I leave the tray in her room. She’s sitting cross-legged on the bed when I walk in, a bored expression on her face, and she doesn’t say a word to me. I try not to look at her, because even though she’s been kept naked in here every day since I bought her, I still haven’t become desensitized to it. Every time I see her, a jolt of lust shoots through me, and I feel myself fighting for control.

I leave the food behind without a word, go downstairs to finish my dinner, and then get dressed to meet Saul.

Paradox isn’t the kind of place I would normally go. I prefer more upscale establishments—the kind of place it used to be—but it’s fallen far from that since then. It smells like cigarettes and beer inside, even though smoking isn’t technically allowed inside the building. It still drifts in from the entrance and exit, making the air stifling. Adding to that is the warmth of bodies—the space is small, and surprisingly popular. It has all the dive bar necessities: a dartboard, a pool table, a jukebox. Seating consists of stools lining the bar and high-top tables scattered throughout the room and along the far wall, and I see Saul sitting at one in a corner, carefully tucked back into the shadows.

I get a drink from the bar—whiskey and Coke, difficult to fuck that up—and join Saul. He looks exactly as I remember him: close-cropped dark hair shaved to the skin on the sides, sharp blue eyes, a trimmed dark beard. He’s wearing jeans, a nondescript t-shirt, and an Army salvage jacket, and I have no doubt that there’s at least one gun under it and a couple of knives. Brass knuckles in a pocket, probably.

“A former associate of your brother’s, you said.” Saul wastes no time with the pleasantries. “What is it you want to know?” He takes a long drink from the beer in front of him, but his eyes don’t leave mine. We’re associates, but he doesn’t trust me, which is likely wise. I don’t really trust him, either.

“There was a woman with him for the last few weeks before he died. I want to know more about her.”

Saul chuckles. “There were probably plenty of women. Barca was known to be a bit of a ladies’ man.”

My jaw tightens.Ladies’ man, indeed.Enough that he was able to take Sophie from me. Convince her that he was the better brother. The better man. The one with a future ahead of him—power, wealth, influence.

Now he’s six feet under, and I’m a billionaire. That should be enough revenge all on its own, but it isn’t. It makes me wonder sometimes, in the quietest part of the night when it’s hard to silence my mind, if anything will ever be enough.

“This one was particularly close to him. She and her father convinced him to run the job that ultimately got him killed—trying to kill Evelyn Yashkov.” I narrow my eyes at Saul. “Nicci Armand. Does that ring any bells?”

Saul chuckles. “I’ve heard of her. Socialite, right? Heiress to a billionaire empire. Or she was, anyway.”

“Was?” I feign surprise, though it was clear to me from the moment I found her in the Gilded Lily that she’s not heiress to anything now. “Did something happen to her?”

Saul shrugs. “Fell out of favor, I guess. Word was that her father was pissed when her engagement to Dimitri Yashkov fell through. After Barca died and that job fell through, he tried to marry her off to some German heir who was set to inherit a lot of cash and take over one of his family’s businesses here. Franz something-or-other. Mr. Armand set up an entire to-do for the proposal, supposedly arranged it to happen at this huge charity event, where all the who’s who of Manhattan—legit billionaires and crime families alike—would be. From what I heard, he snubbed her in front of all of them. She disappeared after that. No mention of her online, on gossip sites, those social media pages that follow fashion—nothing.”

“Hm.” I sit back. It’s something, and nothing, all at once. I knew she’d fallen out of favor with her family, obviously. I knew about the failed marriage to Dimitri and my brother’s failure to succeed at the plans he made with Nicci’s father. The rest is news to me, although it doesn’t tell me much about Nicci, beyond adding a layer to the reasons why she didn’t want Estella Gallo to see her with me at the restaurant. Estella might have witnessed her humiliation, and seeing her out and about would have started a new, fresh rumor mill.

“What about Barca? Anything about what she did for him?”

Saul shrugs. “She wasn’t with him for long. From what I heard, he used her as a lure. If he wanted someone dead, he’d use her as a honeytrap. Get them alone in a room, and his men would make their move.”

My gut tightens at that, an instinctive anger surging through me at the idea of Barca using Nicci as bait. And, on the heels of that, a surge of guilt.

Didn’t I do exactly that? Don’t I plan on doing it again?

Am I no different from my brother?

That thought sends a cramp of alarm through me, from my chest to my stomach, painful enough that it makes me physically cough. Saul looks at me, raising an eyebrow.

“You alright?”

“Just swallowed a bit of my drink wrong.” I clear my throat, but the thought remains. How are my goals any different from my father’s, from Barca’s? Just because I’m going about it differently, because I’m more careful, smarter—the goals themselves aren’t so different. And now it seems that I’m treating Nicci much the same.

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