Page 63 of Owning Nicci

I nibble at the food, thinking about the job ahead of us. Savio will be up soon to come and get me. I finish my food before changing into black jeans and a t-shirt, with my black hoodie thrown over it. I’m pulling on my boots when I hear a knock at the door, and it startles me.

“Nicci?” Savio’s voice comes from the other side, and I frown. He’s never bothered to knock before.

“Come in?” I’m sure he can hear the confusion in my voice. When he steps into the room, I look at him quizzically. “Youknocked?”

He frowns. “I was trying to be polite. Are you ready to go? The weapons are downstairs. We’ll suit up and then leave.”

“Yeah, I’m ready.” I shake my head, trying to clear it. I’d stopped thinking about how different things felt, how I’m more off-balance with him than ever, and then he fuckingknockedbefore coming into the room. “Is that a habit of yours now? Knocking before you come to collect your possessions?”

Savio’s frown deepens, but he doesn’t take the bait. He just steps to one side so that I can leave the room, before following me down the stairs to where the guns, knives, and ammo are laid out on the counter.

I quickly take two of the clips, stashing them in my pockets, and slide the gun into the holster under my hoodie. When I look up, I catch Savio looking at me appraisingly, clear approval on his face. “What?” I ask, more snappishly than need be, but his new attitude is throwing me off. Back at the cabin,everythingwas different, but here, this more human side of him feels more blatantly out of place.

So what? Do I want him to go back to forcing me to my knees and making me crawl for him? Oblige his every whim and call him ‘sir’ and ‘master’?

Of course not,I think irritably, picking up a knife. But the more human he becomes, the more I see the sides of him that I like. The more he treatsmelike a partner and not a possession, the harder it is to remember that nothing, for me, has really changed.

I take a deep breath, sliding the knife into the sheath on my thigh. Having the weapons has started to feel like a comfort. It was awkward and difficult when I first started to train with Savio, but like so much else, it’s changed. Now, I feel stronger with them. More powerful. Capable of using them to protect myself and put an end to the men who have hurt me.

“I have someone watching the restaurant,” Savio says, holstering his gun under his jacket. “It closed a few minutes ago, and the last of the customers are leaving. Francis and Martin are both there, no backup. We should be clear to leave and head that way—by the time we get there, it will be just the two of them.” He pauses, his eyes narrowing. “Same as the last job,principessa. We go in together, we take them out. No games, no seduction. We’re not doing that any longer.”

“I hadn’t planned on it.” I pull the black beanie over my head, tucking my blonde hair underneath it. “It’s not a game I want to play anymore, anyway.”

“Good.” Savio’s gaze holds mine for a moment, and I can’t quite read what’s there—if he’s glad because he simply doesn’t want to share what belongs to him, even as a game…or if there’s something more to it.

I don’t want there to be more to it.If I matter to him as more than a possession, then it complicates everything. So long as I mean nothing to him beyond the cold, calculating purpose that he bought me for in the first place, then I don’t have to thinkabout whether my plans are right or wrong. He’s meant to be lumped in with all of the others who hurt me, and I don’t want this to be complicated. I don’t want to feel anything for him.

“Let’s go.” I look at him, hoping that he doesn’t see any of what I’m thinking in my face. Savio nods, and we both head out, down to the waiting car.

The restaurant in question is a tiny Italian place in Hell’s Kitchen. It’s incredibly stereotypical for a man who used to work for the son of an Italian capo—but who knows? Maybe the food actually is excellent. It’s closed, the main dining room dark with the blinds pulled down, and the only light is coming from a back door that must lead to an office. The driver parks around back in the shadows, near a back fence, and Savio and I slip out of the car.

We work well together.A fucking modern-day Bonnie and Clyde, I think bitterly, as we move in sync through the shadows of the parking lot, towards the back door of the restaurant. I can still smell the hint of spices and fried food hanging in the air, and despite the meal I ate earlier, my stomach rumbles a little. It smells good.

Savio smirks. “Want me to take you to dinner after?” he murmurs in a hushed tone, and I glare at him, drawing my finger across my lips to tell him to shut up. We’ve come this far, I’m not about to fuck this up now. Especially not for a quip from a man who shouldn’t be talking to me like that.That’s not our relationship,I want to hiss back.You can’t change it now, just because you think you know me.But I keep my mouth shut, lips pressed tightly together as we approach the back of the restaurant, and Savio lets me go first. Another surprise.

The door isn’t locked, likely because they’re still finishing up tasks for the evening. I whisper a silent prayer in my head that everyone, other than Francis and Martin, really is gone. I don’t want there to be collateral damage from this. I don’t want tohave to shoot a cook or a lingering server because they’ve seen us. But Savio’s man said it was all clear, and I have to trust that’s the case.

Carefully, I pull the back door open, craning my neck to get a glimpse of what’s past it. There’s a long hallway leading back to the kitchen, with a door immediately to the right, a meat freezer past that, and then the opening that I suspect leads to the servers’ hallway and out into the restaurant itself. The door to the right is probably the office.

Motioning to Savio, I slip into the hallway, my hand ready to go for my gun at the slightest movement from anywhere else. I move closer to the closed door, and I can hear men’s voices on the other side, discussing the books. Two of them.

Savio slips in behind me. I nod, gesturing to the door and miming ‘two’ with my fingers, and then I step forward, waiting for his assent before I go for the knob.

He nods, and I twist the door open and pull.

It takes a second for Francis and Martin to realize what’s happening. They’re bent over a ledger and calculator, and I’m in the room with Savio behind me, my gun in my hand and the safety clicked off just as Francis looks up, his face draining bone-white.

“What the fuck?—”

“Just taking out the trash. Tell Barca that Nicci said I hope he’s getting fucked in hell.”

I pull the trigger. Out of the corner of my eye, I hear Martin shout and see him scrambling to his feet, his hand going for something. “Savio!” I snap, and I feel him push past me as Francis’ body slides to the floor, blood pouring from the wound in his head. I hear the sound of his gun going off, the sharpcrackhurting my ears even with the silencer. At the same moment, I see the flash of something black out of the corner of my eye—as another gunshot goes off.

Blinding pain tears through me, originating from my shoulder. I’ve never felt pain like it before. It’s bright, hot, consuming every thought and making my fingers go nerveless. I feel my gun drop from my hand as I crumple, my other shoulder striking an office chair as I go down to the tile floor. Distantly, I think I hear Savio shout my name, hear another gunshot, and I see Martin hit the floor through blurry vision.

But I can’t think. Can’t fully make sense of any of this. I thought I’d known pain before, but nothing could possibly compare to this. It takes over everything until it feels like it’s all I can do just to keep breathing.

My vision is blurry. Savio is leaning over me, saying my name, picking me up. I can’t respond. I can’t form words or even think of what I would say. Instead, I can only let him pick me up, curling in on myself as the pain rips through me, tears spilling down my cheeks.

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