Page 16 of Her Dark Mafia Protector
As tensions rise between us to the point of boiling over, and the two of us emotionally spar back and forth, I start to wonder what Nico’sactualgoal is in bringing me here. Is it to open lines of communication between us, or is it to expose somethingelse?
“Why am I here?” I ask, blurting out the desperate frustration that I feel. I still haven’t gotten answers relating to whyhedidn’t shoot my mother’s killer before he killed her. Instead, I’m being baited into talking about why my father may have failed to investigate it well enough.
“You’re here to learn the truth,” Nico says. “About me, about what happened that night, and maybe even about yourself and those who are closest to you.”
“You still haven’t told me the one thing that I want to know,” I scoff. “I’ve asked you repeatedly why you didn’t shoot before that man killed my mom. And from what I can gather based on yourveryvague explanations, you don’t know who he was and don’t know why you didn’t shoot him earlier. Am I missing anything? Because if that’s the truth, then consider me underwhelmed. It certainly does not live up to the reputation of the notoriousGhost Assassin. It makes you sound like any other of my criminal profiles—desperate, damaged, and deranged.”
“You know what your problem is?” he asks combatively.
“No, please tell me,” I say as I roll my eyes at him.
“You want to diagnose everyoneotherthan yourself. You can’t see your own compulsion, your own bias, or even your own family for what they actually are. You’re so desperate to blame that night onme,you’ve failed to look objectively at everything else. For fuck’s sake, Elle, stop and think about it. Why wouldIwant to kill your mother? She wasn’t involved in anything at all other than being a mother to you and the innocent wife of a crooked cop.”
“I don’t know why,” I frown at him. “But I?—”
“That’s exactly my point,” Nico interrupts. “Ifyourreputation is as good as I’ve heard it is, then after all the digging around into my life and trying to get into my head, don’t you think you’d be able to answer that question by now? You’re one of the best criminal profilers in Vegas. If you can’t answer why you think I’m to blame, then maybe you should consider the fact that I amnotto blame and someone elseis.”
CHAPTER 12
NICO
Trying to get Elle to see that I’m not the villain in her story is nothing short of exhausting. Iknowshe sees it. She’s too smart not to. She’s just being stubborn because if she admits to herself that she’s been chasing nothing more than a ghost all this time, then she’ll have to admit that the boogeyman that changed her life forever might still be out there. I don’t understand how she could be so blind to the fact that her father’s corruption runs deep in this city. If there were foul players to whom he owed a favor to, or who levied a threat against him, I wouldn’t put it past the bastard to have considered his wife collateral damage and hid the whole thing. Elle is resistant to me exposing the truths about her father’s challenging relationship with morality and ethics, but she’s not dumb. Somewhere deep inside, she knows that I’m telling the truth, and she knows I’m right.
“What is it that you want from me?” she asks as she furrows her brow.
Even when she’s frustrated and upset, she’s still lovely. It’s confusing to deal with someone like this—someone who I want to push away and pull closer at the same time.
“I want you to wake up and see the truth and the danger all around you before you wind up sharing the same fate as your mother,” I say without holding back.
“Is that a threat?”
“Of course not. If I wanted to kill you, then you’d be dead by now.” I can’t help but chuckle at that. “And I sure as hell wouldn’t have saved your life and put up with your constant intrusiveness in my life if I wanted you gone.”
My choice of words raises the heat between us, but not the argumentative kind of heat—somethingelse.
“I want you to stop digging and walk away from whatever happened that night,” I say as I try to keep my voice steady. “I’ll handle the killers in this city. You can keep profiling them, but drop this.”
“What, are you some sort of vigilante now?” she laughs sarcastically. “I thought you were part of theBratva.”
“Iam. And I’m neither a hero nor a vigilante here. But when I decide to protect something, I protect it to the ends of the earth. It’s just how I was made.”
For a second, Elle looks confused. “And you’ve decided to protectme?” she asks. “Why?”
Honestly, I don’t know the answer to that question. I don’t think I even knew it back when I saved her life in the alley that night. But there is something else on top of all of those uncertain feelings that drives me forward, a blurred line between justice and vengeance.
“I couldn’t save my brother,” I say. “I trusted the people around us who were supposed to be on our side and keep us safe. I’m afraid that you might be doing the same thing.”
Elle’s mouth opens as if she’s about to say something, but then she quickly shuts it again. To my utter surprise, she is finally speechless and without any further questions to bombard me with, at least for now. When she finally speaks, she sounds less sure of things than she did before.
“I came here for answers, and you haven’t given me much,” she grumbles. “At least not the answers that I need in order to move on from all of this.”
“You will never get all the answers that you need to move on,” I say, speaking from experience. “Trust me. Sometimes you need to be able to move onwithoutthe closure that you seek.”
“I don’t think I can do that. I’ve spent years of my life trying to solve this. You’re the only thing that’s kept me connected to that night, and to mymom.”
I can empathize with what she’s going through, even though I don’t want to give in to feelings like empathy at all. But just this once, I’m going to have to pause my brother’s warning so that I can give Elle a piece of learned advice.
“Your mother will always be a part of you, Elle, just like my brother will always be a part of me,” I say. “And you don’t need to take up a mantle or a new identity in order for that to happen. You just need to make peace with it and carry on with your life without carrying the burden of her death on your shoulders. You feel like you need answers, but you’re looking in the wrong place. I’m not the one who pulled those strings.”
