Page 17 of Her Dark Mafia Protector
“But youdohave strings that you can pull, don’t you?” she asks. “You have many connections in the mafia, with all the big players.”
“If any of them were involved, I would have known about it. The families have small circles where rumors and whispers abound.”
“How can you be so sure?” she asks as she gets ready to use my own words against me. “You told me yourself that you don’t work for anyone and that you don’t trust anyone. Maybe they’re just not telling you because they know you let me live.”
“No one knows what happened in that alley besides you and me,” I say with certainty. “And like I’ve said already, I’d be much more suspicious of the lead detective on that case,your father, than I would be of a handful of mafia bosses who couldn’t care less about an innocent woman whose sole focus in life was on raising her daughter to be a good woman in a city full of terrors.”
Elle’s face sours with continued disappointment. “I’m not going to stop looking into you,” she says as if she’s challenging me to make her. “You’re the only piece of that puzzle that I have.”
“No, I’m not.”
We’re at a standstill. She refuses to open her mind to the possibility that her father was involved in her mother’s murder, and I refuse to admit to myself that this is all turning into so much more than just protecting her. We both came here for answers. She wanted to know why I didn’t shoot first that night, and I wanted to know what kept driving her to chase after me. Yet here we are, both dancing around the answers to our most important questions, and neither of us is ready for the truth.
CHAPTER 13
ELLE
“If you’re trying to get me to say that my father is adifficultman, then yes, I agree,” I say as I get more and more frustrated with Nico’s verbal evasion.
“Difficult is not the word I would choose,” he says. “Corruptis.”
My father and I might not get along, and I’ll be the first in line to admit how much he absolutelysuckedat providing me the emotional support that I needed after my mom died. I’d even go so far as to admit that therehavebeen some questionable things that my father has gotten himself involved in down at the police station. But I chalk most of that up to the “boys in blue” being a bit of a misogynistic club that the cops and detectives, and even some in the judicial circuit, take part in. As much as that doesn’t make it right, and as much as I’m frequently disappointed in my father’s behavior, it’s still a far cry from accusing him of corruption or being directly involved in covering up the investigation surrounding my mother’s death.
“What reason would my father have for interfering with the investigation of hisown wife’smurder?” I ask. “You make it sound like my father is the bad guy here, but he’s not the onewho pulled the trigger that night,orwho sat and watched my mom get shot and killed.”
“I know you want to make me the villain in your story, Elle,” Nico says as the tension escalates between us again. “And trust me, I could be the villain in many people’s stories—but I amnotone in yours. I did my best to save you that night, and I had nothing to do with your mother’s murder. I don’t know who the shooter that night was, and I haven’t been able to uncover anything about it since.”
“Hang on a second, do you mean that you’velooked?” I don’t know why, but I’m surprised to hear that he would have delved into what happened to my mom any further than his own involvement in the alley.
“Yes.”
“Why? Was it because you knew I was tracking you and digging for answers?”
“No,” he shakes his head. “It was because I wanted an answer to that night myself. I don’t like it when there are unresolved loose ends. I wanted to find out who would want to kill an innocent woman and the wife of a detective, andwhy. But the only thing I was able to uncover was that the case surrounding her death was closed very quickly and lacked any substantive resolution.”
I’m so angry over that fact. I was so young at the time that it wasn’t like I could press my father to do more or argue with him when he didn’t, and maybe my anger toward Nico nowisa bit misdirected. Regardless, I’m furious that no one other than me batted an eye over the elimination of a woman as wonderful as my mom.
“So, you think that just because you weren’t able to find out anything either, that suddenly means it’s my father’s fault?” I lash out at him. “That’s rich. If my father made a mistake in his oversight of the investigation, I’m sure there would have been hell to pay. He has a superior to report to, and it’s not like there weren’t other people overseeing the investigation, too. Perhaps you should consider the fact that he wasgrievingand that he might not have been as clear-headed as he should have been. Mistakes happen—you should know. You made one yourself that night by not acting sooner.”
Nico grimaces as if my words hurt him. For a guy who prides himself on being detached and emotionless, he’s doing a poor job of keeping to that mantra right now, here withme. “How many times do I have to tell you that I did my best that night?”
“Yourbest?” My emotions are frantic, and my voice is nearing the point of shouting at him. We’ve been talking about all of this for over an hour, and yet somehow, I feel like I’m even more lost and confused now than I was before I drove all the way out here to his hidey-hole in the desert.
“How can that be true? You’re theGhost. You’re best is supposed to be perfect. You’re supposed to be able to see and hear everything, to act flawlessly and instantly. Your name is whispered on the lips of even the most powerful mafia bosses as if you’rerevered. And yet all you have to say for yourself about that night is that you blame my father for a botched investigation and that you did yourbest?”
Heat flushes my face. I can feel it warming my cheeks and stinging my eyes. I willnotstart crying. He won’t see any weakness in me. I refuse. Instead, I let my anger boil until I feel as if I might explode.
“Youfailedthat night,” I grit out, fighting hard to hold onto my emotions and my grief before it overwhelms me. “You think that you failed on the nighthewas killed because you acted too soon. But on the night my mom was killed, you failed because you acted toolate.”
Nico stares at me intensely. I can’t read his expression well enough to know if he’s going to discard my outrage or let it anger him to the point of doing somethingdangerous. It doesn’t matter. I meant what I said, and I don’t care if he lashes out at me. At this point, if I can’t get closure on the one thing that has driven my life foryears, then what else is there for me to chase after? But to my surprise, as the apex of our volatile confrontation erupts into a surge of heated, conflicted emotions on both our behalves, Nico doesn’t react aggressively toward me—at least not in the way that I might have expected.
He gets up and rounds the table slowly, as if he’s trying to keep himself carefully restrained and not act recklessly while emotions are running unchecked. He stands beside my chair, and I get to my feet to meet him on even footing. I want him to know that he doesn’t intimidate me. The racing of my heart would beg to differ, but I’m not entirely sure that it’sintimidationcausing that to happen or the nearness with which Nico now hovers over me. His piercing cold blue eyes stare through me just as they have in my memories and dreams for all these years. He might be theGhost, but he’s too breathtakingly handsome to be an apparition. I want to hate him so badly that it makes my skin burn. But despite myself, I can’t stopwantinghim too.
For a frozen moment, I hold my breath, and he holds his tongue. But then, that moment breaks.
“I didn’t fail that night in the alleyway, Elle, because I savedyou.” As soon as the last word leaves his mouth, something cracks wide open inside of Nico. Without warning, he reaches out to grab me and pulls my body against his.
I don’t resist. I don’t even try to. I melt against him as he puts his mouth on mine, and I feel the ground shift beneath me.
