Page 12 of Taming Nikki

Blowing out smoke, she returned her attention to me. “Wasn’t planning on coming here tonight. I had better things to do. But since you decided to stick your nose in my business, I figured I’d return the favor.”

Technically, she was right. I started it by having her tailed, but I obviously underestimated her, because I never thought she’d be ballsy enough to come here, especially alone.

“And what makes you think you’ll be leaving here alive?”

She pulled another drag of her cigarette while reaching into her shirt. Why the fuck was that so sexy? She pulled out a USB, holding it lazily between her extended fingers.

“Know what this is?”

I didn’t answer. I wasn’t playing games with her.

“Probably not. I built it myself. It’s a funny little virus. It’ll destroy whatever system I plug it into and anything on that system’s network.” I ground my teeth, my hand moving toward the small of my back where I kept my gun. I didn’t want to shoot her, it’d screw with the deal I was making with her papa, but I wasn’t letting her anywhere near my system with that shit.

She chuckled. “Before you decide to shoot me, you should know something. See, I figured I’d be in situations like this one. So I put a timer on it. One hour. If I don’t disable it by then, it goes live. Doesn’t really matter if you destroyed the original system either. It’s in your network by now.”

Shock washed over me and I hesitated. She smirked. “Remember what I told you earlier, Vitale? You shouldn’t have pissed me off. I’ve been here a while. You really should look into better security.”

I dropped my hand, clenching them into fists at my sides. “What the fuck do you want?”

She took one last drag of her cigarette before putting it out. She dropped her feet to the floor and stood, gliding across the room until she stopped in front of me, crossing her arms.

“Let’s keep it simple, shall we? You keep your nose out of my business, I’ll keep mine out of yours. That includes keeping it to yourself. If I hear my papa’s been informed, I’ll destroy your system and hand over every bit of information I can get my hands on to the highest bidder. Deal?”

My jaw hurt from how hard I was clenching it. Backed into another fucking deal I didn’t want to take. Because of my idiot security, I didn’t have any other choice. I didn’t know if she was bluffing or not and it was too dangerous to try and call her on it.

“Fine. Deal.”

She laughed, low and sultry, and patted my chest, giving me a sympathetic look. “Don’t worry, you aren’t the first one who was stupid enough to try and mess with me. I doubt you’ll be the last.”

She moved around me, ready to walk away, but I grabbed her wrist on instinct before she could pass me. She paused, lifting her gaze to mine. I didn’t really have a plan for what I was going to say to her and she could see it in my face. She tipped her head with a smirk. “Clock’s ticking, Vitale. Cinderella needs to be home before the time runs out.”

I leaned closer, my grip tightening ever so slightly. “I’ll be seeing you again soon.”

“Oh, I’m counting on it.” She winked at me.

Fucking brat. She walked away as I released her, the crowd of guys outside my office parting for her as she passed by. I honestly couldn’t tell if I wanted to shoot her or fuck her right now. I stood frozen in my office, listening to her heels click as she disappeared down the hall.

“Um… Boss? Did you want us to follow her?”

The question pushed me out of the haze she left me in and I marched forward, ignoring them. I dropped into the seat she so lazily lounged in while she waited for me, flicking on the monitor, and couldn’t help the bark of laughter as I saw the message she left on the screen.

“Fucking brat.”

She changed the background to my computer to a simple message:‘You should really use a password. You never know who might be sneaking around.’

I rubbed my jaw to smother my grin, resisting the urge to chase her down and paddle her ass.

I didn’t bother looking through the computer. I left that to one of the guys to see if she was telling the truth or not. Instead, I focused on the breach in my security. The way I felt, someone would probably die tonight.

I spent most of the night figuring out what to do about Nicole Morelli. I may have let her leave, but I wasn’t letting her off that easily. The guys found the virus, but she disabled it like she said she would before they could look into it more. I had wanted them to try and fix it themselves so I’d be able to use it against her, but she was fast. She must’ve disabled it right as she got home instead of waiting for the clock to run out.

I thought about trying to get one of my guys to hack her back but that might breach the deal we agreed on and I didn’t want her anywhere near my system. She was already here, I had no idea what she could’ve left behind because I was stupid enough not to put a password on the computer. I normally had one but the system was recently upgraded and I hadn’t gotten around to putting in a new one. It should’ve been guarded, no one was even supposed to make it down the hallway past the bathrooms. Jimmy was lucky I shot him in the knee instead of the head like I wanted to. He only lived because Nicole kept her end of the deal.

It was only after I got a call from her father that an idea popped into my head. It would be the longest punishment known to man, but I thoroughly looked forward to seeing the look on her face. She fucked with the wrong guy.

* * *

It was just before lunch the following morning that I made my way back to Morelli’s house. He still didn’t know about the change in plan and I wanted to talk about it in person, in case this fucking family was hiding anything else. That, and I wanted to see Nicole. She was under my skin and I was itching to fuck up her day a little.

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