She pursed her lips. “Yes, I had Enzo bring her here because I couldn’t leave her alone for a few days. Are you ornithophobic or something?”
“No, I’m not afraid of birds. I just…I’m just surprised, is all. It’s an unusual pet.”
“I should’ve checked to make sure it was OK,” she admitted. “Honestly, though? I was afraid you’d say no.”
Given the fact that there was a parrot in his office and he had no intention of getting rid of it proved that denying River anything was beyond him.
Squawk. “A-E-I-O fuck you.” Squawk. “A-E-I-O fuck you.”
Nico lifted a brow at River, whose cheeks colored prettily. “She likes to run through her vowels when she’s upset. It’s how she self-soothes.”
“I don’t recall ‘fuck’ being a vowel.”
“We’re working on her potty mouth,” River said. “She was a rescue. Rescues sometimes have…issues.”
“You went to a shelter to rescue a pet and came out with a cursing parrot?”
She shot him an annoyed glare, and he wished he could say it wasn’t sexy. It was, though. “Yes, after my divorce, I went to the shelter to look into maybe adopting a cat or dog. But I took one look at Feather and knew we were kindred. Her owner was apparently a sweet old lady who’d become a recluse and who apparently cursed like a sailor. When she died, her son surrendered Feather to the shelter. Given the way she reacts to men, I assume he wasn’t kind to her before that happened, though.”
So, her stupid asshole of an ex made her feel like her kindred spirit was a cursing bird that had been abused by the man in her life?
Nico had already decided to track the son of a bitch down and make him pay for hurting River, but now? He was going to make it slow. And extra painful.
But he saw no need to tell her that. Not now, anyway. She’d already had what was probably the most stressful night of her life.
And it had only just begun.
Enzo stuck his head back in the office. “Boss? He’s here.”
“Thank you, Enzo. Please show him in.” To River, he said, “Can you keep your feathered friend quiet during the meeting?”
She bit her lip. “I can, but I’ll have to let her out of the cage. Are you OK with her sitting on my shoulder?”
The image of her sitting there with a parrot on her shoulder like a pirate queen made him chuckle. “Whatever it takes, fiorellino.”
She rushed to get the bird out of its cage and perched on her shoulder before the Russian entered the office. She’d just settled on the couch when Enzo ushered him in.
If you sat down and conjured a picture in your mind of a Russian mob boss, Alexi Petrov is what you’d see. Tall, imposing, and stone-faced with military-short black hair, eerie pale green eyes, tattoos circling his neck and covering his knuckles, Petrov looked like he’d been molded from birth for the Bratva.
If Nico had to fight someone, Petrov wouldn’t be his first choice. But Nico wasn’t intimidated. You didn’t become head of the mafia—any mafia—without supreme confidence in your ability to utterly obliterate your opponents if it came to that.
And no one was willing to obliterate an opponent as much as Nico was.
He stood and gestured to the chair in front of his desk. No point offering his hand. Mafia men didn’t shake hands. That’d just be weird. Why shake hands with someone you know would shank you for an extra inch of territory if they thought they could get away with it? “Thank you for coming, Alexi. It’s nice to see you again.”
It wasn’t. They both knew he was lying. But it’d be rude to tell him the truth, which was that he’d rather throat-punch him than look at him. So, there was that.
Alexi unbuttoned his suit jacket and took the seat he was offered. “Good to see you, too, friend.”
Nico nearly laughed out loud at that. Friend. Fucking right. He glanced over at River, sitting quietly on the loveseat, eyes wide, with her ridiculous pet perched on her shoulder. She looked terrified, and the bird looked like it was about to spout something inappropriate at any moment.
Actually, so did River, now that he thought about it.
Alexi followed his gaze. “There’s a bird in your office,” he said, brow furrowed.
Nico was glad he wasn’t the only one who tended to stupidly state the obvious when it came to River. “Alexi, I’m afraid I haven’t asked you here for social reasons.”
“I assumed as much.”
