"I need to get my daughter and leave."
"And go where?" He doesn't move toward me, but his words pin me in place. "Back to your apartment that Jack knows about? The playground where he grabbed you today?" His jaw tightens. "The Bratva knows your name, Kristen. They know where you live. In thirty days, they'll come collecting, and they won't care that you didn't know about the debt."
My knees buckle.
I don't fall but I slide down the wall until I'm sitting on the hardwood floor with my back pressed against the wall.
This can't be happening.
This cannot be happening.
"Breathe." Nico's voice comes from somewhere above me. "You're not breathing."
He's right. My chest is locked tight, lungs refusing to expand. The room spins and spots dance at the edges of my vision.
Lily. Think about Lily.
I force air in. Hold it. Let it out.
Again.
Again.
When the spots clear, Nico is crouched in front of me. Not touching. Just... there. Watching me with those dark eyes.
"I hate you," I whisper.
His mouth twitches. Almost a smile. "I know."
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Nico
Iknew she would hate me.
I thought it wouldn't bother me. Everyone hates me eventually. Pietro tolerates me. Lorenzo finds me exhausting. Vittoria thinks I'm impossible. Bruno wants me dead most days. Even Dante, who drives me around without complaint, probably fantasizes about driving off a cliff with me in the backseat.
So when Kristen said it—when the truth finally clicked into place behind her eyes and she looked at me like I was something she scraped off her shoe—I expected the familiar numbness. The wall I built specifically for moments like this.
Instead, there's this dull ache in my stomach.
I watch her sitting down to the floor, knees pulled to her chest. She looks small. Breakable. The opposite of how she looked at that gala, standing over my mother with fire in her eyes and competence in her hands.
The urge to go to her is ridiculous.
I don't hug. I don't allow anyone to hug me. Physical contact that isn't violence makes my skin crawl. I read once that hugshelp people connect emotionally—something about oxytocin and bonding hormones. I filed that information away under "reasons to avoid physical affection."
I don't want connection.
Or I didn't.
Fuck.
"Kristen."
She doesn't look up. Her forehead rests on her knees, her hair falling forward like a curtain. Her shoulders shake once, twice, then still.
Most civilians think we're fiction. That's the thing nobody tells you about organized crime. People don't believe it exists outside Netflix shows and paperback novels. They look at families like ours and see "old money" or "corrupt businessmen" or "connected to politicians." They rationalize. They justify. They convince themselves the mafia died with Al Capone.
