I shivered. “You killed him.”
“Yeah,” he said, nodding. “The dealer was a bad guy. I try not to kill good men, but sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference in my line of work.”
“Your line of work,” I repeated, feeling my lips curve.
“You know. Dentist, accountant, mafia right-hand man. They’re all the same, right?”
I rolled my eyes. “I know you’re joking, but I hate that you have to kill people, or face danger at all. Did you ever considernotchoosing to work for Michael?”
Sighing, his gaze fell to his lap. “It’s not that easy, especially when it’s your family. Michael gave me everything, and he’s a good man—or, the best man someone can be in our world. He offered me the choice to have a life outside the mafia, but it didn’t feel right.” His eyebrows drew together. “I just always felt my place was by his side.”
“It’s honorable that he wants to eradicate human trafficking, but he’s still in the mafia, surrounded by drugs and laundering and all the other illegal activities that entails.”
Nick nodded. “Yes, he’s a product of his environment, like I am. He’s dead set on eliminating human trafficking, and although he hates drug trafficking, he’s more realistic on that issue.”
“Realistic how?” I asked, genuinely interested in how Michael’s views differed from my dad’s.
“I think he realizes that drugs are never going away. So, even if he eliminates them from his empire, they’re going to be trafficked by someone else. He thinks that he might as well be involved at the highest levels and have some control. He detests fentanyl, so he has a team that makes sure all the fentanyl that comes in through the ports is destroyed.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “And the other drugs?”
“He lets the rest through, but monitors them heavily. Again, it’s better than having someone else involved. There are some evil narco-terrorists down in Miami and the Caribbean who traffic only in fentanyl. It’s better to have Michael destroying it and regulating the ports than to have guys like Marco Nunez up here pushing that shit in our area.”
“He seems like a really bad guy,” I said softly. “Dad was just beginning to work with him, I think.”
“Yeah, John’s got his eye on him, which is worrisome,” Nick said. “Marco traffics women too. He’s a real son of a bitch.”
“Then I guess Michael is the lesser of two evils,” I admitted. “I was worried he was using Mom to take over my dad’s empire, but he seems to really care about her. I was contemplating giving him the flash drive with Dad’s Eastern European contacts over Christmas.” Blowing out a breath, I shook my head. “I should’ve just done it sooner. Then, we’d never be stuck here.”
“You created leverage for you and your mom in a world where you’d been left with nothing,” Nick said. “It was smart. I get why you did it.”
“If I’d just given the info over, Michael wouldn’t have needed to protect us. I know he wanted to marry Mom to claim ‘Victor Rossi’s widow,’” I made quotation marks with my fingers, “but I wasn’t sure that was enough to keep us safe.”
Nick’s eyebrow arched. “Michael is head over heels for your mom. He would’ve taken any excuse to marry her. But he was your dad’s rival for a long time. I get not trusting him.”
“Or you,” I teased, grinning. “I mean, you were such an ass to me. I hated you on sight.”
Heat entered his dark eyes. “You didn’t hate me last night.”
Breathing a laugh, I threw one of the couch pillows at him. “Screw you.”
“Maybe, if you’re lucky.” His voice oozed with confidence as he grinned.
I stood and held out my hand. “Give me your mug before I bang mine against your head and give you another concussion.”
He handed it to me and blew me a kiss.
I washed the mugs and returned to the couch, releasing a slow breath as I gazed out the window.
“So, what’s our plan?”
Nick’s cheeks puffed as he stared out the window too. “I’ll continue to heal, and hopefully the snow will let up tomorrow. After it stops, we should wait a few hours to make sure it won’t resume, and then we need to hike. We’re going to have to layer up with everything we have. We’ll wear John’s guys’ clothes and wrap up in the blankets and sheets, and I saw a few garbage bags in the kitchen we can use to cover our shoes and clothes. It’s not going to be fun, but we need to hike back toward the main road and getservice on the men’s phones. Once we have service, Michael will send someone to pick us up within hours.”
Worry covered my features as I looked at him. “What if John or his men find us first?”
“I’ll have the two guns, and I’ll protect us,” he said confidently. “But I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
“Why did they bring us up here anyway?” I gestured around the cabin.
