Page 62 of Niccolaio Andretti (The Five Syndicates)
I reach out for his arm, stopping his movement but also nearly stopping my heart at the same time. He stares at my fingers and the way they firmly grip the massive bulk of his impressive biceps before I quickly pull them back, as if they’ve been scorched by the contact.
And they may as well have been.
I can still feel the heat from his body—from the attraction pulsing between us—against my fingertips.
“Just tell me where we’re going,” I say, shaking the aftereffects of the brief contact out of my head, hating myself for being so affected by him. I take a deep breath and take a risk, because he hasn’t killed me yet, so I figure he won’t. “I know you’re involved in the mafia.”
I sort of expected him to look startled, but he doesn’t.
He takes the revelation in stride, his eyes level on mine as he asks calmly, “How?”
“I saw Lucy Ives come in here a month ago. She used to live in my dorm hall, and she waved at me while letting herself into your home.”
He shakes his head slightly and mumbles something like, “So you’re the warning,” but it’s cryptic and not what I want to know.
I understand why we need to go. Obviously, this place has been compromised
. But wherever we go, I need it to be near Mina. So, even though I want to ask what he means by that, I redirect my words to more important things.
“I asked Lucy who you were when I picked up my things at Vaserley, and she was helping her friend move out of the dorms, too.”
“What did she tell you?” There’s interest in his eyes.
“Nothing. But it’s obvious you’re involved in mob activity. Lucy only hangs out with Asher, her guards, Asher’s family, and Aimee. And I think Lucy would have let me know if Aimee claimed you, so that leaves Asher. You could be one of his legitimate business contacts, but with all the bullets flying when you’re around, I’m betting that you’re someone from his mafia past.”
“Alleged,” Nick says, though there’s a look of amusement on his face.
I roll my eyes. “Alleged mafia past,” I correct myself. “I don’t care about the legalities. You know about my illegal past, and you have Mina to hang over my head, so just do me a favor and tell me where we’re going.”
“I’m already doing you a favor by taking you with me.”
“Fine. Then, do me another favor.”
He takes a moment to study me, and I guess whatever he finds satisfies him, because he answers, “We’re going to a safe house. I texted Vincent Romano, Asher’s… dad of sorts. He set one up for us to stay in for as long as we need.”
“And where is this safe house?”
“Hell’s Kitchen.”
I give myself a moment to consider the distance. That’s about a three dollars and nine minute subway trip to Mina’s group home. I can live with that, so I nod my head without further argument and take off to gather the few things I own from the beautiful room I never had a chance to stay in.
When I exit Nick’s brownstone to place my belongings in Nick’s trunk, I see a quick flicker of movement coming from the curtains in John’s bedroom. I roll my eyes at John’s nosiness, but I expect nothing less.
I’ve seen him obsessively checking his security feed from his phone before. One time, I watched him listen in on a bunch of blue blood moms gossip about their children’s upcoming cotillion while stretching across the street.
I didn’t even want to think about how he got audio over there.
In the back of my mind, I wonder if John is bothered by this. By my involvement, however odd it is, with Nick. After all, John and I were sort of together. Not exclusively or officially but together nevertheless.
At the same time, given that I saw my doppelganger earlier outside of John’s home, John is the one who’s actually with with someone else. Even though I shouldn’t be worried, I can’t help but be a little concerned.
If John is angry at me, he might take it out on me or Nick. I don’t think he knows about Mina, since we share different last names and I never talked about her when we were together, but John does know Nick.
John’s a powerful guy, and if he wants to, he can probably give Nick a hard time. At the same time, I can’t picture anyone going up against Nick. Not even Asher Black. So, I shake the dark thoughts out of my head and enter the brownstone, ignoring the ominously prophetic feeling of my suspicions.
And when I meet Nick in the basement and watch him inject a syringe full of sedatives into his prisoner’s neck, I groan, wondering how I went from being John’s gold digging girlfriend to Nick’s partner in crime.
It’s quiet on the drive to the safe house. Jax is laying unobtrusively in the back seat, knocked out and silent, thanks to the drugs Nick injected him with. Upon my insistence, his arms and limbs were bound earlier, and in addition to the gray duct tape over his mouth, he has one of my ratty scarves wrapped tightly around his eyes, several times over.
