Page 48 of Mafia Men Need Love Too
Chapter 27
Nico was actively avoiding talking to her.
The entire time she’d known him, he’d been nothing but open, honest, and communicative. Until tonight.
Since they left the rehearsal dinner, he’d taken two calls, talked to Enzo about his schedule after the wedding, and spent a significant amount of time texting with Van. And none of it sounded important.
So, in between all his other conversations, she’d mouthed to him that they needed to talk. His brow had furrowed, he’d nodded solemnly, and immediately gone back to ignoring her.
Now, she was pissed.
She barely waited for the SUV to stop before she threw the door open and leapt out. Maybe a visit with Feather would get her blood pressure under control and make her not want to murder her fiancé.
Nico called after her, but she ignored him. Payback is a bitch, isn’t it?
He caught her halfway to the aviary. “I need you to come with me.”
She threw her hands wide in frustration. “Oh, so now you want me to talk. After ignoring me for the past hour and a half?”
His chin hit his chest. “I know, and I’m sorry, OK? But I can explain everything. I just need you to come with me. Now.”
She wanted to say no. Just to be contrary and exercise her newly found feistiness. It wouldn’t serve her, though. Not when she wanted to know what was going on more than she wanted her next breath. Crossing her arms over her chest, she grumbled, “Fine.”
But she remained stubbornly silent and refused the hand he offered her going down the basement steps. She was so busy trying to convey how angry she was with him that it didn’t occur to her until they’d walked down a long hallway into the farthest corner of the house that she’d never been in the basement before. In fact, she’d had no idea this house even had a basement, let alone an unfinished one like this with concrete floors and walls, lowish ceilings, drains in the floor and…
Two beaten, bloodied and bruised men chained to metal chairs, dirty rags shoved in their mouths. One of them lifted his half-swollen-shut eyes to hers, and she couldn’t hold back a gasp.
“Jeremy,” she whispered.
Her ex yelled something she couldn’t quite decipher behind his makeshift gag. Given how he looked, she imagined he was begging for her help.
River had never seen Jeremy looking like…this. Even after a night of drinking and gambling (and spending all her money), he’d never looked disheveled and desperate. Now, his skin was pale (except for the bruises), he seemed to have lost a substantial amount of weight, and his blond hair was dirty and matted with something. Maybe blood? She wasn’t sure. What she did know was that seeing him suffering like this made her feel…
Nothing.
She felt nothing for him. Not sorrow, not pity, not empathy, not even anger or glee. She simply didn’t care that he was suffering. Especially not when he was willing to stick her with his debt to the Russians that he knew she couldn’t pay off. Not with money, anyway.
Next to him was a man with coloring similar to Nico’s, wearing what was once probably a nice suit. It was now little more than a bloody rag. Ricky LaRusso, she presumed. The man she should’ve kidnapped that night at the club.
“Where have they been hiding?” she asked impassively.
“Off the grid, according to Ren,” Nico said. “In a trailer park on the east side of town.”
“Really? With all the money he stole from me, I figured he’d at least be staying in a nice hotel.”
Nico scoffed. “That money ran through his fingers like water. It was spent before he stole it.”
River gestured to his gag. “Can I talk to him?”
Nico pulled the rag from Jeremy’s mouth, looked him dead in the eye, and said, “If you scream, I don’t care. No one will help you, but I won’t hold it against you. But disrespect her, and I’ll punch a hole through your chest and rip out your spine. Do you understand?”
River shivered. Her fiancé was a walking, talking morally gray hero from a dark romance novel, and when they left this basement, she was totally going to blow him.
Jeremy swallowed hard and nodded. His eyes shifted to River. She waited for him to say something. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected. An apology, maybe? But he remained stubbornly silent.
Typical. Once again, it was up to her to initiate a conversation. The emotional labor she was expected to endure with this asshole was apparently never-ending. “You stole from me.”
His eyes darted to Nico before landing on her again. “We were married. Half of that money was mine.”
