Page 50 of Mafia Men Need Love Too
Well, that wouldn’t help her decide what to do with Jeremy. Not unless there were two rain barrels in the potting shed. “Could we frame him for a crime and get him arrested?” she asked.
“I’d rather not. I don’t trust him not to flip and testify against us.”
Hmmm. She hadn’t thought of that. Made sense, though. “Why don’t we just give him to the Russians?” she suggested. “Isn’t that what Alexi wanted all along?”
“Y-you can’t do that!” Jeremy stammered.
Nico nodded. “We could.”
“What will the Russians do to him?”
He shrugged. “It depends. If he’s able to convince Alexi he’s useful, he’ll live. If not, he’ll die. Are you good with that?”
Oddly enough, she was. What did she care if Alexi got a black mark on his soul? That fucker tried to sex traffic her. “I’m comfortable with it.”
Nico called for Van, who appeared out of nowhere and hauled a sputtering Jeremy and a stone-faced Ricky away.
“If their legs somehow got broken in transit, I wouldn’t cry about it,” River grumbled.
The grin Van gave in response made Ricky go pale and a wet spot spread across the front of Jeremy’s pants.
When they were finally alone, River felt like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She was marrying an amazing man who gave her orgasms like it was his damn job, Russians would never show up in her kitchen to sex traffic her, and vengeance against her scumbag ex was hers. For the first time in a long time, she had hope that everything in her life was finally going to be OK.
That’s when Nico (and his impressively furrowed brow) looked up at her from underneath his thick lashes and said, “There’s no need to go through with the wedding now. You’re finally free, fiorellino.”
Her heart sank into her shoes.
Fucking hope. That hateful bitch got her again.
Chapter 28
Nico’s heart raced as he waited for River’s response. His skin suddenly felt two sizes too small. Was it hot in here? It felt like all the air was being sucked out of the room. He tugged at his tie, loosening it before the damn thing choked him.
Was this…was he having a panic attack? Was this what it felt like to be nervous about something?
Shit, if this is what normal people felt regularly, how the hell did they get anything done? He had no idea.
What he did know was that if River didn’t say something soon, he might implode right where he fucking stood.
She opened her mouth like she was going to speak, then snapped it shut and narrowed her eyes on him. This happened three more times. Eventually, she asked, “What do you mean I’m free?”
Her voice was so calm and so cold that if he wasn’t watching her mouth move, he would’ve assumed someone else was speaking. “Exactly what I said. With Ricky out of the way, no one is plotting against me. And once the Russians have Jeremy, they won’t have any reason to go after you. There’s no reason to continue with an arranged marriage. Or marriage of convenience. Or whatever.”
She stared at him for so long he actually started fidgeting, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He was pretty sure he’d never fidgeted in his life.
This fucking sucks.
After a few slow blinks, she asked, “I thought if we didn’t get married, Alexi would think we’d lied to him, and he’d be honor bound to retaliate.”
The snarky emphasis she put on the words honor bound, his words from the night they met, not to mention the little finger quotes she made, grated along his already frayed nerves. “That was true. But after tonight, it won’t matter. Alexi believed we were happy at the rehearsal dinner. All we’d have to do is make up some excuse, call the whole thing off, and he wouldn’t care anymore—especially once he’s personally dealt with Jeremy.”
“What kind of excuse?”
He cursed under his breath. “Who cares?”
“I care,” she said, the chill in her voice dropping the room temperature by ten degrees.
“We can say anything you want. Maybe, I don’t know, I cheated on you.”
