Page 12 of Her Dark Mafia Protector
I can hardly wait until the following evening as I watch the hours tick down. It’s like waiting for Christmas morning, except instead of presents under the tree, I’m hoping to getanswers.
I drive out of the city and deep into the desert until the city looks like a tiny miniature model in my rearview mirror. When I think that I’m getting close to the coordinates, I see something up ahead—a small, dull, sand-colored building that does indeed blend in out here. It looks like the perfect safe house for an assassin who doesn’t want to be found. No one would have reason to venture out this far away from things to begin with. And even if they did, they’d likely either not see or not care about a house like this. He really does have a knack for staying invisible.
I park the car and walk up to knock on the front door, but when I do, there’s no answer. After knocking a few more times, this time even louder, there’s still no answer. I’m positive that I’ve gotten both the coordinates and the time correct. I walk around the house to see if maybe he’s outside, but there’s nothing here besides the house itself, not even a car. It looks like no one is even home.
The inside of the house is dim as I press my face against the front window to look inside. There aren’t any interior lights on. Perhaps something happened that held him up. Seeing as though I came out all this way, and that he isn’t even here, Iguess that makes this a prime opportunity for me to do some snooping around.
Luckily, I always keep a crowbar in the glove compartment of my car. It’s one of the few useful skills I learned from my dad. Honestly, they come in handy in more ways than you’d expect. After grabbing it and returning to the house, I go around to the back and find a window to pry open. I’m sure this isn’t exactly legal, but then again, I don’t think either Nico or I are playing by the rules.
Once I get the window open and crawl through, I step inside and find myself standing in the middle of a dark, modern-looking kitchen. Funny, it looks a lot less humble on the inside. Even with little light, I can make out the sleek appliances and the small blinking of a security camera in the ceiling’s corner.
For a second, it crosses my mind how odd it is that a house with a security system wouldn’t have an alarm go off by someone prying open a window and breaking inside. I’m just about to think that maybe the Ghost isn’t as impressive as everyone thinks he is, when a shadowy figure steps out of a dark corner. I let out a small shriek and jump out of my skin.
“Breaking and entry?” he asks with a dry grin on his face. “That seems beneath you, Elle Monroe, doesn’t it? I was thinking you had some moral high ground, but I guess I don’t need to worry about that anymore.”
“You’re the one who invited me here,” I say as I put both hands on my hips. I refuse to be intimidated by Nico, or at least I refuse to let him think I am. I don’t want to give him that kind of power over me. He already knows he controls too much space in my head. “So, this was your plan all along, then, was it? You wanted me to break into this house, which I’m guessing is probablyunder surveillance and might even be locked like a trap now that I’m inside. And all the while, you’re just waiting here in the corner for me to come, like a spider in a web.”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
“And what if I’d decided not to come?” I ask, angry that he has the upper hand right off the bat.
“I knew you would come,” Nico says. His voice isn’t teasing now. He’s dead serious. “You’ve been chasing me for far too long to give up now. You want answers more than you want pretty much anything else. That means you had no choice but to come get them from me.”
“Is that what this is about?” I ask skeptically. “Did you bring me all the way out here because you’re finally going to give me some answers?”
He hesitates for a moment before responding. And when he finally does, his answer once again sounds dead serious. “Perhaps. Either that or maybe I’ll figure out another way to keep you from continuing to dig around in my business.”
I’m not sure what “other” way he might be implying, but the thought of it serves to remind me that Nico is an assassin. And if the Ghost’s reputation is to be believed, he’s a ruthless,brutalassassin at that.
Suddenly, I feel a tinge of regret about having been so quick to come here alone. I knew it was dangerous, but I chose to come anyway because sometimes danger is the only way to the truth.
“You don’t scare me,” I say, feigning confidence that I don’t fully feel. “I’m not afraid of you.”
“Maybe you should be,” he says. “I thought you were smarter than to assume that you’d be safe alone with me.”
So did I. Something about the way he said that makes a heat fill my chest, and I can’t tell if it’s fear or something much more intense anddangerousthan that.
CHAPTER 10
NICO
Where do I even begin?
Now that Elle is here, all of my carefully thought-out plans seem to fall by the wayside. I brought her here to tell her just enough to get her to understand and to back off her relentless pursuit of me. I’d already decided which things I was going to tell her and which things Iwasn’t. I had responses planned for her questions, and diversions masquerading as answers to give in response to the questions I don’t want to answer. But now that Elle is here, standing in the dark room not more than a few feet from me, I seem to have trouble sticking to my plan.
She looks so beautiful, so strong, and soinnocent. And something inside of me feels an overwhelmingneedto protect her from all the things that threaten to ruin her life—some closer to her than she thinks.
When she asks me questions, my premeditated, well-laid answers falter. And I find myself in a position that I haven’t been in, not since the night my brother was killed — a position of reactingrecklessly.
“Why did you bring me here?” She asks as she stands there in the dimly lit room with the moonlight streaming through the window reflecting off her wide, hazel eyes.
She’s mesmerizing, and I hate it. Her mere presence next to me makes me want to reach out and sweep the waves of chestnut hair away from her face so that I can do something else reckless, something that I promised myself I would never allow—anintimateconnection with someone.
My brother’s warning flashes through my brain like a red alert.Don’t get involved. Stay detached. Do the job.
“I brought you here to talk,” I say plainly. “I want to answer some of your questions, so you will stop your obsessive pursuit of me.”
I motion toward the kitchen table for us to sit down and reach toward the wall to turn on the light. Elle pulls out a chair and sits.
