Page 82 of Little Deer
Maybe I’ll have to plan on a few spankings for her for teasing me…
Soren suddenly lets out an angry squeak, and I pull myself out of my thoughts as soon as Lucy pulls away from me. She walks up to Nico, her expression going from hesitant to determined in one breath. “He needs to be changed and fed,” she tells him, holding out her hands.
Nico nods, and hands her the baby without any fuss. Soren burrows into his mother, and I see the tension in Lucy’s shoulders relax. Before she can step away, though, Nico says, “I’ve set up a trust for his education.”
Lucy freezes, as does the entire room. None of us expected him to say that. I narrow my eyes at him. What the hell is he doing?
“What?” Lucy finally manages to get out, staring at him like she’s sure he’s lost his mind.
Nico scowls. “You think I’m so heartless to not take care of my nephew? You might not think it, but we’re family. And that’s the shit we do.”
“You don’t have to?—”
“Yes, I do.” He nods his head at me. “He’ll have his own set up for him, but if things don’t work out between you, the money is there for him for his future. Twenty million in there for now and he can access it when he’s twenty five, or earlier if you need it for something important. I’ve also set up a fund of five million for you to access for anything you need. Move out of that tiny ass apartment and get something better if you stay in the city. If you move with these assholes to Sicily, you’ll have your own money since I’m starting to realize that all you women don’t like to be dependent on the rest of us even though it’s our literal fucking jobs.” His annoyed gaze sweeps over all the women, including Kida, Rori and Sofia.
Sofia rolls her eyes, while Rori narrows her eyes at him in warning. Kida just looks downright mistrusting, like she’s waiting for the catch.
If Lucy was shocked before, she looks floored now. Even Gia looks surprised, but then her gaze turns soft, understanding.
I get what he’s doing, even if Lucy doesn’t yet. Nico isn’t one for an apology, and he isn’t one that will ever do feelings and easy conversations. He’s not built that way. This is how he’s going to build the bridge. With all of them, but especially Lucy because of Soren.
“Well, if I knew you were giving out money, Boo Bear, I’d have put in my request,” Alessio jokes. “Unless of course you don’t want that on the books because you’re still ashamed of us.” He gives him a dramatic pout, and we all snicker. Nico glares at him.
“You’re lucky I can’t shoot you right now,” he threatens. “Again. And this time, I won’t purposely miss.”
Lucy takes advantage of everyone being distracted and moves to the back of the room, grabbing a blanket to cover herself. Kida moves to sit with her, and I keep a close eye on them out of the corner of my eye. I don’t want Lucy stressed out more answering her sister’s questions.
Papa, thankfully, gets everyone else back on track in the conversation. “Alright, we have a lot of stuff here. After talking everything through, I think we have a consensus on what we know, yes?”
“We know that the De Lucas are a big pile of shit,” Sienna states cheerfully. She looks at Gia. “You’re an Armani now, so you’re not included in that.” Gia nods, smiling as she leans her head against Nico. He’s got his arm tight around her, and the look on his face says he fully agrees with Sienna’s statement. “We also know that all of this has been brewing for a long time. The whole thing with Nico and Gia kind of just lit the fuse and set it all off.”
“And we have so many families wrapped up in it all that it makes it a huge mess,” Amara agrees. “But I think we have a timeline that we can work with. Esposito and Nico’s mother contrived this plan to create a human trafficking network, though to be fair they might use the routes for other things. They needed to have routes in the other territories though, and it’s possible that Esposito saw this as a way of taking over the entire city without being obvious about it.”
“Then when Seamus and Nico’s mother fell in love, they had the Armani and Irish networks to grow their businesses. It worked, until they wanted to expand even more,” Rori agrees. “She gets involved with Leonardo and Giovanni. Mostly Leonardo, but clearly there was some reason she got mixed up with Giovanni too.”
“Her journal probably has that reason when we eventually get through it all,” Lazaro points out.
Amara nods. “So, then we have all three territories involved, and Esposito has his sister doing all the numbers, money and other things to make sure things run smoothly, while being the one to talk to Leonardo, Giovanni, and possibly even Seamus. I know they loved each other, but would Seamus have really respected Nico’s mother enough to discuss the business with her so indepth? To trust her? This world doesn’t seem to like women in charge.”
“Very possible that’s exactly what happened,” Nico states. “My mother was fucking clever, I’ll give her that, and if she wanted something done, she knew how to push buttons and pull strings without making herself seem to be the one to come up with it. She did it with my father.”
“I think that’s the part that I’m not understanding. What about Nico’s father? How did they manage all this without him finding out? Look, I know that she was acting like a drunk, or an addict or whatever, but she had to have slipped up a few times? No one can pull that kind of act off all the time. Especially in private. Did they share a room?” Amara asks Nico.
Nico shakes his head. “Not for as long as I could remember. She had her own private suite, the one Gia used to use. My father spent all his time with his mistresses or men. The majority of the time he ignored her.”
Amara frowns but nods. “Alright, so it’s possible then that he never saw anything.”
“But the staff would have,” Sofia points out. “And if any of the staff weren’t loyal to her and to Nico’s father, they’d have told him.”
“But even if they did, I doubt he would have believed them,” Nico argues. “My father thought my mother an idiot and addict. He probably would have wrote it off as her being on one of her binges.”
“Who did you kill first, your father or mother?” Rori suddenly asks, watching him.
Nico doesn’t even flinch at her question, but I see Lucy do it out of the corner of my eye. I look over at her as Nico answers, “My father. My mother lived another six months before I finally figured out what was happening.” Lucy swallows hard, and then her eyes lift to mine and hold. I give her a reassuring look, hold her gaze the entire time until she relaxes. She might not like the discussion, but she knows it was for the best. Eventually things like this won’t faze her.
Or if they do, she’ll come to me to help her.
“So even if your father did know about whatever was going on, she had six months to run the entire operation without worrying about him. And she probably didn’t worry about you because you were too focused on filling his role,” Rori continues, watching Nico. Nico nods.
