Page 109 of Sweet as Sin (Bad Habit 1)
Disgust crossed his face. “My mistake. We hadn’t talked in so long, and I thought he needed . . . ” Nico swallowed. His voice dropped. “I thought he would need to say good-bye. I thought it might help him. Obviously I was wrong.”
“So now what? We have to look over our shoulders for the rest of our lives?”
In Nico’s beautiful blue eyes I saw cold determination. “Now you let me do what I need to do. I’ll find him. I’ll fix this. And you won’t ever have to worry about him again.”
The vehemence in his voice frightened me. “‘Fix this’? And what would that involve, exactly?”
Taking me in his arms, he squeezed me against his chest. His heart pounded against mine. “I’d spend the rest of my life in prison if I knew it meant you’d be safe.”
Oh God. Was he talking about doing something . . . permanent?
“No!” I cried, pushing against his chest. “That’s not what I want! Yes, he’s a crazy fucker who watched us sleeping and trashed my house and I’d love to see you kick his ass, but not—not—”
“Kill him?” he interrupted, his voice flat.
I yanked away. Crossing my arms over my chest, I glared at him. “Don’t even say that as a joke!”
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
Panic washed over me in a hot, huge wave. “You can’t possibly mean that, Nico.”
Silent, he stared at me.
“Jesus! Let the police handle him! That’s what they’re for! They’ll find him, we can press charges—”
“They won’t find him!” Nico cut in. “He’s too smart to be found if he doesn’t wanna be. He’s lived off the grid his entire life, Kat. He’s a fuckin’ drug trafficker who’s never once been picked up by the cops. He’s never even gotten a fuckin’ speeding ticket! He’s got three different identities—that I know of—you think he doesn’t know a thousand ways to hide?”
Reeling from this new information, I had to grip the edge of the glass console table beside the door for support. “A trafficker. A drug trafficker. That’s a bit different from a dealer, Nico. How the hell can one of the most famous men in the country have a drug trafficker for a brother, and no one knows?”
His reply was instantaneous. “The same way he can have a sister everyone thinks is his girlfriend: lies that go so deep, nobody can find the roots.”
I stared at him, rocked to my core by the realization that perhaps I was only seeing the poisonous flowers of this plant of deception. What else could be festering underground in the dark?
My voice shaking, I asked, “How many other lies are there, Nico? What else don’t I know?”
He took a step toward me, eyes fixed on mine. “You know me. You know all the important things about me. Don’t start second-guessing that.”
“Considering I just this moment found out your brother’s real occupation, I think that’s a stretch.”
Anger darkened his face. “That’s a matter of degree, not a lie. I told you before the business he was in.”
“There are no degrees of truth, Nico! Something is either a lie, or it’s not!”
“Blacks and whites don’t exist in my world, Kat. Everything is shades of gray.”
“And I’m just supposed to accept that? Accept whatever you tell me without question? Especially now that I know you think it’s okay to give me the barest pencil sketch of reality?”
He stared at me long and hard, tension radiating off him in waves. “If you’re thinkin’ that I’m bein’ a macho dick, or tryin’ to get away with somethin’ by withholdin’ information, you’re wrong. I’m only tryin’ not to expose you to shit that’s ugly and fucked up, and can’t be changed anyway. I’m tryin’ to protect you, Kat.”
Furious, frustrated, I shouted, “And it never occurred to you that I might want all this ugly, fucked-up information before I agreed to marry you?”
Nico’s face turned chalk white. He looked as if I’d slapped him. He growled, “What the fuck does that mean?”
The front door opened, and Barney stuck his head inside. “Boss? A word?”
Nico and I stared at each other in burning silence.
Barney cleared his throat. “Uh, Nico. Officer Cox here would like to speak with Kat. Take her statement. Is that okay?”
