Chapter 3 - The Secret in the StudyUpstairs, inside the locked master bedroom, I stood near the high glass doors overlooking the courtyard.
The sound of my father's screaming had stopped, replaced by the heavy, authoritative voices of Nico’s guards clearing the foyer below.
The heavy oak door clicked open.
Nico stepped into the room. He took off his shoulder holster, tossing it onto the velvet armchair, his dark hair slightly messier than before. He walked across the carpet, stopping two feet from where I stood wrapped in his wool coat.
I looked up into his gray eyes—searching for the ruthless mafia boss who had promised to ruin me at the altar, but finding only a deep, protective quiet.
"They're gone, Nora," Nico said softly. "Your father is on his way back to his estate under twenty-four-hour surveillance by my men."
I let out a long, shuddering breath, my shoulders slumping with relief as tears burned behind my eyes.
Nico reached out, his warm, broad hand gently catching my chin, raising my face so I had no choice but to meet his gaze.
"He lied to me, didn't he?" Nico asked quietly. "He told me Marco’s accident was a robbery gone wrong. But three weeks ago... Marco was following a lead regarding your father's hedge fund, wasn't he?"
I swallowed hard, the old, terrifying instinct to keep silent clashing violently with the trust blooming in my chest.
"Twelve years ago," I whispered, my voice shaking like a leaf in the wind, "when I was twelve years old... I woke up in the middle of the night to get a glass of water. I saw light coming from beneath my father's study door."
Nico didn't interrupt. He kept his hand gentle against my jaw, listening with total, unbroken focus.
"I opened the door half an inch," I continued, tears spilling over my lashes down my cheeks. "My father was standing over a safe in the floorboards. Inside that safe weren't just stocks or cash, Nico... there were offshore routing books, black ledgers, and video tapes documenting systematic blackmail against half the judges, prosecutors, and syndicate leaders in New York."
Nico’s eyes narrowed into razor-sharp slits of iron.
"My father saw me standing in the doorway," I wept softly. "He locked me in that study for three days. He told me that if I ever breathed a word about what I saw in that safe to anyone... he would kill me and say it was an accident. And for twelve years... every time he thought I was getting too close to someone or thinking about going to college... he used those leather belts to remind me."
Nico’s hand on my jaw tightened slightly—not with anger toward me, but with a dark, terrifying, apocalyptic fury directed at the monster who had raised me.
"Where is the safe, Nora?" Nico asked softly, his baritone smooth as velvet and cold as ice.
"Beneath the floorboards in the private library at the Ashford estate," I answered. "Under the Persian rug."
May you like
Nico reached up, his warm thumb gently wiping the tears from my cheekbones, pulling me gently against his chest, wrapping his broad arms around my trembling body.
"He sold you to me to save his life, Nora," Nico whispered into my hair. "And tomorrow morning... I am going to use his own secret to burn his world to the ground."
Related Stories
