Let Me Love You (83)

Nico sat taller, hands going to his thighs. “I was unaware my men were taking side jobs, and they’ve been dealt with, I can assure you of that.”

“And that’s the story you want to stick with?” Constantine asked, jumping a bit ahead of schedule.

“I’m sorry?” Nico unbuttoned his suit jacket and arched his shoulders back.

My gaze shot over to Alice as she tipped her head, assessing us. “You know,” she murmured a few seconds later.

“What do they know?” Nico looked up at her, and he was either truly clueless or a stellar actor.

“That you were fucking Bianca,” Alice said, her tone still absent of emotion.

“You were what?” Giovanni quickly stood, his back to the window now, eyes targeting his son-in-law, and I not so patiently waited to see how this would play out between them.

“He was having an affair with a Costa,” Alice went on, confirming the theory I didn’t want to be true.

Giovanni focused on Nico, a hand hovering near his hip, as if he were about to break leather and draw his sidearm.

Nico peered our way, recognizing we were the main threat in the room, not his wife or father-in-law. “He didn’t really kill her, did he?” he asked, his tone softer than I’d expect. “The man you all murdered back then, he didn’t do it?” Realization crossed over his face, and his hand at his side curled into a fist. Breathing hard, he turned his attention on Alice. Before we knew it, he had her pinned to the wall, a hand circling her throat. “What’d you do?” he hissed.

“Don’t,” my father barked out at the sight of Giovanni going for a gun, and he slowly lowered his hands, his eyes remaining laser-focused on his daughter.

A ghost of laughter fell from Alice’s lips at her husband’s attempt to strangle the answers from her. She didn’t resist or fight back. It was some sick game to her, and it was taking all my restraint not to finish her off myself.

“Let her go, Nico,” Dad ordered. “We can’t get answers if she’s dead.”

Nico hesitantly released her, then took two steps back.

“If only you showed me this kind of passion in the bedroom, maybe things would be different.” Alice smirked as if choking was a kink of hers.

“Explain,” my father said, the word crisp from his tongue, before he beat it out in Italian repeatedly, his patience gone.

“Your perfect little daughter was fucking my husband is what happened.” Alice eyed her husband.

“Watch yourself,” my father snapped, and I did my best to remain quiet and allow Dad to take the lead as previously discussed.

“What did you do, Alice?” Giovanni asked her.

“You forced me to marry this spineless man.” She pointed at Nico. “You chose him to take over for you instead of me. What’d you think would happen?” She shook her head, eyes back on Nico. “I didn’t give a damn that you had an affair. But with her? With a fucking Costa? And then you wanted to leave me. Run away with her. No, no. I couldn’t let that happen.”

“She turned me down. If you were following me that night, well, you missed that part of our conversation,” Nico slowly shared. “She wouldn’t leave her family and run away.”

My stomach twisted at his words, at the memory of her walking away from the club sad and with her head down. That was why she looked that way. And had we watched more of the video, we would’ve most likely seen Alice exiting the club shortly after Nico.

“And you wanted to run away because you were too much of a pussy to ask for a divorce. You didn’t even seek vengeance when the woman you loved died.” She lifted her chin our way. “At least the Costas have backbones. Not that they killed the right person.”

I took a step forward without thinking, but my father shot out his arm, a reminder to keep my cool. To follow the plan.

A humorless laugh left Alice’s lips as she focused on her father. “Did you really expect me to sit back and let him do what I was meant to?”

“Alice.” Giovanni’s tone softened that time. “What are you saying?”

“It’s been me behind the scenes handling everything for years. And I’m done letting him take the credit.” She brought her wrist to her mouth. “It’s time,” she said, presumably having someone on comms. And in one quick movement, she reached around to her back, revealing two pistols. One pointed at me. The other at her family.

I went for my Sig and, from the corner of my eye, spied my father and Constantine standing, armed as well.

Nico and Giovanni surrendered their palms as Hudson’s voice came over my comm, and he shared, “There’s a helo en route. And a boat at my nine o’clock that has military-age males on it heading my way.”

“We can work this out,” Giovanni went on, trying to walk her off the cliff of crazy, but that ship sailed thirteen years ago when she stabbed my sister seven times.

“Bianca let you into her apartment,” I rasped, unable to stop myself from speaking that time. “And then you . . .”

“I confronted her that night. Told her I knew she was sleeping with my husband. She had the nerve to cry and apologize. She said some bullshit about not knowing he was married before she fell in love with him.” The smirk from her nearly had me pulling the trigger. “I did what any respectable woman in the Sicilian mafia would do. Handled her myself.”