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“Ashton…” I had to clear my throat again. “You…you said that you’d never-”
“Savina, this is an opportunity of a lifetime,” he said, cutting me off, his voice hard and unyielding. “It’s not like you’re a goddamn virgin, for fuck’s sakes.”
“The last time-”
“The last time was a miscalculation,” he said, never daring to utter the words that he’d been wrong. “However, I can hardly be jealous of a man twice my age.” He snorted like the very idea was preposterous. “Once he’s done trying to get it up for you, you’ll come running back home, thankful that I don’t have to take any blue pills to be with you.”
Even though it wasn’t going to do me any good, I said, “Ashton, I don’t want to entertain Cooper Donaldson.”
His eyes glittered with the possibility that he was going to have to do whatever it took to change my mind. “You’re going to be an Oliver soon, Savina,” he bit out. “You need to understand that it takes a lot of sacrifices to be a member of this family.” Ashton leaned back in his chair like he was a king. “Luckily for all of us, the sacrifices pay off big in the end.”
Yeah, for everyone but me.
Chapter 13
Aurelio~
I’d been leaving The Den when Nero had texted for me to stop by the house, and it was a good thing that I didn’t need sleep. The more shit that Nero tried to wrap up before Kasen had the baby, the more that shit landed on his plate. Though Manny was done with his little trip down trailer park lane, that half-ass gang that Oisin O’roark warned us about was turning out to be stupider than we’d given them credit for. The stupid fucks were trying to hit all three territories, and they could only hope that a Sartori or O’Brien got a hold of them before a Kotov did. While we could extract information with the best of them, we tortured for business reasons, same as the Irish. However, the Russians tortured because they got off on it, and no one was confused about that simple fact.
So, while Nero wasn’t overly concerned at the moment, he wanted to make sure that these fuckers didn’t gain any momentum. Like he’d said, everyone was getting along right now, so no one needed anyone making any waves.
Walking into Nero’s house, I made my way to his office, the house guards already knowing that I had free run of the place. However, if anyone that wasn’t me, Elio, or Marco tried to come through Nero’s front doors without an appointment was usually met with a bullet to their foreheads. Again, Nero didn’t fuck around when it came to the safety of his wife.
Since his office door was closed, I knocked once before letting myself in. No matter what, I’d always show Nero the utmost respect when people were around. Privately, I had no qualms about calling him an asshole to his face.
Surprisingly, Morocco was with him, and I wondered if this had something to do with my requests or Nero’s requests on some of the names that we’d manage to get from Oisin.
“What’s up, gentlemen?” I greeted as I walked into the room.
“Shut the door,” Nero instructed, and that had the hairs on the back of my neck standing at attention.
Doing as he’d asked, I shut the door before walking further into the room. I noticed how Morocco didn’t want to look at me, and that immediately told me that something was wrong. Morocco Carrisi was a gifted hacker, and he was so intelligent that he misread social cues often, staring people in the face like he had nothing to hide, which I supposed that he probably didn’t, apart from his criminal activity.
“What’s going on?” I finally asked.
“I did the background checks on Savina Valentine and all the Olivers like you asked me to,” Morocco answered. “And while I was gathering everything that I could on them, I found that Ashton Oliver had a security system on his brownstone.”
“Considering who is father is, it’d be a natural assumption that he’d have some level of security,” I replied, not liking how Nero was eyeing me.
Morocco glanced at Nero really quickly before Nero gave him a short head nod, instructing him to continue. “Well, I was…I figured it might be worth the risk to look around a bit,” Morocco went on. “Granted, once I was in, it was easy to see that their security system was shit, but then so is most of America’s security levels.” He shook his head disappointedly. “If people only knew…”
“Morocco, focus,” I said, pulling him back from the rabbit hole trying to steal his attention.
He glanced at Nero again, and with each hesitation, I grew increasingly wary. “Yeah…no…” Morocco shook his head again. “I…I decided to go back a month because…well, because a month sounded reasonable…”
I was losing my patience. “What did you find, Morocco?”
He looked back at Nero, and that’s when Nero finally spoke. “He beats her, Aurelio.”
Though my ears worked perfectly fine, he had to be wrong. No way in hell would Savina Valentine ever let a man beat her. She had too much fire in her to ever let a man get away with beating her. Granted, a lot could happen in three years, but not enough that Savina would let a man beat her without her shoving a knife into his chest.
“No way,” I said, shaking my head. “There’s no fucking way.”
Nero gave Morocco another head nod, and that’s when Morocco turned on the laptop that was sitting on Nero’s desk. “I made a copy of the footage that shows them…uh, arguing.”
Don’t look.
Everything in me screamed not to look at whatever was on the screen, but like a bad car wreck, I couldn’t look away, even if I’d tried.
