Brutal Husband (Brutal Hearts #3)

Chapter 23

23

Rieta

T he tale Nero tells is devastating and incredible, but I have no trouble believing that every word is true. I’ve seen the scars on his back. Witnessed his rage upon his return. Who wouldn’t be angry after being locked away in that nightmare place for so long?

“How did you get home?” I ask in a trembling voice. “How did you escape?”

We’ve left Costa’s apartment, and we’re at home, sitting on the sofas. I’ve changed out of my lace dress and into some pajamas. Nero has taken off his jacket, but he’s still wearing his shirt.

His eyes widen. “You believe me? I thought you would tell me that I’ve gone mad, or that I should stop lying to your face. I’ve told you so many lies, cara mia .”

He has, but I remember the words he said to me at our wedding reception right before he left. I will always be yours. It wasn’t so much what he said, but the way he said it. He spoke with so much intensity and devotion. He must have been thinking about his confrontation with Luca and how difficult it would be to convince his brother that we should be together. He was leaving my side, but he had every intention of coming back to me, and when he did, he and I were going to be together forever.

Only his plan failed, and both our lives became nightmares as we were manipulated and controlled by Luca.

“I believe you. So tell me how you did it.”

“I didn’t escape,” Nero tells me. “You freed me.”

“Me?” I exclaim. “I didn’t do anything.”

He touches the daisy tattoo on his arm. I thought he got the ink to mock me, but Nero used memories of me to survive that awful place. I can picture him in that icy cell, the paper clip wire clutched in his fingers as he shivered, painstakingly inking the petals.

“You killed Luca, and because he was no longer paying the bill for my imprisonment, they kicked me out into the snow. I was in the middle of nowhere with no food, money, and no warm clothing. I didn’t know why I was free, but I wasn’t going to squander this miracle. I started walking and I found a village. A smuggler realized where I came from and took me in. I suppose it happens now and then that prisoners are released, or they escape, and for a hefty sum of money, the smuggler told me he could get me back to America.”

“But you didn’t have any money.”

“Not on me, but Luca hadn’t thought to lock me out of our bank accounts. The smuggler let me use his computer, and I was able to remember some numbers. I was in a pretty bad way, physically and mentally, but while I waited for arrangements to be made for my travels, I ate and slept and got my strength back. It took nearly two weeks for the smuggler to find passage for me back to the United States. It wasn’t easy. I had to enter illegally from an Alaskan port in the middle of nowhere, but finally, I made it back here. And I watched you. There you were, the woman of my dreams, going about her life as if nothing happened and I never existed, with no sign of my brother anywhere.”

Those weeks he watched me, I felt his angry eyes on me. I knew I was being watched, but I didn’t know it was my own husband stalking me. “Why didn’t you just talk to me?”

He shakes his head slowly. “I’m not proud of this, Rieta. My head was a frightening place. For months, I had imagined confronting Luca about what he did to me, visualized it and fantasized about it as much as I fantasized about you, only to return and see that you were doing fine without me, and that there was no trace of Luca. I would never be able to confront him. Make him apologize to me. Understand why . All my anger at my brother was transferred onto you.”

It’s painful remembering how angry Nero was when he returned, and the things he said and did. It’s even worse imagining him in that prison, being tortured and starved with no hope of ever returning home, and all because of the brother to whom he’d been so loyal. After the ordeal Nero went through because of Luca, it’s amazing he was able to cling to his sanity.

“After what you’d been through, of course you were angry. You were traumatized in that place.” I step closer and put a hand against his cheek.

He captures my hand and pulls it away, gripping my fingers hard. “I don’t deserve your pity after everything I’ve done to you.”

I trace the hard line of his jaw with my eyes. The dark slashes of his brows.

After everything he’s done to me. The lies. The brutality. Becoming my savior and then vanishing into thin air.

I should hate him, shouldn’t I?

I wrap my arms around my husband.

Nero pulls himself out of my embrace. “Don’t. It’s too late now. I’ve made too many mistakes. I never should have gone to Luca the night of our wedding. I should have just taken you and run.”

Things might have been so different if he had. For us, and for Harriet. My heart aches when I think about Harriet.

There are a million possibilities of how things might have happened, but we only get to live one of them. I want the one in which I finally get to be Nero’s wife. The real Nero.

“You should have told me everything,” I tell him. “You never should have pretended to be someone else on our first date. When you kissed me. When you married me.”

Nero flinches, but he nods, accepting my words.

“But I forgive you.”

“Don’t.”

“I mean it,” I insist. Nero did so many things wrong, but it’s not my duty to punish him when he’s already suffered so much. “I want the father of my child by my side always. I want to see him smile again.”

Nero backs away from me. “I said don’t . Because of me, you’re a killer, and your neighbor lost her daughter. I laid that burden on both of you because of my own stupidity.”

If his purpose in deceiving me was money, I don’t think I could forgive him. But he wasn’t greedy for money. He helped his brother because he was hungry for family.

And that’s what we are. Me and this baby. Nero’s family.

“I’m your wife. I’m pregnant, remember? I need you, and so does our baby.”

“No, you don’t,” he says harshly. “I’ll only ruin everything for both of you.”

I can see from his closed expression that I’m not getting through to him. Tears cluster on my lashes.

“Please don’t leave us. Please, Nero.” I reach for his hands, but he tugs them out of my grip.

Nero strides down the hall and slams out of the house, leaving me with a hollow echo and a vast emptiness inside of me.

I lay awake for most of the night, waiting for Nero to come home. My calls go unanswered. His car is gone. I think I must fall asleep sometime in the small hours as when I turn over in bed for the thousandth time, I see that the sky outside my window is slowly lightening to gray.

As I get out of bed and go downstairs to make coffee, my heart aches for Nero. My husband was always an intense man, but now there’s so much blood, violence, and trauma that’s been heaped upon him. He killed Paul Shields and Andrew Costa, and he believes that Luca’s and Harriet’s blood is on his hands as well. Harriet’s innocent blood. Guilt is a terrible thing. I wish he was here so I could tell him that he didn’t cause any of this. People are dead because of Luca, or because the legal system didn’t put the monsters behind bars.

I’ll tell him again and again that it’s not his fault until he believes me, but first he has to come home.

I fill the coffee maker with ground coffee and fresh water before turning it on. As I reach for a mug, I notice a handwritten note on the counter and pick it up.

I don’t deserve your forgiveness.

N.

There’s a note of finality in his words. An implicit goodbye. Nero can’t really be gone, can he?

The silent house and the emptiness in my heart tells me he has.

“But I’m having your baby,” I whisper, staring at the note clutched in my fingers.

How can he leave us like this after fighting so hard to come home? I crumple to the ground and start to sob, my hand wrapped around my belly. Me and my baby. We’re all alone.

Three days later, I’m staring at the patch of dirt at the bottom of the garden when the front doorbell rings.

As I dazedly move through the house to answer it, I wonder if it was just my imagination or if the ground looked disturbed, like someone was digging there. Right in the place where Luca is buried.

I open the front door to see two men wearing suits. My head is too foggy to follow what they’re saying. I haven’t taken up drinking again, but I feel like I have. Grief and morning sickness are kicking my ass.

They hold up shiny objects for me to look at.

“Mrs. Lombardi. Did you hear me? Can we come in?”

I realize what the shiny objects are, and fear seizes me by the throat. They’re badges. These men are police detectives. This is how it happens in the movies. An absent husband. The police at the door. The next thing that happens is the wife screams because the husband has been found dead.

My throat feels choked up. Maybe if I pretend everything’s fine, it will be. Wordlessly, I lead the detectives into the living room and sit down on the edge of the sofa.

“We want to talk to you about your husband’s brother, Luca Lombardi,” one of the detectives says after they sit themselves opposite me.

“Luca?” I exclaim. It feels so strange to hear that name spoken aloud by someone who isn’t Nero. How do these detectives even know that Luca exists?

The detectives frown at me. “Yes. We were hoping to speak with you and your husband about him. Is there something wrong, Mrs. Lombardi?”

I have to be careful until I know what’s going on, especially with a body buried in the back garden with signs that someone’s been digging around out there.

I take a breath and prepare to give the performance of my life.

“I’m sorry, you caught me on a bad morning.” I smile and press my hand to my stomach. “Nero and I are expecting our first, and morning sickness and all this baby anticipation is new to me.”

Their expressions clear, and they nod. “We won’t take up too much of your time, Mrs. Lombardi. Can you tell us how well you know Luca Lombardi?”

Far too well. More than I ever wanted to know.

With a bland smile, I tell them, “I’m not close with my husband’s brother.”

“We understand that they shared an office downtown at one point.”

“Did they?” I say vaguely, hoping that my position as Nero’s wife means they don’t expect me to know anything about their business.

One of the detectives has a large notebook in his hand, and he takes out a photograph. “Does this look familiar to you?”

I gasp and take the photo from him. “This is Harriet’s hair clip. She used to wear these all the time. Where did you find this?”

“In Luca and Nero Lombardi’s shared office.”

Why would they suddenly search Nero and Luca’s office after all these months? Who tipped them off that Luca is responsible for Harriet’s abduction? I wonder if this happened because we killed Costa, and the trail has led back here. I wonder how much guilt is written on my face. The detectives could be reading me like a book.

“Where is your husband now?”

“Away on business.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know.” I wish I could sound more vague than scared.

“Does he ever have any unexplained absences?”

“No,” I say quickly. Too quickly.

“You reported him missing several months ago.”

“I made a mistake. It was just a business trip.”

“That must have been some business trip.”

“I was confused. I was having some problems with alcohol at the time. My husband would never hurt Harriet or any child.”

The two men are silent, and I can feel their suspicion. Not toward me, but toward Nero. Even though he’s left me, I want to protect him. He doesn’t deserve to go to prison for Luca’s crimes.

“Who said anything about your husband?”

The detectives’ eyes bore into me. The lady doth protest too much? Did I just put my foot in it by declaring that my husband is innocent?

I laugh nervously, my stomach rolling. I want to be sick again. “Sorry, I’m being defensive. Nero and Luca are twins, so sometimes my husband is blamed for things that Luca does. I’m very protective of my husband, and his brother is trouble.”

“We’re aware,” drawls one of the detectives. “Luca Lombardi has quite the criminal record. Human trafficking. Accessory to rape and child sex offences.”

My stomach turns, knowing I shared a house with a man like that. That I submitted to his body.

“If we could speak with your husband, we could rule him out as a suspect. It was in their shared office we found the missing girl’s hair clip.”

One of the detectives is smiling at me, and the other has narrowed, suspicious eyes. I feel like they’re playing a game of good cop, bad cop.

“I will tell Nero that you wish to speak with him as soon as I hear from him.”

The detectives depart, leaving me with even more distress and confusion. I’ve been wishing for Nero to come home, but if he does, will the police arrest him? I don’t know what to hope for anymore. My heart is in a tangle.

Worrying and feeling miserable is what landed me in trouble while Luca was emotionally torturing me. I don’t want to fall back into any disastrous habits, so to keep my mind occupied, I focus on the baby. I cook nutritious meals for myself and eat as much as I can stomach. I read books on pregnancy, childbirth, and infants. I decide on which room to use as a nursery and start to organize it. My heart aches for Nero every second of every day, but I have to keep moving forward.

I find myself missing Nero stalking me. Whenever I go out to the store or to get gas, I hope to feel his eyes on me, but I’m always alone. Devastatingly alone.

One afternoon, I take a long walk, as I’ve read that gentle exercise is good for expectant mothers, and I’ve been cooped up too long. I walk along a street with a florist, a café, a bookshop, and a newly opened baby and children’s store with a crib and pretty blankets and toys in the window. Everything looks so sweet and inviting that I stop to stare for a long time before going in.

Browsing among the items, I wish more than ever that Nero was here with me, but then I’m flooded with guilt when I remember that him coming home could put him in danger.

Instead, I fantasize that he’s waiting at home for me as I buy a baby blanket.

“My husband is going to love this,” I tell the clerk, and she smiles at me as she passes me my purchase.

Outside, I walk home as slowly as possible. I won’t wish for Nero’s return, but I can pretend he never left me between here and my front door. Just for a little while.

As I pass Annie’s house, she pulls into her driveway and gets out of her car. I greet her with a smile, but it fades away when I see the way she’s looking at me. There’s an expression in her eyes like she doesn’t like me, trust me, or want to see me. She knows about the hair clip and that it was found in my husband’s shared office.

Instead of saying anything to me, Annie looks at the shopping bag on my shoulder, emblazoned with the name of the boutique baby store.

“You’re pregnant?” Annie asks.

Why did I have to go into that baby store today? I nod, feeling like I’m rubbing salt into Annie’s raw wounds.

“Your husband home and a baby on the way. Things were so sad for you, but haven’t you landed on your feet?” Without giving me a chance to reply, she asks, “What was my daughter’s hair clip doing in your husband’s office?”

I wish the ground would open up beneath me and swallow me whole.

“I don’t know,” I whisper.

“Where’s Nero? I want to ask him myself.” Her angry eyes flash over my house.

“Nero’s…gone. I don’t know where he is.”

“How convenient,” Annie retorts. “And his brother, Luca? I didn’t even know he had a brother. You never mentioned him. The police are looking for both of them, but especially Luca.” Her voice rises in pitch and her knuckles are white as she clenches her fists. “Did you know Luca Lombardi is wanted in several states, and he has a list of outstanding warrants for crimes so vile that it made me sick to hear about them? Against women. Against children like my Harriet. Was he ever here?”

“Sometimes he was here,” I confess. I don’t know what else to say. I wish I could throw myself at Annie’s feet and explain everything, but it’s a tale too crazy to be believed, and I don’t have any proof that Nero had nothing to do with any of this. Luca needed to become Nero and marry me so he could have a clean slate without the police looking for him. He needed a new, respectable identity. Knowing that I was part of that respectability turns my stomach.

“So where’s your husband now?” Annie asks, two angry spots of color burning in her cheeks. “Run off to help his brother?”

Hearing Nero accused of protecting Luca is too painful. “I swear on my life that Nero would never…”

But Annie doesn’t want to hear it. She turns away and heads for her front door.

I’m defending a man who abandoned me and our baby, and I don’t know why. Every day I spend without him is even more painful than the days I spent with his cruel brother. I picture Nero as a little boy, missing his other half that he didn’t even know was real. Lost and lied to, and longing for more. How can a man as shattered as him ever find peace?

A car I don’t recognize turns onto the street. I watch it idly, the baby boutique bag clutched in my hand and my heart full of sadness.

The car pulls up next to me, and Nero gets out.

I stare at him in shock, my feet rooted to the spot. My husband looks a mess, with a bloodied lip and untidy hair. My husband has come back. My heart is doing somersaults. Should I be celebrating, or should I be afraid for him because the police are going to arrest him?

He gazes at me intently for a moment, drinking in the sight of me. Then he opens the back seat, gathers something in his arms, and turns back to me.

I drop the bag from nerveless fingers, and it falls to the ground.

Behind me, Annie screams, and she breaks into a run.