Ruthless Vow (Vegas Vicious #2)

2. Nicole

2

Nicole

I stand on the swim deck of the Luciana, the Russo family yacht, sleek lines of white and chrome, the teak decks polished to perfection, nothing but endless sky and deep blue ocean in all directions.

The guards who normally patrol the decks are nowhere to be seen. I’d distracted the chef this morning and slipped benzos into their breakfast. They’re sleeping like babies. I could start a side business—‘Nap Time Ninjas: Covert Guard Management.’ At this rate, I’ll be running a loyalty program in no time.

They should thank me. If they weren’t getting some extra sleep, they’d also be on the hit list today.

A large motor boat floats off to one side, waiting to remove my aunt’s men the same way it brought them here. Quickly and efficiently.

One of the men, a blond, holds Leo’s sister Sabina off to one side, his gun at her temple. I regret that. Sabina’s only ever been kind to me.

Two other men have their weapons trained on Leo and his brother Damian, who stand on the far side of the platform, backs to the ocean.

Leo never mentioned his siblings would be on the yacht this weekend. Had I known, I would have—

Would have what?

The plan is a runaway train, out of my control—not that I had any control to start with. My aunt is the one with all the control, pulling my strings like I’m a puppet.

There are moments I hate her as much as I hate Leo Russo. Maybe more. Because she’s my family, my blood, and a part of me aches for her to love me, just as it ached for my father to love me, to see me as someone of value.

He never did. He always saw me as a girl who was born in place of the son he wanted, a son who would restore our family name and prominence.

I remember the slurs he used to fling at my mother, the disgust for her failure to give him a son. Guess he never got the memo that a baby’s sex is determined by the father.

I still hear his voice in my head, telling me I am worthless, a disappointment, a burden, an ugly, stupid thing.

He was blown to pieces late one night in his restaurant, thanks to a bomb left there by Leo.

Since his death, my aunt has continued that litany. But she’s too smart to rely only on intimidation, manipulation, and family loyalty. If that was all she had, I would never have agreed to work for Salvatore, never have betrayed him, never have continued to work for Leo. I would have run as far from Las Vegas as possible, changed my name, stayed away forever.

But Bianca has a trump card up her sleeve: she has a hostage, the person I love most in this world. Sofia.

And I know Bianca won’t hesitate to hurt her. She’s done it before.

I step forward and all three Russos stare at me. My heart pounds. I wish I were anywhere but here.

“Guess you found your spy, Leo,” Damian says.

“What the actual fuck…” Leo’s eyes narrow. “How long have you been working for the Ivanovs, Nicole?” His voice is soft, deadly.

“I don’t work for them. This isn’t about your war with the Ivanovs,” I say.

I don’t bother to share that it’s about another war entirely, one that’s five decades old, one that ruined my family, stole our name and standing.

Il Massacro my father called it. The Massacre.

Fifty years ago, the Russos took down the Morettis. It was a bloodbath that involved murders not only of the family and their allies, but a campaign of assassinations of politicians, judges, prosecutors, and cops in order to shift the balance of power.

After that, the Russos flourished while the Morettis never recovered.

That ate away at my family for generations, a wound that was never forgotten.

Then, three years ago, I was brought to a meeting being held at the back of Casa Bruno, my father’s restaurant. There were five people there. Three I didn’t recognize. Two I did: my father and my aunt, Bianca.

They had a plan to take down the Russos. Slowly, carefully. The Morettis were still weak. We didn’t have the connections or the piles of cash needed to mount a war. The Russos could crush what was left of us with very little effort.

So we would start by having someone working on the inside. They’d decided it would be me. That I would use my dead mother’s last name and the fact that she had grown up with Salvatore Russo as leverage to land a job in his organization. My father insisted Salvatore wouldn’t know she’d married a Moretti, and that he would hire me based on an old family friendship. He was right on both counts.

But my father never got to gloat because Leo Russo blew him to bits before I ever even met Salvatore.

“You betrayed my father,” Leo says to me, his voice low, his cold, dark eyes measuring, judging. “You worked at his side for almost two years. You celebrated holidays with my family. You were invited to my cousin’s baby’s christening. And all along you were a spy for the enemy. You repaid my father by collaborating in his murder.”

His words shouldn’t wound me. But they do. Salvatore was a bad man, a terrible man, a criminal, a killer, some would say a monster. All the Russo men are.

But he was also a good man, a good father, a loving husband. He donated massive sums to charity, both his money and his time. He was a great boss. A man who treated me like a person, who truly cared about me. I know he did. And I cared about him. I hate that Salvatore Russo is dead.

And that truth leaves me so messed up.

My chin kicks up a notch.

“Sorry to disappoint, but I knew nothing about the hit on him until I heard about it with everyone else after he was dead. Saw it on the news.” I force my tone to remain casual, uncaring. I don’t reveal by word or action that I mourn Salvatore, that I miss him. He was one of the few people in this world who was ever kind to me. “Too bad, really. It would have been an eye for an eye.”

Leo stares at me for a long moment. Too long. He wears a calculating expression, like he’s sizing me up, measuring me, seeing something more than the woman I appear to be.

Seeing me , the me who lives inside my skin, not the me everyone else sees. Just like he did when I stumbled on him in his office, getting sucked off by that woman on the desk.

I drag in a breath, trying to clear my mind. I don’t want to remember how that made me feel.

“What the fuck are you talking about, an eye for an eye?” Leo asks.

“This is all because of what you did to my father. Killing yours would have been sweet justice. Instead, it seems I’ll have to settle for killing you,” I say.

“I’ve killed a lot of people,” Leo says, sounding bored. “You’ll have to remind me who your father was.”

I want to tell him who he was, how he had plans to grasp hold of our family’s legacy once again by taking down the Russos. My father said it was the rise of the Morettis once again, beginning with vengeance for the deaths of past generations of my family five decades ago. But if I admit that, then those I leave alive—Damian and Sabina—will know, too, and they’ll have information they could use to hunt me down. I’m smart enough not to hand them my head on a platter.

The blond holding Sabina presses his fingers to his ear, listening. I turn toward him.

“Our lookout says that Russo’s men have been alerted,” he says. “Some sort of silent alarm. They are on their way. We need to go.”

Shit. Time is up.

Leo Russo is about to die. I’m about to shoot him.

“Nicole—” Leo says.

“Shut up!” I spin back to face him. “This is your fucking fault. Own it. You’re responsible for the bomb that set all of this into motion.” The bomb that blew my father, Bruno Moretti to pieces.

Leo shrugs, unconcerned, as if he isn’t the one who has several weapons aimed at him. “Probably wasn’t me,” he says. “I’m not really an explosives type of guy. I prefer things up close and personal.”

The way he says that makes a chill crawl along my spine.

He’ll kill me if he gets the chance. He’ll make it slow. He’ll make it hurt. He’ll make it personal.

“I’ll give you up close and personal,” I snarl, forcing hate and rage into my words, because the alternative is to let him see that my hands are shaking. “On your knees. Now.”

Leo just stares at me, unmoving.

One of my aunt’s men moves forward and kicks Leo’s legs out from under him while another forces him to his knees.

He holds my gaze with those black-ice eyes, his beautiful, perfect features completely expressionless.

“Today, you pay the price for what you did,” I say.

And what price will I pay? I’m a disposable piece in my aunt’s game. I know that. So why am I letting her move me around the board?

Because she has Sofia. And I know she will not hesitate to hurt her, even kill her in retaliation if I fail.

“I didn’t kill your father,” Leo says. He doesn’t plead or beg. He says the words not as if he is desperate to save his own life, but rather as if he is just stating a fact like ‘the sky is blue’ or ‘grass is green.’

My heart is a wild bird slamming against my ribs. I feel sick. Dizzy.

“Stop! No, don’t do this! Please!” Sabina yells, struggling against her captor, trying to get to her brother.

“Sabina,” Leo says, his tone one of command. “You will stay calm. You will let this happen. And you and Damian will live.”

For a villain, he sounds like a goddamned hero. Like Captain America, if he were the filthy rich boss of a Mafia syndicate.

His words twist my heart. He’s willing to do anything to save his sister, his brother, even die. We have that in common.

Sofia.

I will do what I have to do in order to keep her safe.

I take the pistol one of the men holds out to me. The fingers of my right hand wrap firmly around the handle, my index finger resting alongside the trigger guard. My left hand wraps around my right, my thumbs stacked atop each other. I set my feet shoulder-width apart, my left foot slightly forward, my knees slightly bent as I anticipate the recoil of the shot.

I’ve trained for this moment. I’ve practiced this shot hundreds of times in hundreds of different ways. With a shotgun. With a pistol. Even one of my aunt’s preferred moves, where she taught me to aim and shoot without ever even pulling the pistol from the pocket of my coat. She made sure I was trained for all eventualities.

Leo holds my gaze, his chin lifted. His jaw tense.

There is challenge in his eyes. A flicker of… I don’t know. His expression is something I can’t read.

He doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t look away. He doesn’t even blink.

“Do it,” he snarls.

The moment spins into eternity. His obsidian eyes are all I see.

My pulse pounds, too fast, too loud. My mouth is dry, my breathing rapid and shallow.

A lifetime of my father’s cruelty spins through my thoughts. A lifetime of my aunt’s disgust and disappointment.

Horror. Confusion. Guilt.

I’m flooded by a thousand emotions.

But one certainty claws its way forward.

I don’t want to do this. No matter his crimes, I don’t want to murder Leo Russo in front of the siblings who love him.

I don’t want to murder Leo Russo at all.

I can’t do this. Not even to save Sofia’s life.

With an anguished yell, I drop my arm.

I have failed. My father, my aunt, they were right about me. Always right. I am worthless.

Leo surges to his feet.

The blond gunman aims and shoots.

I stumble back with a cry as Leo’s body jerks and he spins off the edge of the swim platform, falling into the waves.

“We need to go!” the blond yells, grabbing my arm and dragging me to the waiting boat.

Sabina screams her brother’s name.

The dull thud of fists hitting flesh. Another gunshot. Yelling. The boat’s engine as we speed away.

The sounds are distant, muted by a cloud of terror.

I failed.

And if Leo is still alive, I know my sister will pay the price.