“We are all born mad. Some remain so.”

—Samuel Beckett

“SOMEBODY HAD BETTER START EXPLAINING what the fuck’s going on right now!” Papà snapped. When his gaze flicked to me at the top of the staircase, he paused and then his expression became even stormier. He shook his head, gesturing toward me with his gun. “Go to your room, Elena.”

On instinct, my feet began to comply.

“Stay.” Nico’s voice was a deep timbre of control.

He was the don right now. No soft edges.

I halted, my blood going cold with indecision.

Nico stepped away from Benito and faced my papà. My cousin and father had a gun aimed at his head while he held his by his side. A cold sweat drifted down my back.

Papà and Nico stared at each other, communicating with their eyes. Something only dons could understand.

“You’ve gone too fucking far,” Papà spit. “Elena is not yours until the marriage. And if you’ve somehow forgotten—that hasn’t fucking happened yet.”

“Let me enlighten you, Salvatore,” Nico growled. “As soon as the contract was signed she was mine.”

“Fuck the contract and. Fuck. You. Ace.”

Nico ran a hand across his jaw with sardonic amusement. “You’re backing out?”

“That’s what I said.”

My heart threatened to beat out of my chest.

Nico took a step toward my papà. “You want to know how to start a war with me, Salvatore? This would be how to do it.”

My eyes widened. This can’t be happening . . .

Papà’s jaw tightened. Tony and Dominic remained silent and unreadable, their attention and guns unmoving from the Russos in the foyer.

“Come here, Elena,” Nico demanded.

Papà shot me a narrowed gaze. “You’ll go to your fucking room. Now!”

Indecision twisted so violently in my stomach it felt like I might be sick. I didn’t know what to do, who to listen to. Why this was happening to me. I wrote a note . . . I should have known Nico wouldn’t have found that sufficient.

Nico’s gaze flicked to me. His eyes were dark around the edges, but the irises were shimmering depths. Awareness ran through me. He said nothing, though he didn’t have to. He wanted me to choose him and he was letting me see it. It was the most vulnerable thing I’d ever seen him do, and the fact that he might show me a side of him not many had before sent a throb to my chest.

As my hands grew clammy and my breaths short, I did the thing that had been ingrained in me since I was a child. I listened to my papà and took a step toward my room.

But something stopped me.

If I picked my papà’s side, it could mean violence and death. Possibly war.

Although, that wasn’t only it.

A tug deep in my stomach pulled me in the other direction. A place near my heart grew cold and empty with the small step I’d taken.

As I hesitated, the tension hung over my head like a formidable cloud.

My papà sold me to Oscar Perez.

Nico killed him for me.

I avoided my papà’s gaze as I descended the stairs, but his anger was strong enough it burned my skin. I sucked in a shallow breath as Luca reached out and wrapped a heavy arm around my waist as though I might change my mind.

My gaze met Tony’s. While he was usually the first one to pull out a gun at the word war, he didn’t seem to want the same thing as Papà, or he wouldn’t have let me by him. Maybe he and Nico were on better terms now that they’d beaten the crap out of each other. Whatever it was, I was grateful.

I’d already been the cause for one man’s death.

I couldn’t survive another.

Luca walked me like a prisoner to the car, his arm a warm shackle around my waist.

Nico and the others were still inside, and I prayed they were doing the Made Man version of hugging it out, which usually involved violence of some kind, but not war.

“Instead of running off next time,” Luca said dryly, “I’m betting if you ask him for something he might just give it to you.”

“I didn’t run off. You were a little busy”—my gaze hardened—“so I left a note on the island.”

His eyes narrowed. “There was no note.”

I blinked. What?

He watched my expression before giving his head a shake, muttering, “Fucking Isabel.”

I sat cross-legged on my bed, flicking the Zippo open and closed.

If you ask him for something he might just give it to you.

I’d come to the conclusion that Nico made me as crazy as he was. Because asking was an easy fix to a problem I wouldn’t have hesitated to utilize with anyone else. It was simple: when Nico was in the equation, all rational thoughts were lost.

I flicked the lighter open, and hope ignited with the new flame.

Perhaps I didn’t have to see him with other women, to share a bathroom with one. The hope was only an ember, barely flickering with light, because the idea that there would be other women at all cut me straight through the chest, leaving a raw and bleeding ache behind.

However, infidelity was a fixed denominator in a Made Man. Like a surfer and a board. A writer and a pen. You couldn’t separate the two. And asking would be a fruitless endeavor.

Out of sight, out of mind, as the saying went.

I could live with not knowing.

My grip on the lighter faltered when the quiet purr of an engine drifted to my ears. I walked to the window to see Nico get out of his car and head into the garage. Luca had hung out in there since we’d gotten back close to an hour ago.

When I’d come inside, I found my crumbled note in the trash. Fucking Isabel was right. I hadn’t gone about anything the right way, but I hadn’t left without telling anyone, as Nico must have believed.

Shame became a heavier weight on my shoulders with every minute I waited. I’d been upset, and the choice to leave was rash and not me.

Luca left the garage and rubbed his jaw before getting in his car. I stood there, waiting for Nico to make an appearance, but he didn’t. I’d spent the last hour wondering how he would react, what I was going to say to him, and now that he was here, a restlessness inside me demanded I get it over with.

I headed down the stairs and out the back door. The cement was hot against my bare feet as I stood in front of the garage. Nico’s hands were braced on the worktable, a glass of whiskey sitting nearby. His shoulders tensed when he realized I was here.

His gaze came to me. It was dark, warm, every emotion in between. A shiver danced across my spine, and before I knew what I was doing I walked toward him. I didn’t expect a rough palm to cup my face and brush across my cheek. My heart glowed like a Zippo flame.

He made a quiet noise of satisfaction when I pressed my face into his chest. His hand slid from my cheek to the back of my head, his fingers threading through my hair.

He smelled so good. Felt so good. Like comfort, security, and need, all in one. There was a name to it, but I didn’t know what.

“I’m sorry,” I breathed. “I didn’t mean for any of that to happen.”

He let out a breath in between disbelief and amusement, and I thought he muttered, “So this is the Sweet Abelli.”

He’d done something no other Made Man should do and paraded his mistress in front of his fiancée, and somehow, I had ended up apologizing for the outcome.