“How was your first shift?” he asks, head tilted.
“It was fine. Did you stick around to annoy me? Or are you sitting there imagining how much fun it would be to hurt puppies?”
“I stuck around to make sure you’ve got a ride back home. I have guys that hurt puppies for me.”
Shit. I assumed one of Papa’s men would drive me. I didn’t think it would be Nico.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I say, panicking a little bit. “One of the soldiers—”
“Are all busy. You’re coming with me.” He strides off to the exit and I have to make a choice. Call an Uber and risk pissing everyone off, or suck it up and deal with being in the car with Nico for the ten minutes it takes to get home.
I trudge after him. A car ride with Nico sounds about as fun as sliding face-first down an alley, but I don’t have another choice. Papa would kill me if I got an Uber and went home on my own, especially right now. Better to play the game.
Nico’s Range Rover is parked at the far end of the lot. The evening is crisp and nice with a slight breeze, and Nico glances back at me with an unreadable expression. He looks handsome in the moonlight, shadowed by orange streetlamps and deep evening gloom.
I climb into the passenger side and he gets behind the wheel.
“Just so you know, I didn’t get this job only to prove I’m not spoiled.” I glare at him as he drives. I don’t know why I said that—it’s definitely not true. I’ve spent years avoiding actual work and there’s no other reason to throw away my perfect track record of laziness now.
He laughs once. “Whatever you say.”
“I mean it. I’m not playing your stupid game. I have nothing to prove to you.” More lies. I can’t even help myself.
“Maybe.”
“I’m not spoiled, okay? Do you think it’s easy being me? I have to practically ask for permission whenever I want to breathe. I have it hard.”
“I’m sure you do.”
“I’m the Don’s daughter. They treat me like a precious jewel. Like one of those fancy Russian eggs with all the gems around it. I’m guarded and given comforts and treated like I might break, but I don’t have a life. Have you ever seen me spend time with friends? That’s because Papa scared them all off after high school. They went to college, and I was kept in my pretty cage.”
“Must be hard.”
“You don’t have to be such a dick about it all the time. It’d be nice if I could be a normal person for once, you know? I thought about getting an Uber home just now, but can you imagine the hell I’d get from Papa? Just for going home on my own volition. Getting a job is as much about being my own person for once as it is about winning this stupid little game you’re playing. Stop thinking you’re in control of everything.”
His right hand moves off the steering wheel and grips my thigh. The pressure is gentle, but firm, and I stop talking suddenly. He doesn’t look at me as he comes to a stop at a light.
There’s a short silence and I count my heartbeats. One, two, three. His touch is like fire and ice piercing through my slacks.
“I had foster parents when I was twelve that wouldn’t let me leave the house.” His voice is calm and matter-of-fact, like he’s telling me a rehearsed story. Except I’ve never heard him talk about his life before. “I could go to school, but only after I cleaned all the bathrooms and did whatever other chores they had. That place wasn’t so bad, but being stuck inside all the time was fucking torture for a little kid. I had worse though, before them and after.”
I stare at him as he starts to drive away. He pulls his hand back—I wish he’d leave it—and goes quiet.
“You don’t talk about your past,” I say after a long beat. “Why now?”
“There’s normally not much to say.”
“You were in the foster care system?”
He nods. “Since I was ten or eleven. It’s tough on older kids. I bounced around a lot. I stayed with those people for six months, which was a long time back then. Most places only kept me for two or three or four months at a time.”
“That must’ve been hard.”
“You get used to it. I moved between foster families until I got old enough to live on my own. I left and never looked back when I was sixteen.”
“Sixteen,” I say quietly, shaking my head. “You were on your own at sixteen?”
“There’s a reason I do what I do.” His face is shadowed by starlight and I want to reach out and touch his shoulder, just to make sure he’s real.