Chapter 3
The silence in the subterranean garage was suffocating, broken only by the rhythmic drip of blue windshield washer fluid leaking from a cracked bottle and the ragged wheezing of Gavin beneath the fallen tires.
Nico stood motionless, his dark three-piece suit uncreased, his hands resting easily at his sides. The faint, refined scent of his Italian cologne mingled with the sharp tang of spilled chemicals and fresh blood.
"Get up, Gavin," Nico commanded softly. The volume was little more than a whisper, yet it vibrated through the floorboards like an idling engine.
A tire rolled aside with a dull scrape. Gavin pushed himself onto his knees, coughing crimson spit onto the pale concrete. His left eye was already swelling into a grotesque purple mound, his nose bent crooked beneath a mask of blood.
"You... you broke my face, you old bastard," Gavin choked out, clutching his ribs with trembling fingers. "My father will tear your family's shipping lines to pieces for this. We aren't your street thugs, Nico. We're the Cole family."
Nico took two slow, measured strides forward, stopping two feet from Gavin's face.
"You are a tenant in my house," Nico said, his voice dropping into a chilling, measured cadence. "You breathe because I have not yet decided to close your windpipe. Now answer me. Why did you put your hands on my daughter?"
"I didn't touch her!" Gavin snarled, though his eyes darted frantically toward his mother. "She was hysterical! She was making accusations about the offshore accounts, throwing glassware in the study—"
"He pushed me down the hall, Dad," Sienna’s voice cut through the air, shaking with a mixture of terror and unyielding maternal rage.
She took three slow, agonizing steps away from the SUV, her flats scuffing the floor. Her left hand remained glued to her pregnant belly, her fingers digging into the knit fabric of her cardigan.
"Tell him what was in the glass, Gavin," Sienna demanded, her fair skin flushed with tears. "Tell my father what you tried to force me to drink before dinner."
Nico’s head turned slowly toward his daughter. The ice in his eyes deepened. "What glass, Sienna?"
"He brought me tea," Sienna whispered, her lips trembling as a fresh tear spilled down her cheek. "He said I looked tired. He said it would help with the swelling in my ankles. But Mila... Mila was sitting under the desk playing with her ribbons. She saw him crush two white tablets from an unmarked blister pack into the honey."
Marjorie scrambled forward on her knees, her silk dress smudged with black grease, her pearl necklace tangled in her collar.
"It was herbal, Nico!" Marjorie shrieked, her voice cracking in desperate panic. "A mild sedative! To calm her down! She has been threatening to take the child and leave for three weeks! We couldn't let her run off to a hotel in her condition!"
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Nico looked down at Marjorie, his gaze so devoid of humanity that the older woman choked on her next breath and shrank backward against the tire rack.
"You gave a synthetic abortifacient to a woman in her thirty-eighth week of pregnancy," Nico murmured, the words falling like lead weights into the frozen air. "You didn't want to calm her down. You wanted to kill my grandson."
