If I could just go back and fix things I would—and that’s why I did what I did. Because I couldn’t go back in time. That’s why I was lying in that chair. I sucked in a deep breath—they’d never know the full truth—I couldn’t let them, but I knew exactly how I could redeem the darkness my life represented.
After all—in every redemption story a sacrifice needs to be made. Maybe the sacrifice needed to be me.
Chapter Eighteen Chase
I felt like shit. All day I alternated between wanting to shoot Nixon and wanting to shoot myself. To say my day sucked would be like saying the Sicilians were only mildly intimidating.
FYI, they were terrifying. Many a man shit their pants in their presence and I was living in my own personal hell.
How did I get so lucky?
I knew I shouldn’t have told Nixon, but I also knew I couldn’t lie to him even if I wanted to. He knew me too damn well and he could always smell a rat or liar hundreds of feet away. Which left me with blatant honesty.
I could read him as well as he could read me.
I was basically an exposed wire when it came to him.
And I knew he knew.
In that brief encounter in the study, it was as if all his fears were realized. He wasn’t stupid; he knew I was affected, but he still entrusted her to me.
So what did that say about the type of guy I was? Or the type of trust Nixon had in me?
Nixon left me alone in the study while he went to go see how the rest of Trace’s day was going. I had exactly five minutes to get my shit together and then I needed to do something, and that something was make dinner. I needed a distraction, one that didn’t start with “T” and end with a “y.”
I took a few deep breaths and strolled into the kitchen. Finding an apron, I wrapped it around my waist and poured myself a large glass of wine. I would get through this, I would make it through and I’d be fine. I’d just have to screw a lot of girls and possibly be drunk the entire time to do it. Right. No big deal.
A large gulp of wine worked wonders as I began chopping up the vegetables for my pasta ncasciata. I’d just finished arranging the eggplant and getting the peas ready when Tex walked into the kitchen with Mo.
“Aw shit.” Tex poured himself a glass of wine. “Your damn dog die, Chase?”
“He doesn’t have a dog.” Mo reached for Tex’s wine.
He pulled the wine away from her. “Get your own wine, and it’s an expression, Mo.”
She rolled her eyes and slapped me hard on the back. “What’s up, cousin? You only cook when you’re either trying to impress someone or ready to commit murder.”
“Yeah.” Nixon waltzed into the kitchen, Trace in tow. “That’s only partially true. Remember last summer when he baked for three months straight?”
“Why?” Trace came up alongside me and examined the eggplant, a confused look on her face.
I took the eggplant from her grubby hands and put it back into the bowl. “It was an experiment of sorts.” God, she smelled good.
“Experiment?” Mo choked on her laugh. “Is that what you’re calling it now?”
Tex chuckled behind me. “Chase replaced sex with cooking.”
Tracey burst out laughing. “And he lasted three months?” Seriously? Even Trace thought I was that bad of a player? Really? Well, there went my self-esteem, not that it was dangerously high or anything in the first place. After all, I’d stuck my tongue down her throat and pondered suicide all within the same amount of time it took for her to not only forget our heated exchange but kiss my cousin directly in front of me. Where the hell was a gun when I needed one?
“Oh look, dinner’s almost ready! Who wants to help with the pasta?” I clapped my hands loudly and tried to distract everyone in the room but they just kept talking.
“Three days,” Nixon snorted. “He lasted three days, but he didn’t want anyone to know about his epic failure, so he cooked dinner every night for three months.”
“That is…” Tex took a sip of his wine and grinned. I rolled my eyes and waited for him to continue. “Until we told him we already knew he’d failed but had wanted badass dinners. He bought our silence with food.”
“Bastards.” I threw a towel at Tex’s face. “I slaved for days on end for you two!”
“And we appreciate it, Betty Crocker, we really do.” Nixon smirked in my direction. The only reason I was able to smile back was because I knew he was just trying to make things normal for everyone.
We’d sit. We’d eat. And I’d pretend that I wasn’t in irreversible love with his girlfriend. No. Big. Deal.
“Need help with the pasta?” Trace grabbed my glass of wine and took a sip. It was decided. God hated me. Her lips were everywhere on my glass and now I had to drink after her? You’ve got to be shitting me.
In true Sicilian fashion I had made the noodles from scratch, which would take anyone who didn’t know what the hell they were doing a long time. “Pasta.” I pointed at my handiwork. “It’s almost done, why don’t you go relax? Drink some wine, put your feet up, do your homework.”
Trace groaned. “Did you just tell me to do my homework?”
“No?” I took a step away from her. The perfume she was wearing was literally killing me and I could only hold my breath for so long. And I was sure that if she touched me I would probably explode with frustration, or just scream and have to be institutionalized. Wonder if the mafia had connections in the loony bin.
“Look, you do have a lot of homework. Maybe Nixon can help you?”
“Help me?” she repeated, and then tilted her head to the side. Before I could back up any farther she reached up and felt my forehead. “Are you sick?”
“No.” I swatted her hand away. “I’m just… cooking.”
Oh God kill me now.
“Cooking?”
“Are you going to repeat everything I say?”
“Depends.” She shrugged. “You gonna stop acting like an ass?”
I grinned. “Nope.”
Trace swatted the back of my head. “There he is. Welcome back, asshole; don’t scare me like that. You’re making me nervous with all this baking and ordering me to be responsible and do my homework. You’re not my brother, you know.”
The huge gulp of wine I had just taken spewed out of my mouth and onto the stove.
The room fell silent, and then Nixon clapped. “Well done, you’ve finally shocked the hell out of him, Trace.”
I wiped my face and threw the wine-stained towel at Nixon’s head. “Whatever. Wash up, children, dinner’s almost ready.”
“Yes ma!” they all yelled as they went to set the table, leaving me alone in the kitchen yet again.
I leaned over the sink and told myself to keep the contents of my stomach inside, not out.
Brother? A freaking brother? Was she insane? Yeah, pretty sure I would never, ever think of her as family. She wasn’t family. She was—shit. She was everything.
Chapter Nineteen Nixon
Well, that was awkward. Points go to Chase for not completely losing his shit while Tracey touched his forehead and then proceeded to tell him not to be an ass. If it hadn’t been my girlfriend he was crushing on—I may have found it funny.
But it wasn’t.
So instead, to rein in my anger I was clenching my fork and trying my damnedest not to bend it in half while we all sat around the table like a happy little family.
“So.” Mo dipped her bread in the olive oil in the middle of the table and stuffed it into her mouth. “Any updates, Nixon?”