Chapter 165

Chapter 165
Lucky

I am distraught with the explosion of my beautiful mall and the people that have been injured. We had several casualties and four deaths. Today is the day of mourning and the hotel and casino are all closed. We will be attending the funeral in an hours’ time.

Sadness and grief cling to the air like dark rolling storm clouds, oppressive and suffocating. I feel like I can’t breathe. Nico is wearing a plain black, tailored suit with a black shirt as he sits on the sofa in our bedroom.

His elbows rest on his knees and his head is lowered in his hands. It breaks my heart to see him wrestling mentally with the events that took place only five days ago.

He has been drinking heavily but remaining a good father to Valentina, a good husband to me and the perfect brother to his siblings. Still staying strong even when he has often been seen with a whisky tumbler in his fingers.

“Nico,” I say softly as I run my fingers through his hair standing beside him. Nico reaches out his hands and places them on my hips. The warmth radiates off them, on a different day, under different circumstances it would send shivers of excitement and expectation through my body.

Today I feel like he is clinging to me as if I am his raft on a turbulent ocean. “Maybe we should give this all up, Lucky my beautiful Queen. I don’t know what I would do if you and Valentina and our unborn child were caught in the explosion.”

“Hey, listen to me. You are not a quitter, Nico Santangelo. We haven’t worked this hard to give up now. Whoever did this will be caught and sent to jail.”

He kisses my abdomen swollen with our little boy. “I will get them, Lucky and they will be killed. Jail is too good for them. They deserve to lose a life for a life. We lost four people that day and I don’t forget easily.”

His team are working with investigators to identify everyone who went in and out of the casino, hotel and mall that morning. Mostly were staff, those who have been with us since opening. We like to say we trust everyone but it’s funny what money can do to a man. It can buy him, turn even the most loyal against the people they are supposed to be loyal to. It’s the way our business is. We have to take it on the chin and move forward.

“Let’s go and check on Valentina and head to the church,” I tell him gently.

I reach for his hands on my hips and squeeze them, then pull him up. He sinks his forehead to mine. “I love you, Queen,” he tells me his voice fill with raw emotion that grips at my heart.

“I know and I love you too, Nico. You are my heartbeat with our children. We will live by the sword, Nico and die by the sword. We made our choices and now we must live by them. We will not let them get away with this. And I will rebuild the mall.”

He pulls away and takes my hand, bringing it to his mouth and kisses the top with his soft lips. “You are an amazing woman, Lucky. I know you will rebuild. You are like a phoenix rising from the ashes.”

“That’s right and don’t ever forget it. It will be bigger and better than before. We will expand on the original plans, Nico. People will come here just to visit the mall.”

He kisses me with his hand behind my head bringing me to him, our tongues clash as our teeth knock, it’s long and feverish like he never wants to let me go again.

He doesn’t. I know this much. The man is so in love with me that it must pain him. He is torn between wanting the safety for me and our children born and unborn, and to continue the legacy of his life to hand down to Valentina and the newborn on its way soon.

At the church, everyone wears black out of respect and we all carry dark purple roses, especially flown in on Nico’s private jet. Everyone stands and waits for the coffins to be carried in one by one. Italian church music plays. The families of the deceased have chosen more uplifting tons to celebrate the life of those they have lost, rather than any funeral songs that usually play.

I take my hat off to the them for their strength and resilience. If it was Nico laying in a coffin, I’d be on my knees wanting to be in the afterlife with him. We are soul mates; we are bonded by some kind of magnetic force that will never be broken.

Dario and Tony stand on the left of Nico, as he and I take the first row with the families. Alex sits behind me. I pull out a black handkerchief overcome with emotion for what has happened to our friends and their families.

The service was beautiful although wrought with sadness that overwhelms everyone. Even the sky is not its usual brilliant blue. The cloud that now sits upon the Santangelo family is non-shifting until we can find out who was behind this.

At the hotel we gather into the ballroom for the after-service dinner. Everything is in black with just the crystal chandeliers to offer some kind of lighting. People drink, they chatter and they cry.

Nico walks over to where I am sitting with Alex and squeezes my shoulder.

“We are leaving,” he says dispassionately. I tilt my head.

“Who is we?” I am not leaving the place I have made home for the last five years on and off between Arizona and Atlanta.

“Tony, Dario and I. We have to head to Pittsburgh. Tony has had news. Confirmation that one of Wetzel’s gangs was responsible.”

“There will be trouble if you go, Nico.” My heart is in my mouth as I sit there trembling with fear. The man is worse than Petrov. His thing is to hang and skin men alive. It makes bile come up into my throat.

“It has to be, Lucky my beautiful, Princess. We will be safe, he has agreed to the meeting.”

There is nothing more I can say, as I rub my baby bump knowing that Nico could be harmed.