She threw the covers from her body and walked over to him. She wrapped her arms around him. She usually wasn't so comfortable with her nudity, but he was rubbing off on her.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
"Nothing. I just can't sleep."
"You wanna talk about it?"
"No. Not really," Nic said.
"Come on, you can tell me anything. I want to know."
"I'm just used to bad things following the good."
"What do you mean?"
Nic turned around. "Nothing. Don't worry about it. I think it's time for another inspection?" he asked, looking her up and down.
"Well, that depends. Are you a harsh critic?"
"Absolutely," Nic said, before twirling her around and smacking her ass.
Veronica belted out a yelp.
"Perfect," Nic whispered, admiring her body more, while pulling her towards the bed.
Their last night in Bali, Nic took Veronica to an upscale restaurant. Veronica freaked when there were no prices listed on
Jimmy sat patiently on the couch in Nic's office as Nic dialed Veronica again. The first time she didn't pick up. Jimmy tossed another pecan in his mouth and wiped his hands. He and his wife were supposed to be going to dinner with the new couple as soon as Veronica got off work. He glanced back over at Nic and waited."There you are. What time do you think you'll be here?" Nic asked.Jimmy watched as Nic's brow furrowed."What do you mean, you don't know? I thought you were going to leave early?" he questioned.Nic slowly sat down, and Jimmy saw a blank expression come across his features. Something Nic was hearing was obviously a problem of some kind. "Veronica...what happened?" Nic asked.Then Nic's face turned white. Pale white. Jimmy rose and walked over to the desk. What the hell was going on? Nic leaned over the desk and covered his face with his hand as he listened to whatever Veronica was saying."Are you okay?" Nic asked Veronica,
Veronica winced in pain from trying to pry her puffy eyes open. She sat up in Nic's bed and pushed her wild curls from her face. She glanced at the night stand for the time. 10 pm. She sighed. All the images from earlier that day came flashing back. The loud noise, screams and shattering glass. She was praying that it was just a nightmare, but she knew that wishful thinking was all in vain. But just as suddenly as those visions had come, Veronica couldn't breathe. She quickly grabbed her chest and forced herself to take deep gulps of air to calm her breathing.She finally composed herself, walked out of the room and down the long hallway. When she reached Nic's office door she was about to knock when she heard Nic's voice, more animated than she had ever heard before. She cracked the door open and saw Jimmy and Nic arguing."Nic, all I'm saying is you don't know for sure that Sonny did this. It could have been a number of people," Jimmy said."No. I know it was
In the car ride on the way to...well, wherever she was going, Veronica thought of her morning. She had woken up, had a big bowl of cereal and then went into work. Never in a million years would she have thought her day would turn out this way. One minute she's separating the marshmallows from the other bits of cereal in her bowl, the next she's caught in the middle of some mob war. Life was indeed strange. Jimmy had told her to go to sleep if she could, because they had a long way ahead of them. Her eyelids were heavy, and although she protested, she was asleep in no time.Jimmy glanced in his rearview mirror at Veronica. She had her head resting against the window and her eyes were shut. She was definitely a beautiful girl. And one of the sweetest people he had ever met. He really hated that she was going through this and he couldn't imagine what Nic must be feeling. No one had ever tried to hurt Jimmy's family. Ever. He hoped that Sonny wasn't involved. Because if he was, t
"Mio figlio!" Veronica heard Marianna say, as she walked back into the kitchen, and proceeded to talk to Nic in Italian. So much for eavesdropping."How long do you think I'll have to be here, Jimmy?" Veronica whispered."I'm not sure. Hopefully no more than a few days. Why, is Marianna already getting on your nerves," Jimmy smiled."No! No, I mean, she's great as far as I can tell. She's so friendly. It's just that I miss Nic already. And I'm sure you miss your family."Jimmy patted her on the back. "It should only take a few days to get everything sorted out, and then it should all go back to normal.""Jimmy! Get in here..per favore!" Marianna yelled from the kitchen. "Nic wants to speak with you again."Jimmy laughed. "I love that woman," he said, before he hopped up and walked further into the kitchen.After dinner Veronica could hardly keep her eyes open. She felt like she had already slept most of the day away, but her eyes just
The next morning, Veronica awoke with sunlight streaming down on her. She wiped her eyes and walked to the window and peered through. Her mouth dropped wide open. All she could see was plush green land, a creek and several horses. She saw a stable in the distance and a few other animals. This was a ranch. She had never been to a ranch before. She ran into the bathroom to take a quick shower.When she was done, she finally opened her suitcase. 'Damn Minka,' Veronica thought, as she rummaged through all of the short, tight designer clothes Minka had picked out for her. Nothing in her bag even remotely looked comfortable. But at least she had packed her Converse for her. She put on a cute shirt and skirt, and pulled her hair back into a ponytail.Veronica walked downstairs, to find Jimmy and Marianna sitting at the kitchen table laughing and sipping coffee."Good morning!" Marianna said in a cheery tone, getting up to give Veronica another bone crushing hug and kis
"And this is Juliet, my baby girl. She's a spunky one," Marianna said with a smile. "She travels a lot. She never spends more than a few months to a year in any place. Right now she's backpacking through Europe for the third time with her new boyfriend. And from there she said they plan to settle down for a year somewhere in Australia," Marianna said, rolling her eyes. "I love her to death, but I told her to settle down and find a husband. I'm not getting any younger...and speaking of that, do you want babies?" Marianna asked.Veronica almost choked on her coffee. "Um, I would like to have children some day. I'm not sure--""—how many do you want?" Marianna interrupted."Oh, well I'm an only child, so I guess one.""What?! One! No, Nic's Italian...he's not going to do just 'one'. Nope. You need four or five to have a good size family, you know," Marianna said."Well, I don't think Nic wants kids in his line of work," Veronica said."Oh, tush, he'l
"Nic, our contact finally came up for air, but he said he didn't know who did the shooting. But he can guarantee that it wasn't gang related," Antonio reported, as he removed his coat and sat down in front of Nic's desk.Nic leaned back in his chair. "No shit, so now we're still at square one. Marsh wouldn't have been investigating if it was just gang related. He's too big for that."Raymond entered. "Mr. Marcone is waiting downstairs for you, Nic. Want me to bring him up?""Thanks Raymond. And no, I'll meet him down there."When Nic reached the bottom step, the two men quickly shook hands. Remy, Paul's right hand man was standing in the distance. Raymond stood opposite of him staring him down. Remy cleared his throat but Raymond didn't flinch."Would you like him to come in with us?" Nic asked Paul, glancing over at Remy."No, that won't be necessary. I trust you," Paul said, as he followed Nic into his billiard room. Nic closed the door and offered Pa
Antonio and Eddie stood waiting inside Nic's office. Ever since he had gotten the call from Jimmy, he hadn't said a word. He walked outside and stood facing out toward the back. It wasn't until Jimmy had called Eddie to explain everything, that they understood Nic's mood. He hadn't moved from that position in over twenty minutes. He could have been a marble statue. One very tense, marble statue."Maybe one of us should go check on him," Antonio said to Eddie."Why, are you volunteering yourself," Eddie answered."Um, I'm the newest one to the organization...and I'm pretty sure if I walked over there, he'd toss my ass over the balcony," Antonio said, gazing over at Nic's still form."I saw him do that once.""What?!" Antonio said, jerking his head back to Eddie. He had to be kidding.Eddie sighed, "I'll go."He walked outside onto the balcony and carefully over to Nic. Eddie stood side by side with him and turned to look at Nic's profile."Nic,