Nicky the Driver (Underboss Insurrection, #2)

by Cate C. Wells

“What are you anyway? Some errand boy? Lucca’s bitch?” His lips curve. “Gonna be your fuckin’ husband. Maybe you show some respect, eh?”

When I swallow, his gaze falls to my throat. When I inhale deeply, it drops to my chest. I turn my head to work on my right side, and it rises. It’s like there’s a thread between us. My breath shallows, but it’s not a panicky feeling. It’s an edge-of-your-seat feeling.

“Women aren’t action figures, man. They don’t lose value ’cause someone got in their box.”

I slide out the cupcake, peel off the piece of cardboard underneath, and set it on the counter. I do it again. And again. I open all twelve, lining them up, shoving the trash into the box, crushing the box, shoving it into the trashcan, rummaging to hide it under the folded pizza box from last night. And then I eat each one, icing first. I break the cake in half, tongue out the filling, chew, swallow, and then I eat the next. Around the fourth, I stop to pour myself a glass of water, rinsing the clump of chocolate sponge down my throat, and I keep going, strung out with the fear of getting caught, flinching at every sound, the air kicking on, the ice maker dumping ice. I’m terrified, and I’m ashamed. That’s all I feel. I eat past fullness. I eat past being able to taste it. I eat, and I hate myself. I’m the guitar solo in “Freebird.” I keep going because I started, and now I can’t stop. I don’t have brakes.

Scarily real

“She doesn’t believe it, but she is. She always has been. She’s a good thing in an ugly world, you know?”

“Do you know that when he was a senior in high school, he killed a man so that I’d get Tony Junior to let him into your bedroom when you were sleeping over at your girlfriend’s?”

Nicky fucks like he’s lost his mind, and he’s trying to find it between my legs. He fucks like I’m hiding something that he’s desperate for. Like I’m the holy grail, and he’s an infidel, so he doesn’t want to worship me, he wants to convert me, despoil me until I belong to him.

I don’t even give him a second to be self-satisfied, thinking he got a hit in. I’ll always be crueler to myself than anyone else could ever be.