“You killed her.” Pain lances through me. “Nico, she loved you. She took care of you.”
He slams his hand against the steering wheel. “I loved her, too. She was the perfect woman—if she could have just seen me as an adult.”
“You were fifteen years old.” I try to remember the rest of it. “I ran, didn’t I?”
His shoulders slump. “Yes. She yelled at you to run, right before she went through the window.”
“Before you threw her through the window!” I shout, tears streaming down my face. I feel sick again and I’m not sure if it’s from the mimosa or the shock of what’s happening or both. “Nico, how could you?”
“It was an accident!” he shrieks.
I press back against my seat. No man should make that sound ever. I wish fleetingly for my phone, but he threw it out the window. I had pressed text, to hopefully contact my father, but maybe I’d gotten hold of Thorn. I look out the window at the rapidly gathering clouds that are already plopping fat raindrops onto Nico’s windshield. There have to be cameras on this street.
He glances at me. “I took care of the cameras.”
“Of course you did.” I feel both ridiculous and vulnerable, wearing his shirt, with my feet bare.
“I have a jammer. I am the computer expert at Aquarius, even if I can’t charge the crystals.” Now he sounds bitter.
I try to think back, and I see him throwing my mother through that window inlaid with the horrible argyle design. I ran. “Where were we that day? I’ve never been able to figure it out.”
“We were in an apartment that I bought myself.”
“At fifteen?” I ask.
He jerks the wheel to the left, narrowly avoiding a downed tree. We’re in the middle of nowhere already, headed up a mountain. “I have a trust fund. I told her it could be our special spot where we could sneak away together. When she met me that day, I didn’t know you were going to be there.”
“She probably had no idea why you wanted to meet.”
“She didn’t, but she loved me. I know she did.”
He’s crazy. There’s no other explanation. How did I miss this? “She loved you like a son or a nephew,” I blurt out.
“No, more than that.” He almost casually reaches out and backhands me.
My head smacks the headrest, and tears well in my eyes. At least he hit the unbruised side of my face. I chuckle, the sound slightly hysterical.
“And then there’s you.”
“Me?” I ask.
He pounds the wheel now with both hands. “You’re just like her. I’ve been trying to get your attention for years but you see me as . . .”
“My cousin?” I mutter.
“Several times removed. I told your father that you and I should marry. Any child we create will have an affinity with the aquamarines.”
It’s almost unthinkable. I gag. I can’t help it. “I remember falling down a set of stairs after you killed her.” I try to capture the rest of the day, but there are just blank spots and darkness and rain.
“You did. You ran out the front before I could stop you, right into traffic.”
The scar on my belly is real. “So I did get hit by a car.”
“Of course you got hit by a car.” Tree branches scrape his window. “The driver hit you, then swerved, smashing into a light post and dying. It was all so easy to fix from there.”
I try to gauge how far we are from his home. We’re heading up into the mountains. “What’s your plan here, Nico?”
“I have a place,” he says. “You like to be kidnapped, right?”
Only by Thorn. “What, you think you’re going to take me away and I’m going to fall in love with you?”
“It worked for Beathach,” Nico growls. “I just need to think. I have a cabin. It’s not registered in my name, but it’s a place we can hide out for a while.”
I have to get away from him. “What does my father think happened to my mom?”
“That there was a car accident.” Nico turns up what appears to be a long, winding dirt road. Trees loom on either side of us and I shiver. “Because there was,” he says. “I put both of you out in the road near the smashed car. It was a quiet, exclusive street back then. It was pretty simple. I’m surprised you survived, to be honest.”
I look at him agape. “Why did you stay with me in the hospital?”
“I had to make sure you didn’t wake up and tell them what happened, but you didn’t remember anything. Man, Greg was beside himself.” Nico chuckles. “He was really a good guy, but clueless.”
I can’t breathe. For the briefest of seconds, it’s like a hand encloses both of my lungs and squeezes. “Did you kill Greg?”
Nico shifts. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Too bad!” I shriek. “Why would you kill him?”
Nico casts me a look and then concentrates on the muddy road. “When your dad decided to merge with the Sokolovs, I told Greg I had a better idea, that you and I should get married.”
