Nicky the Driver (Underboss Insurrection Book 2), page 1
Nicky the Driver
Underboss Insurrection Book 2
Cate C. Wells
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright 2022 by Cate C. Wells. All rights reserved.
Cover art and design by Clarise Tan of CT Cover Creations
Photograph by Golden Czermak of FuriousFotog
Edited by Nevada Martinez
Proofread by Kayla Davenport
Special thanks to Jean McConnell of The Word Forager, Malorie Cooper of The Writing Wives, Kate K., Elisabeth J., Kara M., Elizabeth L., Kaitlin S., Erin G., and Erin D.
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Author's Note
This novel contains on-page descriptions of disordered eating, including binging, and references to past incidences of abuse and domestic violence.
Contents
1. Zita
2. Zita
3. Nicky
4. Zita
5. Zita
6. Nicky
7. Zita
8. Nicky
9. Zita
10. Zita
Epilogue
Want a little more Nicky and Zita?
About the Author
Chapter one
Zita
If I pedal hard enough, I can turn my brain off.
I wish the bike’s display had a reading for that—it’s got calories burned, speed, distance, resistance. There’s a leaderboard that I ignore. I bought the heart rate monitor, and I never look at that either.
It’s supposed to be all about calories burned, right?
But if there were a metric for time remaining until I stop thinking, my eyes would be glued on that, counting down.
I’ve been doing a climb ride for almost an hour. My thighs burn, my calves are cramping, but my brain’s still gnawing away.
Paul was short with me on the phone tonight. I know he’s struggling with pathology. He sucks at rote memorization. He’s always been a hands-on kind of guy. That’s why he loved gross anatomy, and that’s why he’s going to be an amazing pediatric surgeon. Or orthopedic surgeon. Whichever path he chooses, he’s going to be the best. That’s Paul. The best.
Ever since junior high, he’s been top of the class. Popular without trying. Most likely to succeed.
Maybe I’m not prom queen anymore, but we still complement each other. Right now, he needs my support. I can do that.
What do I have to bitch about? Living at home again? A stocked fridge and a laundry machine that doesn’t take quarters?
It made sense to move back home after college. Mom’s still reeling from being alone for the first time in her adult life, and even though Mattie’s a senior, he still needs someone at home looking out for him. And Paul needs to focus on med school. The professional relationships that he’s building with his roommates are invaluable. That’s what he says whenever I bring it up.
I need to stop bringing it up.
Just because I’m sleeping in my old bedroom again doesn’t mean I’ve regressed. I’m sacrificing for my family and our future. Paul appreciates that. He says it all the time.
I tighten my grip, and my engagement ring clinks against the handlebars. I might need to get it resized. It’s getting loose.
All couples go through periods of time when one partner needs to hyper-focus on their career. If I knew what I wanted to do with my life, I’d be grinding, too. I’m not afraid of hard work.
I press a button and increase the incline.
It’s not like I’m slacking. I’m sending out resumes, going on interviews. It hasn’t happened for me yet, but it will. I’ll find a job that I love.
I’ll figure out what I love.
My legs pump, my lungs burn, and sweat trickles down my spine.
What do I love?
Over my vanity, there are still the sparkly gold letters that my mom stenciled during one of her crafting phases. Dream big.
Oh, the irony. Daniella Graziano only ever wanted to have a richer husband than her sisters, more followers than her sisters, and a tighter ass than her sisters. Her husband’s dead, but two out of three ain’t bad. She’s not complaining.
That old, cold fear sloshes in the pit of my stomach, so I stand on the pedals and push harder. I don’t listen to an instructor or music. I listen to my thoughts. I let them drive me crazy as I watch the calories burned tick higher and higher. I didn’t mess up today, so it’s money in the bank. Insurance against future fuck ups.
Crap I can’t control ricochets around in my skull, generating kinetic energy.
Paul.
Mattie.
What happened to Dad.
Dad’s not just dead, he was executed. Dumped in the Luckahannock. Or buried under fresh concrete somewhere. Or dissolved in lye and rinsed down a tub drain.
We don’t know how it happened, and we never will. We don’t know who or when or why, but we can guess, and we can’t ever, ever say it out loud.
Lucca Corso and his men killed Dominic Renelli, my dad’s boss, and while they were at it, they killed my dad, Vittorio Amato, Frankie Bianco, Joey Zito—more guys I didn’t know that well—and we can think it, but we can never let on that we know.
In exchange, Lucca Corso pays Mom’s mortgage and the car notes, my brother Tony Junior keeps his job managing Sugarbits, and life continues on like usual. Tomorrow, I have a hair appointment. Afterwards, I’ll stop by Paul’s place. Cook him dinner. Suck him off. He always appreciates a home-cooked meal.
Everything is fine. Things could always be worse. I increase the incline again and pump my legs until my exercise shorts are plastered to my ass with sweat. My brain finally, finally disconnects.
For a few blessed minutes, I’m floating in nothingness. I’m lungs and muscles and nothing else.
I’m jerked back to reality by a thud on the stairs. I freeze, straining to listen past the blood rushing in my ears. There’s silence except for the wheels spinning to a halt. I slowly release my breath. It was just the house settling. Water in the pipes.
Something slams into the wall right outside my bedroom. My heart jumps into my throat.
It’s two o’clock in the morning. Mom’s asleep.
Mattie cannot be this stupid.
I get off the bike, stumble over my feet to get to the door, leap into the hallway, and grab him, pinning him against the wall before he can slide into a heap on the carpet.
He laughs as I drag him into my room. Halfway to my bed, I lose my grip and trip over him, and we end up tangled on the floor.
“You’re drunk.” I roll him so he’s not breathing on me.
“And stoned,” he giggles, struggling to sit upright.
“You’re gonna wake Mom up.”
He shakes his head, pursing his bright red lips. “She’s high, too. She’s not waking up ’til noon.”
“Oh, Mattie.” I hop to my feet and offer him a hand up. It must have been a rough night. His mascara’s smeared, and he lost an eyelash. “Let me get you cleaned up.”
His big hands envelop mine. I remember when they were tiny, and he’d curl them around my pointer finger.
I have to lean all the way back so he doesn’t topple me forward as he regains his footing. At least he had the wherewithal to change before he came home. He’s in sneakers, jeans, and a navy hoodie.
“Sit.” I shove him toward the bed and grab my makeup case from the en suite.
“You gonna make me pretty, big sister?”
“You’re already pretty.”
He’s going to be maudlin. I hate him like this. I hate that there are things in the world I can’t begin to fix for him.
I drag my vanity stool over and grab his chin. Somehow, he scraped his jaw. He jerks his head back. “Ow, Z.”
“I need to get some alcohol. Hold on.”
“I don’t see how you can drink at a time like this,” he calls after me, snickering at his own joke.
“Very punny.” That’s the Mattie I know. He might be down, but he’s not out. If you’ve given up, you don’t tell dumb jokes. Right?
I settle back on the stool and begin to dab dried blood with a cotton ball. He hisses. “Do I need stitches?”
“No.” I learned how to do stitches from my mother, and between Tony Junior and Mattie, I’ve had plenty of practice. That’s what Dani Graziano taught me—how to do makeup and first aid and keep my damn mouth shut. And one short summer, how to use a Cricut machine.
“How’d you do it?” I ask.
“Damn curb moved when I went to step up on it.”
“Is this my mascara?” I ask while I switch from isopropyl to witch hazel and swipe under his eyes.
“I don’t borrow your makeup anymore.”
“You’re all grown up.” I tousle his dark brown hair. He’s left it down and curled it in fat waves. We have the same hair, the same natural highlights, thickness, and
“You do it.” He braces himself. We both hate peeling eyelashes off. It squicks us out. I take my time running a Q-tip soaked in coconut oil along the adhesive so it’ll come off clean.
I was six years old when Mattie was born. I doubt he was planned. I think one of Dad’s girlfriends got pregnant, and Mom was worried he was looking to leave, so she got herself knocked up too to keep him home.
Tony Junior is a god in Mom’s eyes, but I swear, she only sees Mattie when he screws up or annoys her, so he was mine almost from day one. I heated his bottles and tested them against my wrist like I saw my aunts do. I changed him. I went to him when he cried in the middle of the night, and I sang him Kidz Bops because I didn’t know the words to the Italian nursery rhymes that Nonna had sung to me.
I kept his secrets before he knew how to keep them himself.
We do this dance, where I know, and he knows that I know, but we haven’t ever said the words out loud, not even to each other, because if we did, I would be the one who begs him not to tell because I can’t bear the thought of him being hurt, of losing him.
Because I’m the coward.
Once I get the eyelash off, I grab one of my last cleansing cloths, the organic, compostable kind that costs thirty dollars a pack.
“Close your eyes.” I wipe his face. I can still see the baby in the shape of his nose, and the little boy in the tilt of his chin. He’s eighteen now. He’ll be graduating from St. Celestine’s in a matter of months.
I’m so lost in worry that I don’t notice that he’s looking at me.
“Who worries about you, Zita?” he asks.
“No one needs to worry about me. I’m fine.” I boop his nose with the cloth. He swats at me and misses, clearly no more sober than when he stumbled upstairs. “If you drove tonight, I’ll kill you.”
“I took a ride share.”
I don’t say the other part. If they catch him like this out in the clubs, they’ll kill him. He knows it as well as I do.
In our world, it’s still the 1950s. Lucca Corso may wear slim-fit suit pants, but he might as well be a reincarnation of Dominic Renelli. Say hello to the new boss. Same as the old boss.
Mattie sighs and flops back onto my comforter, and I return my makeup case to the vanity. When I turn around, he’s riffling through one of my wedding binders.
I climb on the bed, and we lie on our stomachs side by side, shoulder to shoulder, flipping idly through venue brochures tucked in plastic sheets.
“What was wrong with this one?” he asks.
“The botanical gardens? Too expensive.”
“Don’t the bride’s parents pay for the wedding?”
“I’d ask Dad, but—” I bug my eyes and grimace. “Too soon?”
Mattie cracks up. “Oh, that was dark.”
“It made you smile.”
“I always smile.”
He does, and he always did, even as a baby.
“Okay, what was wrong with this one?” he asks.
“That one?” I squint at the photo of a rustic barn strung with fairy lights. What did Paul say about that one? “I think it was too historic?”
“That’s a thing?”
I shrug. We exchange looks and dissolve into giggles.
“Paul is too picky.”
“Who says it’s Paul being picky?” It is, but why shouldn’t he be? His parents stepped up when Dad died and said they’d take care of the wedding. Dad didn’t exactly have life insurance.
Mattie rolls his eyes. “Come on. You do whatever Paul wants.”
“Not true.” I just don’t have many preferences. It’s not a shortcoming.
“Bullshit. Name one time you’ve gotten your way. Just one.”
I don’t want my way. I want family dinners where the women wear pants if they want to and no one swears in front of the kids. I want a man who asks me to help him study for pharmacology instead of demanding that I tell anyone who asks that he was home Saturday night.
“I love Paul.”
“I know. I don’t know how you’d put up with his smug ass otherwise.” Mattie smirks.
I nudge his bony shoulder with my own. “I’m picky too, you know.”
“Yeah? You’re picky?” He grins and pinches my middle. I yelp. Then I’m trying to pinch him back, and he’s drunk and stoned, so he falls off the bed and knocks the lamp off the nightstand. He stays down there between the bed and the wall, catching his breath through his laughter.
I’d do anything in the world for this kid, and there is nothing I can do for him.
“Get your ass to bed,” I tell him. “And drink water and take an aspirin before you go to sleep.”
He returns the lamp to its place with exaggerated care and hauls himself up using the side of the bed, his lips still curved into a dopey smile. “Okay, Mom.”
It’s my turn to roll my eyes.
“Leave the bike alone,” he says over his shoulder on his way out. “Give it a rest. Go easy on yourself for once.”
I wait until the door’s shut to go back to my ride. I can’t fall asleep now. If I do another five-hundred calories, I should finally be able to pass out.
I’m almost right. When I fall into bed at three in the morning, I’ve burned seven-hundred calories, and it only takes a half hour or so to crash.
What feels like moments later, a voice jerks me from a deep sleep.
“Rise and shine, princess.”
I startle awake as rough hands tear me out of bed. My head bounces off the carpet. I scream and kick, my legs tangling in the gauzy white canopy. I’m torn free, my arm almost yanked from its socket.
I see a man’s legs. Joggers. Black rubber clogs.
My hip knocks my dresser. Lotions fall over, perfume bottles cracking against the mirrored tray.
“Stop.” The word sticks in my throat.
The man drags me to my feet, slamming me into the door frame.
My mother’s screams rise from the ground floor.
Oh, God. Mattie.
I lurch toward his room, but the man is too strong. He pulls me in the opposite direction, and I trip and fall. He doesn’t let me up again. He drags me down the hallway toward the top of the stairs, and I flail, scrabbling at the walls with my left hand, breaking my acrylics.
He keeps going. My tailbone smacks against a wooden step so hard that my eyes water. The man yanks me along, and I slide behind him, colliding with his shins.
“Fuck.” He hops out of the way, and I tumble into the landing, hitting the wall with a thud.
“Watch it,” a cool, deep voice warns from below.
The man in rubber clogs was reaching for me, but he stops, straightens, raises a thick eyebrow, and gestures for me to go down the last flight of stairs.
I know him. Vinny Bianco. Frankie’s cousin. Frankie was killed with Dad. Vinny must’ve picked the right side since he’s still alive.
I push up to my knees, dizzy, my hair in my eyes. My PJ shorts are twisted, and the V-neck of my top is yanked down almost to my elbow. I fix myself while I stand, legs wobbly, fingers shaking uncontrollably.
I’ve had nightmares about this all my life, and now it’s happening. And like in the nightmares, I’m paralyzed. Mute.
Vinny shoves me to keep going. I clutch the railing and hobble down. I hurt. My butt. My hip. My ankle.
Why is this happening now?
Dad’s dead. We were told that if we keep our mouths shut, and if Mom keeps Tony Junior in line, we’ll be fine.
Shit.
Tony Junior stepped out of line.
That fucking idiot.
I cross the foyer, round the corner to the kitchen, and as soon as Mom sees me, she sobs and snatches me to her chest, hysterically smoothing my hair, her rings catching strands and stinging my scalp.
I pull free and wrap an arm around her, tucking her to my side so she’s not blocking my view. My heart stops midbeat.
In the middle of the open floor, between the breakfast nook and the island, Furio Renelli, Tony Junior, and Mattie are kneeling in a line, hands behind their heads.
Mattie’s crying softly, a black streak running down his cheek. I missed some.
He won’t look up at me. He’s staring at the tile floor, rigid. Terrified. Like me.
