Make Her Mine

Prologue

Stone

This is the last one. The last job I’ll ever have to pull for this fucking prick.

I sidestep a heap of parts that look like a blackjack table someone took a hammer to. The guy bringing me in, another of these tanned and top-knotted Jersey Shore thugs Rich dredges up from who-the-fuck-knows-where, gives me a look meant to intimidate. I respond with a grin.

Rich’s guys never trust me. Can’t understand why.

It’s almost like they’ve figured out I’m forced to be here.

At last, we reach the back lounge the Revel, what used to be one of Atlantic City’s top performing casinos. A neon sign hangs half-disassembled over the door, the only letters remaining spell out dies Burlesque! Inside looks like a raver puked on ‘Merica. Flags hang everywhere, with cowboy boot logos in neon on the walls, and splatters of paint that would probably glow in the dark right along with every other mystery fluid.

There’s music playing, not the bass-heavy club shit I’d expect in a room like this. Something soft. Classical. The kind of shit you’d expect to hear in an elevator in an upscale department store—not the headquarters of a man who’s made his living through the literal blood, sweat and tears of half of Atlantic City.

Which is why my eyebrow shoots up as Man Bun leads me around the bar to a raised poker table. It’s occupied by three of Rich’s elite thugs—friends of his, judging by the Mafia Slut Barbies perched on their knees. They’re all wearing bikinis even though the AC is blasting so high it feels like mid-January.

“Hundred thou,” one of the guys I’ve never seen says, sliding a stack of chips toward the giant stack in the center of the table.

“Call,” Rich answers from the head of the table. The motherfucker’s poker face is as empty as the one he wears when he tells his people they have three days to get him his money. He rarely tacks a threat onto the end. He doesn’t need to because he normally sends me out to collect.

As Man Bun and I take the steps up to the table where they’re playing, the dealer flips over another card. One of the guys curses and folds on the spot, though whether it’s because of his hand or the level stare Rich is shooting his direction is anyone’s guess.

The Barbie on the guy’s lap wastes no time trying to take his mind off the game. As her head disappears under the table, my opinion of Rich sinks to a new all-time low right along with the blonde. And my thoughts about that motherfucker were already at rock bottom to begin with.

Five faces swivel around to stare at me as I approach the table, even the creep getting his dick sucked by a girl young enough to be his daughter. Whether they’re all pretending not to hear the slurp of her licking his cock, or whether they’re just so used to this shit they don’t even notice, I can’t tell.

I face Rich, ignoring the rest of his goons. “You needed me?”

“I’ve got something for you.” For a split second I’m afraid he’s referring to the hooker in his lap, whose fake tits could pass for flotation devices. “A job,” he adds with a sneer, and I’m relieved for an instant.

“You realize this makes thirteen,” I drawl. That was the deal. Thirteen jobs. That’s all he gets from me, and then I’m done.

“I’m aware.” His lips curl. “Don’t worry. I picked a good one for your last.”

My stomach sinks, but I don’t let it show on my face. I learned a long time ago—back when I was still fighting and men like Rich lined their pockets betting on me—never to let anything show around these people. They’ll eat you alive.

“Good,” I say aloud. “What do you need?”

There’s a grunt from the other end of the table as Blowjob finishes at the exact same time the classical music swells in a crescendo. Thankfully, Bach or Beethoven or whoever drowns out Mafia Barbie’s last few gulps.

“Ian Banner owes me $500,000 in back gambling debt. He lives in Ducktown. Heath will give you the full details.” Rich waves a dismissive hand at Man Bun. Heath. The name fits. “Thing is, I’ve heard he has the money in full; that he’s planning to skip out on the generous loan I gave him and keep the interest for himself. What I need to know is where he’s keeping it. His younger sister is the only person he talks to, the only person he trusts.”

We’ve been down this road before, enough times I know what’s coming. “You want me to get close to the sister. Figure out what she knows.”

Rich trails a hand through the girl on his lap’s long, fried blonde tresses. She giggles but the look doesn’t reach her eyes. “Women are your specialty, Stone. They like you. They talk to you.”

No, they want to fuck me. And Rich has no problem pimping me out if it means he’ll get his money quicker. “Yeah, well, they’re easy to figure out,” I say with a glance at the hooker’s face. She’s staring at her lap, eyes downcast. I wonder how much Rich paid for her. That’s his specialty. Knowing everyone’s price to sell out, to compromise their lives and dignity because he has what they need.

He’d come to me when the money from fighting ran dry with an offer I couldn’t refuse, and I’ve been fucked ever since.

“Then it should be easy,” Rich says with a lopsided grin I want to knock off his face. “Fuck the bitch and figure out where my money is.”

Chuckles circle the room as the dealer sweeps up the cards to dole out a new hand with an insanely high buy-in. One last gig, I remind myself, smoothing my face into an unreadable mask. Lucky number thirteen. Then I’m done for good with these people.

“So?” Rich prompts, impatient, as he clearly wants to pick up his new set of cards and get moving with blowing more of the money he worked so hard to swindle out of people like Ian Banner. “Are you in or not?”

My lips thin in surprise. “You’re asking?” He’s never given me options before.

“I can be polite, Stone. If you don’t like this job, you can always pull out. Wait for the next favor to arise.” He says that in a tone that makes me sure that if I don’t accept, the next one he’ll fling my way will be ten times shittier.

“I’ll do it,” I mutter.

With that, Rich turns back to the table, satisfied that he got what he wanted again. That’s fine by me. It’s the last time I’ll ever have to deal with this fucker.

One last time, I recite again, as Man Bun hands over a stack of files.

One last time.

By the time I get to work the next morning, I’ve already discovered

the files tell me jack shit about anything important. It’s like surveillance footage put together by a kindergartener. Who the fuck is Rich hiring to do his filthy work these days?

It’s got the basics. Full names: Dorian Henry and Skye Juliet. Ages—at twenty-four, Ian Banner is ten months older than his sister. Addresses for both siblings. Places of employment. Ian is unemployed, which figures since he’s supposedly sitting on a pile of dough big enough to refinance the Revel himself if he wanted, and Skye works at a diner in the seedier part of town that’s close to her apartment. You’d think if the brother was sitting on a nest egg the size of a small mansion, he’d at least finance his younger sister.

From everything Rich has said, she’s the only person in the world he gives a shit about. He’s got enough money for her not to have to wait tables for a living.

Still, after the last couple of years running jobs like this since my fighting career ended and my world went to shit, I’ve learned that’s how people like Ian Banner operate. The world revolves around money for them. If they don’t see dollar signs at the end of the tunnel, they don’t make the effort to walk down it. Not even for a family member.

Fucking bastards.

Maybe this job won’t be complete shit, though. At least, that’s what I’m thinking when I turn up the sunny, tree-lined avenue surrounded by depressingly beige cinder-block apartment buildings. Every few houses is a “hotel” that looks exactly like its neighboring apartments, the kind of establishment that’s no stranger to providing in-home entertainment.

The kind that charge by the hour and come complete with a happy ending.

This is no neighborhood for a lady. Especially not the lady I’m picturing from the photos Man Bun included in the Skye Banner Dossier.

Her body is an hourglass. Magazine-perfect, if anyone in the fashion industry had eyeballs and allowed women to look the way they should—curvy and luscious, with tits I’d need both hands to squeeze. And then there’s her ass. It’s the kind of ass that makes my mouth water in anticipation. The kind of ass I could dive right in—dick, tongue, fingers, everything.

But as delicious as her body is, it was Skye’s face in those pictures that made me pause.

It’s her face that makes her stick in my mind, even now as I’m creeping down her block keeping my eyes peeled for Monroe’s, the diner where she works. Even in the few candid shots that Man Bun managed to take of her while she busied herself pouring coffee around the diner, leaning against tables to chat with older couples, a huge smile on her cupid-bow lips and her ponytail falling over one shoulder, there’s this look in her pale blue eyes. Eyes I’ve never seen on anyone before, so clear they could pass for a gemstone, eyes that have to be fake. Contacts or some shit.