Dead Man's Hand (Vegas Underground 7)

“Yeah. And the one he played implicated both you and Junior. Nothing big, but who knows what else he has. Twenty years of them, he says. Says if anything happens to him, the lawyer will release them.”

“Wait, wait, wait. Back up. What did the testa di cazzo want?”

I blink my bleary eyes and look around for something else to drink.

Paolo hits my arm with the back of his hand. “To leave the girl alone?”

“Yeah. Exactly.”

“Why? You were good to her. Right? You didn’t fuck around on her?”

“Of course not.” I scrub a hand across my face and pad into the kitchen in my bare feet, looking for something alcoholic.

“Then why?” Paolo demands, trailing me into the kitchen.

I pick up an empty wine bottle and shake it. There’s only a swallow left. I tip it up to my mouth. Make that half a swallow.

Paolo grabs the bottle from my hand and gives me an expectant look.

“What? Oh.” I turn to look out the window at Lake Michigan. “Do you believe in fate, Paolo?”

My brother gives me a shove. “Shut the fuck up about fate. Just tell me what the hell happened.”

Okay. Skip the fate part. The recurring nightmare that warned me my girl was in danger before she was even my girl.

“I beat the shit out of a guy in Milano’s.”

Paolo whistles. “That’s too bad. What happened?”

“See, he had a gun to my girl’s head.”

Paolo nods like that was definitely enough said. “Surprised you didn’t kill him.”

I shrug. “I’ve changed. But not enough, I guess.”

“That’s bullshit. Seriously, man, that’s total bullshit.”

I look back out over the water of the lake, the waves as gray as the sky today. “Do you think my life was spared just so I would save hers, Paolo?”

“What?”

“And like, now I’ve served my purpose?”

Paolo, being the loving, supportive brother he’s always been, punches me in the gut again. When I straighten from being doubled over, he slaps my face. “Get in the fucking shower before I beat the shit out of you.”

“Nice,” I mutter, but I drag my ass to the bathroom. There’s no way I’d win a fight against my big brother right now. Even if I had any fight left in me, which I don’t. “Real fucking nice.”

I stand under the spray of water until it turns cold. Even then, I keep standing under it. I don’t wash my hair. I don’t soap up. I just stand there and let it drench me.

Hoping it will wash away all the shit I’ve done and said in my life. Every bad deed. Every act of violence. Everything it means to be a Tacone.

Too bad such a thing isn’t possible.

Chapter 16

Marissa

I’m working until close at Milano’s. No customers are in the place, but my nonno’s in back, doing inventory. It reminds me of the evening Gio first walked in. Maybe that’s why I’m half-expecting him to show up.

Or maybe it’s just wild, undying hope.

Like the hope that my mom will one day show up and apologize for missing my childhood.

Yeah, right.

But when I catch the deep tones of Gio’s voice coming from the back, my heart surges into my throat.

He’s here.

Talking to Nonno. Maybe fixing things.

That’s how stupid my mind is.

I go stand just outside the doorway to the storeroom just to be sure my fanciful thoughts are shit. And they are.

It’s not Gio, but it sounds a lot like him. “You don’t blackmail a Tacone and live to tell about it, old man.”

A Tacone. My heart starts racing.

Gio’s brother, then. Which one? Not Junior. Must be Paolo.

“You banked on my brother loving that granddaughter of yours too much to kill you, but me? No such qualms, il vecchio. I’m fucking ruthless. Especially when it comes to looking after my younger brother.”

“If you shoot me, the evidence goes to the police. Twenty years of tapes implicating everyone in your organization.”

I shove my knuckles in my mouth to keep from saying anything. My grandfather blackmailed them with old tapes?

Is this the real reason Gio broke up with me?

“Then they go. There is no organization left. The police aren’t going to go chasing people down on petty crimes that happened twenty years ago.”

“You don’t know that.” I hear a mixture of fear and defiance in my grandfather’s voice.

“You listen to me. We almost lost Gio last year. And when he came back? He was a ghost of his former self. But with Marissa, he came back to life. He was happy—maybe for the first time ever. And you just couldn’t fucking take that, could you? What did Gio ever do to you, huh? Your beef is with our old man, but you just can’t let it go. You had to get back at him by destroying something beautiful. Tell me, Luigi, does your granddaughter know what you did?”

I draw a deep breath and walk through the door. “Know what?”