Joker's Wild (Vegas Underground 5)

“What the fuck are you doing?” An angry male voice demands in a low voice, drawing closer with each word. “I told you not to hurt her.”

“She’s not hurt, just scared.” The voice beside me is low, too. We must be someplace people would hear us if they raised their voices. A neighborhood?

“Let her go.” The bag flies off my head.

I open my mouth to scream, but the sound dies on my lips when I blink up at the pair of sharp, dark eyes above the stubbled masculine line of a powerful jaw belonging to my former employer.

Junior Tacone.

Shit.

My galloping heart slows, reverses direction, takes off again.

“Junior.” I call him by the name his mother used when I worked in her house, forgetting the “Mr. Tacone,” forgetting to show respect.

And then, because I had actually been attracted to this man last time I saw him—had thought maybe he had a thing for me, too—and I just had the shit scared out of me, I slap his face, hard.

The men beside me growl and grasp my arms again.

“Let her go.” He takes my forearms instead, pulling me into him. Through his long wool coat, the firmness of his large body presses back at me. His dark gaze is commanding. Intense. “I’ll let that slide, this time. Because they scared you.”

A shiver runs up my spine. He’ll let that slide.

This time.

Like ordinarily, there are consequences for slapping the mob boss.

Of course there are.

“Now, come inside, I need your help.”

I look up the sidewalk at the huge house illuminated by streetlights. It’s not his mother’s Victorian brick where I worked for three months as a home healthcare nurse after her hip surgery.

Must be his?

I try to pull my wrist from his grasp. “No. You can’t just, just… kidnap me and tell me to come inside because you need my help.”

He shifts his grasp and tips his head toward the house. “Let’s go.” He doesn’t even bother answering my argument. And I suppose that’s because I’m dead wrong. He can just kidnap me and demand my help. He’s Junior Tacone, of the Chicago underground. He and his men have guns. They can make me do whatever they damn well please.

The relief that trickled in when I saw his handsome face ebbs back out. I may still never walk out of here. Because whatever awaits me in that house isn’t going to be pretty. Or legal.

Someone’s hurt and they need a nurse. That’s my best guess.

And now I’ll be a witness to whatever they’re trying to hide.

Is one of their members hurt? Or are they torturing someone? Need me to keep him alive so they can get something out of him?

I have no choice but to go in. I may have spunk, but I’m not willing to find out what happens if you defy the kingpin of Chicago. I fall into step beside him, hurrying to match his long strides.

He slides his grip from my wrist to my hand. His large hand warms my icy one and has a protective quality, like we’re on a date.

Like I’m not his prisoner.

Chapter 2

Junior

I’m still mostly functioning on autopilot. Probably in shock in my own alpha asshole way.

Even so, I know pulling Desiree into this situation was wrong.

I’m breaking one of our sacred rules—don’t involve or corrupt the innocent.

But she was the first person I thought of and the only one I fully trust to save Gio. Yeah, we have a few veterinarian connections we’ve used in the past, but it’s been years. They must be in their eighties now—friends of my grandfather. I don’t know who we can trust anymore.

And if Gio dies, it’s all on me. I’ll never forgive myself. I keep questioning my judgment on not bringing him to the hospital, but if I do, the Russians’ deaths will be pinned on him. Or on me. Fuck! —on us.

This is how my father would’ve handled it. We’ve treated bullet wounds in-house before. Just not immediate family. Paolo, Luca and Mario follow us in.

I pull Desiree into the house, jog up the stairs, still holding her hand.

She’s all piss and vinegar, dragging her feet to show me her reluctance, but underneath it, I smell her fear.

Which is for the best. I need her afraid. In my line of work, fear is an integral part of business.

We reach the landing and I turn toward the guest bedroom where Paolo helped me carry Gio, who had passed out by the time we arrived.

“Oh shit.” Desiree sees Gio. She strips off her coat and throws it on the floor as she runs into the room.

Relief hits me square between the eyes. Any worries I had that I’d have to coerce her to even look at him evaporate. She’s already in nurse mode, zeroing in on her patient.

“Your brother.”

She’s met him, then.