Wild Card (Vegas Underground 8)

Paolo’s body goes taut and I have to rewind what I said that made him tense up.

Oh. The guy’s sketchy apartment.

“Nothing bad happened there,” I reassure him, although I don’t know why I should. The bad shit happened to me after my dad died. After he was murdered by the Tacones.

So I tell it to him straight. “After my dad was murdered, life sucked. I needed a super power and hacking seemed like the answer. Foster parents can’t take away your personal belongings and that laptop was mine. I used the hell out of it. I devoted every free minute I had to learning how to get past firewalls and hacking passwords. I started taking money for small hack jobs by the time I was sixteen. It helped me feel like I was capable of filing for emancipation and living on my own.”

“It is a super power, doll. Believe me, I’m tempted to exploit the hell out of it, but I’m trying to stay clean. Ish. The Family’s gone legit.”

The Family’s gone legit. That comes as news to me, but considering the money I’ve seen pumping through those Bellissimo accounts, I guess they don’t need to resort to extortion and loan-sharking anymore. They have more money than they can spend.

“So why even study computer science? Don’t you already know everything you need to know?”

I give him a wry grin. “I was trying to go legit, too. Ish. Too bad you’re screwing that up.”

He folds his arms over his burly bear chest and shakes his head. “Don’t blame me for applying consequences to your misdeeds.”

It’s unfortunate that my kinky side finds his enforcement so panty-melting.

I stay on that treadmill, images of all the dommy things he did to me flooding my brain as I heat under his watchful stare. When I’m done, I hop off and trip over to him, giving him a peck on the cheek before he knows what I’m doing.

“When this is all over, do you think we’ll be friends? Lovers? Go out on a date?” I’m play-acting. Doing the overly-familiar crazy girl thing.

But I suddenly wish I hadn’t asked the questions because I realize the answer might hurt me.

Genuinely hurt me.

I’m used to losing guys after a couple dates. I’m used to driving them away with my quirks and kinks and crazy.

And this isn’t a guy I’m dating or even want to date in the future.

He’s a Tacone, for Christ’s sake. His family killed my father. He’s a hitman who’s threatening my life and the life of my brother.

But I find I do care about his answer. I care very much.

Especially when a strange look comes over his face. It’s the first time I’ve shocked him, and I’ve tried at least a dozen times before.

“Of course we won’t,” I answer for him. “Nevermind.” I speed away, out of the room and when he lets me go, I know that I correctly guessed the answer.

And I hate what that knowledge does to my chest. The uneasy nervous edge that pushes into where warmth had been before.

I go back to his living room and turn on the television like it’s my home, opening Netflix and putting on my new binge watch series, Jane the Virgin. I’m in season four.

I don’t move from the couch for the rest of the afternoon into the evening. Not even when he orders in a nice dinner from a steakhouse and opens a bottle of wine.

He doesn’t make me—he just brings the food to the couch and hands it to me.

I think I half want him to. To take the remote, turn the TV off and take charge of me. Make me sit across from him at the table and pretend this is a date.

But I guess he’s not interested in that.

In me.

Of course he’s not. He was just happy to get his dick wet while he makes sure I return the money I stole.

For me to read anything else into this is insane.

Which of course, I am.

Chapter 5

Paolo

“The money’s there? And you’re diverting it?” I’m on the phone with my brother-in-law Vlad to verify Caitlin’s report that the money transfer has begun. Vlad is the bratva asshole who kidnapped my sister last year in his own revenge-slash-extortion attempt against the Tacones.

Lucky for him, or for her, or maybe for all of us, our baby sister is a unicorn in her own right. Vlad fell in love and ended up donating a kidney to save her life and calling us to bring her home. And that’s the only reason he’s not a dead man.

“Yes. Our side should be masked, but hers will not be. The feds will eventually trace the loss to her, same as I did when she stole from the Bellissimo.”

I try to ignore the pang that gives my conscience. She made her own bed. This isn’t my problem.