by Frankie Love
But ideas are forming in my mind.
I spend the rest of the day training in the gym. Mikey, the trainer for the compound, comes by and offers to spot me. I bench press three hundred pounds, so I’m glad for his help and company. My aim is cardiovascular this afternoon, though. I’m not looking to get muscle-tied. I want speed and agility. Most of all, I need all my reflexes match fit for tonight.
I’ve slugged with the punching bag for ten reps, and I’m making the boxing speed bag rattle when Paul and John come in at about two-thirty. John works up a sweat on the treadmill and cross-trains. Paul is all about the weights.
Paul watches me. “I detect a change in our young lad.”
“You, Paul, are two years younger than me. So you can stop acting like my older brother.” John saunters over, ready to join in. I nod at him as I tell Paul, “This is bollocks, he is my older brother. He has age and seniority, so I have to fucking put up with it.” I catch John’s eye. “I could put him in the ground and he’d still be my older brother.”
John takes a long breath. “Is that something you’d like to try?” Our banter always skirts the edge.
I tell him, “Don’t be a dick, John. Your age gives you privileges, but you know if it came to it, I could snap you.”
He does. I could.
I’ve had enough verbal sparring and I go back to the speed bag. After twenty minutes, John and Paul are ready for the shower.
“See,” I call after them, “that’s the difference. You boys train because you have to. Your minds are always on the fucking clock. Thinking about when you’re going to be done. I’m here for it because I love it.”
As they step out to the changing room, Paul shakes his head and says to John, “Definitely a change in the boy.”
John looks back. “Just be ready for tonight.”
My fear is that she will be there.
I don’t want to see her in danger.
Chapter Eight
Giulietta
“Get a makeover or whatever you girls do,” Giovanni tells me, hurrying out of the study. “You’re going to meet the man of your dreams tonight.” Angelo follows, avoiding my eyes as he strides smartly in Giovanni’s path.
My brothers have been in a huddle with our father since dawn. They didn’t even come out for breakfast. They had Candace serve them in Daddy’s study, overlooking the pool.
“Giulietta,” comes the low rumble of Daddy’s voice.
I can see it now. Already, I know what’s coming. I’ve always known what my fate would be. Someday, my prince would come. He would probably look uncannily like a frog, but he would come bearing a deal, or an alliance. Something of value to my family. And I would be a part of the price.
That’s the destiny of a mob princess.
My Romeo? Well, I’m just glad for last night. Was he putting me on? I guess I’ll never know. In a way, I kind of hope that he was. It’s bad enough knowing that my heart is going to be shattered.
I want to believe that the feelings he showed me were real, but there’s no point in the both of us having to suffer. And at least he won’t ever have to know the family I’m from.
I keep thinking about the fact that he didn’t ask for my real name. Or for my phone number. Have I been scammed? Does he go around scouting for virgins? Finding and stalking innocent young girls to prey on? Well, I wouldn’t say I was all that innocent.
It could be there’s another explanation. But I don’t want to look at it like that. No. That would be too terrible. I won’t even think about it.
No, I’ll walk into Daddy’s study with my head high. I’ll listen as he condemns me to marriage, and I’ll walk back out again with my head still high.
“Giulietta.” His voice from the study leaves me in no doubt. When Daddy has good news, he rushes to the door with a smile and open arms. For the other kind of news, he stays behind his desk and calls me to come.
Like now.
“My darling. Sweetheart. Step inside here. Tonight is going to be a very big night, and you’ve got an important part to play.” Chin up, girl, I tell myself, but I know his words can only mean one thing.
I won’t cry, I won’t sob or sniffle. I won’t argue.
I know what’s expected of me. My afternoon is dedicated to getting me preened and pruned, primped and pampered. I’ve never enjoyed a manicure less, but Armando does wonderful work and I tip him and all the stylists abundantly.
After a long shower, one that I wish would never end, stroking myself with delicious, secret recollections of last night, I’m finally buffed and powdered and I climb into my designer finery.
A red velvet and lace-trimmed stretch silk dress, Tom Ford, of course. A liquid silver waterfall necklace, and enough crystals and glitz to knock a rapper’s eye out. Christian Louboutin So Kate leopard-print ankle boots complete the bling blast.
Whoever the lucky buyer is, I hope he’s appreciative.
We step out of our line of limos, under the golden glow of the awning at The Strip Steak House. Doormen and valets swarm around us, and a glamorous greeter guides us inside. The private rooms are on the second floor, at the top of a red-carpeted staircase. The paneled white double doors are red-roped off, exclusively for our gathering.
Side by side with my father, holding his arm, we lead the family up the stairs. As we enter the reception room, I wish we could be going anywhere but here, and doing anything but this. I love Daddy so much, and I seem to get fewer hours to spend with him every year that passes. I thought about adding the time up last year, but I was afraid it would be more like minutes than hours, and I decided I didn’t want to know.
The reception area is decked out with a bar. Through another set of doors, a huge table is set for a feast. I doubt if I can eat a thing. Both the rooms have massive crystal chandeliers. And, of course, no windows.
At least as Daddy introduces me to Josey Markowicz, I can feel a glow of pride in his voice and the swell of his chest. Josey bows and takes my hand. He may be old, but he’s courteous. His quick eyes sparkle, and he’s as sharp as a tack. As we talk, I get the sense that he is a widower.
Daddy, I think angrily. If you had to sell me off, the old man is a lot nicer than his over-fed son with the greedy eyes. I spotted Todd as soon as the door opened. Shiny and sleek. Nose in the air.
But my job here is to charm. And to be the sacrificial virgin for Josey’s kid. Josey asks me about myself and we chat before he beckons Todd over to introduce us.
When Daddy takes Josey aside, Todd looks me up and down. He makes an appreciative nod.
“You’re the pearl that’s going to clinch the deal with my dad, right? Get that fucking albatross of a casino liquidated so I can at least get a piece of what I’m due.” He has high sculpted cheekbones, teeth like a row of floodlights, and a jaw you could use as an anvil. I can tell at a glance that he spends way much on clothes and the ones he buys mark him as a rich kid trying to act tough.
“Your dad knows what he’s about with the business.”
He gives me a pitying look. “I read the figures, trust me. He’s bleeding us dry, trying to keep a sinking ship afloat.”
“Your father is trimming profits to fund the staff and keep the business alive.”
“Dad knows nothing about business. It was a cakewalk when he started up.”
“Well, he knew enough to keep the lights on through thirty tough years.”
Todd smiles indulgently. “What do you know about it?”
My eyebrows raise. “I know that I’m on the buying side of the negotiation, and every word you say hurts your price.”
He’s easy company and definitely easy on the eyes, but I’ve had bathtub toys that were smarter. If I have to listen to him across the breakfast table every day, he’s going to wake up one morning at the bottom of the pool.
And I’m aware that I’m not playing the pliant and simpering little girlie like I should. In his eyes I can see that I’m not the fluffy eye candy bouncing with fun that he had been hop
ing for.
The big double doors burst open.
I hear someone shout, “Where are Massimo and the others?”
Then the reply from outside the room, “They’re all stuck in the two elevators.”
A loud, guttural laugh is followed by a deep voice with a definite brogue. “Your muscle should have taken the stairs, don’t you think?”
Four men fill the doorway.
“The O’Malleys!” someone behind me says.
The oldest of them in the center has the unmistakable bearing of a high-powered gangster.
“That’s Liam O’Malley,” the voice behind me says. I never saw them before, but the O’Malleys have been bitter rivals of my family for years. My heart is in my mouth.
Not because of the raid. And not because we’re cornered in a room and under attack. Not because our bodyguards have been trapped in the elevator, either.
Because of the man standing on the left side of the door.
The man I was in bed with last night.
My emotions are suddenly a swirling storm. My family has been ambushed. The man who told me all those sweet, tender lies last night is part of the ambush. Damn him! My mind races to think if there’s any way that he could have lured and seduced me as a part of this.
And the most treacherous part of me is so thrilled to see him, he can probably smell it from across the room.
Liam strides up to Josey Markowicz. He tells him in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, “You want a real family firm to take over your casino. All the Morettis want is the location. They would implode the place before the ink dried on the contract.”
Well, he’s right about that. All Daddy wants is the corner. Daddy steps forward. “Wait a…”
Liam draws a very long-barreled automatic from inside his coat. Slowly and deliberately, he aims it at Daddy.
Drago bursts through the line of men at the door, knocking my lying Romeo O’Malley to one side. And everyone’s pulling their guns. I don’t know why I didn’t think to bring one.
The lights go out. The room plunges into thick, black velvet darkness.
A shot rings out. Furniture falls, or something heavy. Then there are two more shots from different directions.
From behind, I’m grabbed and wrapped in something black. A coat or a blanket or something. And I’m dragged away.
Chapter Nine
Peter
I hammer the McLaren Senna down the Strip. Moving at more than a few miles an hour is always a challenge here. A getaway drive takes nerves of steel and very aggressive driving. A car like this helps. But even in black, it’s conspicuous.
It roars like a metal tiger raging to battle. We spear through the traffic, slicing between lights and across tiny gaps, arcing around busses and trucks, shooting by limos, the McLaren’s roof lower than their windows. The engine whines, full-throated and fierce, as we dart between lanes, cut over a junction and wiggle at blinding speed out of town.
Finally, I zip across Dean Martin Drive. The tires smoke as I floor the pedal and flip the car onto the Las Vegas Freeway.
She shouts, “What the fuck are you doing?”
She’s strapped in the passenger seat with a coat over her. Her voice is high and strained. She’s wearing an exotic, heady perfume. It’s not nearly as enticing or arousing as her natural scents, which are hot and strong right now. She peeks out and her eyes stretch wide.
Banking and flicking side to side, then blasting up through a closing space, I say, “Keep the coat over your head.”
I find space as we pass the vertical beam of the Luxor pyramid, and she’s rammed back into the seat. Flipping the nimble McLaren left, then right, accelerating hard, I smile as I tell her, “If you haven’t ridden in one of these, it can be terrifying. Especially in traffic.”
“We’ve got Lamborghinis and Ferraris coming out of our wazoos, asshole.”
“Yeah. They’re pretty. The McLaren is really fast, though. Stay strapped in and cover your eyes.”
“Look, Romeo fucking O’Malley, just stop.”
I give her a grin, but I don’t take my eyes off the road. We’re coming up to an intersection. “I’ll have us clear out of town in less than five minutes. Relax.”
“Relax?” She punches my arm. Not the best idea under the circumstances. “My family could be hurt.”
Traffic thins as we pass the Drive Carefully side of the Fabulous Las Vegas sign.
I tell her, “All your family are fine. The big, ugly goon caught one. I think he’ll live, though.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were a fucking mobster?”
“Strange you didn’t mention it yourself.”
“I’m not!”
“Oh, did you wander into the wrong party by mistake back there?”
“Let me out.”
“Sure.” There’s a turnoff into the desert in about four miles. About a minute away. “Soon.”
The Strip is behind us, and we’re far enough down I-15 South that traffic’s almost non-existent out here. Meaning I can really speed up.
She bangs on the dash. “I believed you! I believed you ran into me by chance at Spades Royalle. I even believed in your fucking lucky number.”
“It’s all–”
“You know what gnaws me the most?” She’s on a roll. Damn, she’s a hell of a sight to see when she’s mad. “What really bites? I wanted to keep you from knowing who I was. I believed you were a man who would turn and run if you knew my family history.”
She doesn’t wait for me to reply.
“You fucking lied to me.”
“I did fucking not!”
“Well, you should have told me who you were.”
She’s thrown hard against me as I spin the car off the highway, onto the side road.
“I was trying to. But you kept changing the subject. Heading me off so I wouldn’t find out who you were.”
“Well, do you blame me?”
“No. Except that I knew.”
“How?”
I skid the car off the road, onto a patch of flat scrub. We spin and I bring us to a stop.
“Because I’m in love with you.”
“Oh. Oh, well, that’s sweet.” She quiets down some. “At least I gave my virginity to someone who thinks he loves me.”
“I was in love with you long before that.”
Her eyes blaze, and her voice darkens. “How?”
“I’ve been watching you.”
She slaps my face. “What?”
“I had your compound under surveillance.”
She slaps me again. Her face reddens. “What?”
“Do that again,” I dare her.
“And what will you do?”
“I’ll fuck you till your eyes pop.”
She slaps my face again. This time, really hard.
I laugh and tell her, “You don’t mean that.”
Her hand stings my face once more.
I snap off her seat belt. She squeals as I lift her onto my lap.
“This isn’t like your jeans and tee-shirt look.” Her ass slides on my thighs, making me even harder.
“You’re one to talk, Mr. Seamus O’Bond in your fancy suit.” Her hands scrabble for my belt and the zipper on my pants.
I pull her face to mine. We kiss like savages. Wet, snarling, licking, biting each other's lips and tongues. She kneads my cock and tilts her ass back and forth. I can feel her hot wetness seeping into my pants.
Her knees are high up, and her thighs are spread wide apart.
“That dress is amazing.” I reach up the back of her leg. She’s wearing thin panties. Pretty blue things that are almost not there. And they’re drenched. They soak my hand. I pull my fingers up to my face. She lunges with her mouth open and she looks wild as she slurps up the juice.
My cock won’t wait. I open my pants. Slide my shorts down to free the beast.
I rub her pussy lips, sliding a finger, then two fingers into her channel. The rip is a delicious sound as I tear h
er panties apart.
“Those cost more than two hundred dollars.”
“Yeah? You’d think they’d be tougher.”
I beat her mound and her clit with my cock. Popping it into her opening and dragging it out again.
“You fucker,” she growls.
“Yeah?” I laugh.
I pop it in and out a few more times.
“I might as well have been a virgin too,” I tell her, “until last night.”
“I deflowered you?” She lets out a sigh as I beat the slick bulb of my cock against her clit.
My voice is low and lecherous. “You ruined me,” I tell her. “I’ll never be able to look at another woman.” And I plunge inside her. It’s a good thing we’re sealed in the car and parked a long way out in the desert. Her moan fills the car. It would carry most of the way back to the Strip.
Her walls grip and flutter around me. Her breasts feel amazing, shaking in rippling waves as I hammer into her.
She lifts her knees higher, jiggling her feet and clawing her hands into her hair.
“And what I said about my lucky number is true.”
She’s too cramped to move much. The roll of her hips and the flex in her back makes up for it, though.
The way her pussy hugs me, wet and greedy, makes me feel all kinds of need.
I rub the base of her clit, stopping often to lick her juice off my thumb and fingers. Every time, she licks my hand.
“I’ve been in love with you for months. Years, really.”
“Years?” Her pussy clamps hard on my cock.
I shout, “God. Yes!”
She squeezes her ass, wedging herself tight against me. I feel the shudders start in her thighs.
I hold and stroke her face and neck and reach down for her breast.
I grip the cheek of her ass in the other hand.
Thinking back to the beautiful girl on the sun lounger, I can’t believe that I’ve got her in my car, stretched and impaled on my throbbing cock, and I’m bringing her to another gushing orgasm. As I’m pushing, I tell her about the pool, how I saw her in the cabana.
