Joker’s Wild: Vegas Underground, book 5

by Rose, Renee

  And that’s how it should be.

  I’m dangerous. I bring darkness and hatred to everyone around me, myself included.

  The last thing Desiree Lopez needs is to get dragged down by someone like me.

  Chapter 7

  Desiree

  “Listen, doll.” Junior cups my chin in that stern way of his. “I’ll run out and get us coffee if you promise not to make a break for it. Are we past that now?”

  “Can I see my phone again?”

  He let me check texts and messages last night—with him looking over my shoulder the whole time, of course. There was a reply from my mom, but nothing else. No word from the private investigator or work.

  “I don’t know why you think this is negotiation. What you’re getting out of the deal is hot coffee and maybe a pastry. I’m asking if you’re gonna stay put or if I need to tie you to the bed. Because, baby, I will. And we both know you’d like it.” His voice deepens on the last words and I feel the vibration everywhere.

  He’s so right. Heat floods my nether regions at his words. Still, I keep making demands. “Just let me see it.”

  He sticks his hand in his pocket and produces my phone. “You don’t have any messages.” He swipes across the screen and opens my texts to show me. “Oh wait, you do have a new one.”

  He shows me the screen. My co-worker and friend Lucy texted. “You’re sick?”

  “Can I answer? Tell her the same thing I told my mom? She’s a good friend.”

  He nods and watches me closely as I type a response, like he’s looking for some sign I wanted my phone for some other reason.

  I didn’t. I’m not going to call for help or try to escape. I may have been coerced, but now we made our bargain. I’m sticking to it.

  I called in sick, but I actually have a home healthcare job that pays double this week. Don’t tell anyone! Then I put in three emojis of money bags. She knows how badly I need the money and will totally support me on this decision.

  Even though it wasn’t really my decision.

  When I’m finished, I hand the phone back. “I’ll take a latte and an egg sandwich, if they have them. Where are you going?”

  “Starbucks. Ham and cheese?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “You gonna stay?” He puts that note of warning in his voice that makes my panties wet.

  I give him a shove toward the door. “Of course I’ll stay. I need my coffee. Make it a large, capiche?”

  His deep chuckle sends frissons of pleasure through my body.

  I like making him laugh. Way too much. I need to guard my heart against this man because he is worming in far too quickly.

  “Listen, I’m not gonna call a bodyguard because I’ll be right back, but keep the door locked and don’t answer it for anyone.”

  A chill slithers through me, but I nod.

  He leaves and I head back upstairs to clean and dress Gio’s wounds and check his vitals.

  When the doorbell rings, I freeze.

  Okay, I’m not supposed to answer it. Should I call Junior?

  It rings again, several times, fast. Like it’s someone who knows Junior well. Definitely not a door-to-door salesman.

  “Junior?” A woman’s voice calls out.

  A wave of cold washes over me. There’s a woman? Of course there’s a woman. He’s a filthy rich, powerful man. He probably has a whole handful of women hanging around him at all times.

  My empty stomach turns.

  She rings again, several times fast.

  Ugh. I’m seriously going to be sick. I stand on the landing, staring down the stairs at the front door. Like I can will the little tramp away with my laser vision.

  A key turns in the lock. Oh my God. Who is this? She has a key?

  This isn’t some floozy. It’s a serious girlfriend.

  The door swings open and a very pretty, very young woman steps in. “Junior?” She looks up the stairs, her eyes widening when she sees me.

  “Oh shit,” she says, and comes flying up the stairs at me.

  I freeze, my gut tighter than a drum. Is she some psycho girlfriend coming to attack me? But she pushes past me like I don’t exist, and steps into Gio’s room.

  “Gio!” she cries out, fear in her voice. “Oh my God, what happened?” Now she whirls to look at me again. “Where’s Junior?”

  “Who the hell are you?” I demand, even though I probably have the least right to make demands. No, fuck that. He slept with me. I can demand all I want.

  The sound of the front door opening comes from downstairs. The woman doesn’t wait for me to answer, but charges out on the landing. “Junior, what the fuck?”

  I charge out onto the landing, too, and do my best to kill him with a glare. He lets out a stream of angry Italian, sets the drink tray and Starbucks bag down on an end table and marches up the stairs, looking grim.

  Ex-girlfriend, then. She must be an ex-girlfriend, because he doesn’t look guilty, he looks pissed. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  “What in the hell happened to Gio?” she counters, and waves a hand at me. “And who is this? I can’t believe you dragged some random nurse into this.”

  “How did you get in?” He looks past her at me. “Did you let her in?”

  She’s definitely not welcome. The jealous twist below my ribs starts to ease. “She had a key.” I look at her more closely, and then it dawns on me with a hit of warm relief. “Alessia.” Junior’s little sister. I saw her in photographs when I took care of her mom, but she was away at college. She graduated in December, I think. Or she was supposed to.

  She turns a surprised look at me.

  “Desiree nursed Ma after her surgery,” Junior explains, as if I’m the biggest question in the room.

  Alessia points at Gio. “When were you going to tell us?”

  Junior’s eyes narrow. “Never. Why in the hell are you here?”

  “Stefano and Nico stopped by yesterday. And Ma got worried because you haven’t been by, and she knew they were out here for some reason. Plus Paolo’s acting weird and Gio won’t answer his phone.” She waves a hand at Gio. “Obviously.”

  Junior runs a hand through his hair, rumpling it. “So Ma sent you?”

  “Well, I said I would find out.” Her eyes abruptly brim with tears. “Jesus, Junior, what the fuck? Is he going to be okay?”

  “Yes,” Junior and I both answer at the same time. I don’t know why I feel like I need to back Junior up with his family. He’s the kingpin, after all. But they all act like he’s the bad guy, and it bugs the hell out of me.

  She looks at me searchingly. I guess it makes sense—I’m the one dressed like a nurse. “The bullet went clean through,” I tell her. “No apparent damage to organs, not too much blood loss. The wounds will heal on their own with time and rest. He’s on painkillers, antibiotics and sedation, so he’s comfortable. There’s no reason to believe he won’t make a full recovery.”

  A couple tears fall down her cheeks and she nods. “I won’t ask what happened,” she mumbled.

  “Good,” Junior says. “And I don’t want you telling Ma, either.”

  She throws her hands into the air. “I’m not going to lie! She knows something’s up, Junior. You’d better figure out what to tell her yourself, but don’t ask me to lie for you.”

  “See, that’s why you shouldn’t be here, Lessa. And why do you have a fucking key to my place?”

  “You had me house sit last year when you went to the Old Country, remember?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  She slides a glance at me. “Why is it okay for her to be here, but not your own sister?”

  Junior gives her a withering look. “Are you a fucking nurse?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  Junior shakes his head. “Don’t ask me about business. You know better.”

  She rolls her eyes. “You sound just like Pops.”

  “And that’s exactly why I shouldn’t have to tell you this shit. Go home. Tell Ma e
verything’s fine. I’ll come see her next week. Don’t come back here without an invitation.”

  Alessia shakes her head. “You’re such an ass, Junior.”

  I bite my lips to keep from giving her a piece of my mind.

  She turns and walks down the stairs, and Junior and I both follow. At the front door, she turns and offers her cheeks to Junior, who kisses both of them, like they weren’t just yelling at each other. Something about it warms my heart.

  This family’s not that different from mine. From anyone’s. They have their squabbles and problems. But they love and care for each other just like the rest of us.

  Junior mutters something in Italian. I can’t figure out the translation, but it seems like a normal goodbye thing.

  “Grazie,” she answers. “Nice to meet you,” she says to me.

  “Tell your mom I said hi,” I say, because I’m not feeling as warm and fuzzy toward her as I am toward her mom. “Or—I guess don’t—since you’re not telling her what’s going on,” I babble.

  She gives a wave as Junior practically pushes her out the door.

  “You are not the popular brother this week, are you?” I say when she’s gone, to lighten the mood.

  “I consistently win most hated,” he says grimly. His face is back to the closed mask he usually wears, and it kinda breaks my heart to think that his family hates him. He pulls one of the coffee cups from the carrier and hands it to me.

  “Well, you’re still the apple of your mama’s eye,” I say, which is true. The woman practically lit up every time he came to visit. Not that she didn’t speak proudly about all her children. I take a sip and moan with pleasure.

  Junior goes still, gaze fixed on my lips.

  I enjoyed the show. That’s what he’d said the first night about watching me eat ice cream. My lady parts start tingling. Knowing I turn this powerful man on with a simple act of sipping coffee or eating ice cream gives me a huge boost of confidence.

  I hold his gaze as I take another sip. This time I’m conscious of the moan of approval I give it. “This hits the spot,” I murmur. “Thank you.”

  “You probably enjoyed watching me get my balls busted by the little princess, didn’t you?”

  “Actually, I wanted to throw her out,” I answer honestly.

  His face warms, the harsh lines relaxing into fondness. He shakes his head. “You’re something else, doll.”

  “Yeah, except when she walked in here with her key, I didn’t just want your balls busted, I wanted them cut off.”

  He chokes on his coffee.

  “I thought you had some girlfriend you hadn’t told me about.” I cock a hip. “Are there other women, Tacone?”

  He flashes a cocky grin. “Oh, now it’s Tacone, huh? No, baby. No girlfriends.” Then his smile fades. “I guess I should tell you I never officially divorced my ex-wife. We’ve been separated for ten years, though.”

  I blink at him. “Why not?”

  He shrugs and I watch his face closely. He hands me the Starbucks bag. “Here’s your sandwich.”

  I grab it, narrowing my gaze. “No, really, Junior. Why didn’t you get divorced?”

  “She didn’t want to be with me anymore, so I let her go. But she suffers from depression. She can’t work. She’s still my responsibility.”

  A bitter taste fills my mouth. Lord, if I felt jealous of the imagined girlfriend, it’s nothing compared to how I feel knowing he still financially supports his ex-wife. Well, still his wife, technically.

  I know it relates to my own issues with money and men. Abe always spent our money. Never contributed to the household. And of course, since he’s been gone, since he took Jasper, I’ve been living on nothing, with all my money still paying off the divorce lawyer I had to hire to win custody and now the private investigator.

  So the idea of some woman giving up Junior and playing too damaged to work so he’ll keep supporting her? It just twists like a knife in my chest. And then another thought occurs to me.

  Maybe this was the situation he chose so he could sleep with whoever he wanted, but she had to stay tied to him forever. It seems like a kind of jealous mafioso man thing to do. I tilt my head to the side. “So does she sleep with other men?”

  Disgust crosses his face. “Fuck no. I seriously doubt it. She’d better not.”

  The knife twists deeper. “She better not? You are seriously an asshole, Junior.”

  “Yeah?” He looks slightly pissed, slightly confused.

  “I get it. You want to have all the ass you want, all your freedom, but keep her locked up as Mrs. Tacone for the rest of her life. Real decent of you.”

  His lip curls. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. It’s not like that. Not at all.”

  I fold my arms across my chest. “Really? Well then explain it to me.”

  His lips tighten. His eyes have gone dead. It’s definitely scary Junior looking back at me. We blink at each other for a minute, and then he gestures toward the kitchen. “Go eat your fucking breakfast.”

  “Right,” I say, my hand tightening on the food. “You just put me in my place, didn’t you?” I turn and march into the kitchen, not waiting for his reaction.

  This time, I’m definitely sure he’s not turned on by my defiance.

  There won’t be any punishment sex for this one.

  Not that I’d welcome it.

  No, I just called him out on his shit, and he didn’t want to hear it.

  But it’s good. Now I know what kind of man he is. Not that I didn’t already. I just got lulled into thinking there might be more to him, underneath the frightening exterior.

  But there’s not.

  This is the kind of man who consumes people. And if I get stuck in his web, I’ll get consumed, too. If he decides I belong to him, he’ll keep me prisoner forever.

  * * *

  Junior

  I throw back another scotch and sigh.

  I have everyone out on the street looking for Vlad, but the Russians have gone totally underground. No one knows where to find the guy. I should be satisfied that he’s gone into hiding, but I’m not. Because he’s probably plotting revenge. Which means I need to find him and kill him before he finds me.

  Upstairs, I hear the television turn off. I gave Desiree a wide berth all day, and she was all business with me.

  I don’t know why I didn’t think my marital status would be a deal-breaker for Desiree, but I didn’t. Fuck, if I had any idea her reaction would be so negative, I never would have told her.

  No, that’s not true.

  It would’ve been worse if she heard it from one of my brothers, and Madonna, I know one of them would’ve been happy to throw that at her just to screw me.

  But her implication that Marne is a kept woman—like I won’t divorce her because I don’t want to let her go is way off base.

  I would’ve loved for her to go on with her life. Meet some other asshole to take care of her. Relieve me of the guilt and fucking shadow that’s always hanging over me. What we could’ve been without our tragedy. The happy, nuclear family.

  Aw, merde. Maybe that’s not true. It’s possible Desiree’s right. I’m a possessive asshole and I didn’t want her to be out in the world without me.

  No. No. I don’t think that’s true. If she’d been respectful, if she’d gotten her life together—got a job. Maybe some good counseling. If she came to me and said she’d fallen in love with some other guy, I would’ve kissed her cheeks and told her I was happy for her. I swear to Christ.

  I mean, she coulda filed for divorce. I never told her she had to stay married to me. Hell, she could’ve divorced me and taken half of everything I own. It’s not like she has to stay tethered to me to keep food on her table. She’d probably actually be living larger if she divorced me.

  But maybe she’s too afraid of me.

  I never hurt her—never even slapped her ass, but she was always a little skittish. She knows what I am. And she also thinks I blame her for M
ia.

  Maybe I do, I don’t know. The darkness in that house consumed the both of us after our little girl’s death.

  All I know is that I carry the weight of all of it, right in the center of my chest. Guilt for not knowing how to deal with my own grief. Not being able to help Marne with hers. Guilt for not wanting to be with her anymore. Not wanting to live in that house with all the reminders.

  What I had with Desiree—it’s over now, I know that. It was like a retractable ceiling opening up on my life. Sunlight pouring down and warming me, even with all the usual shit shows, like worry over Gio and my siblings’ wrath over the way I handled it.

  But that ceiling’s closed. There’s no untangling me from the dark web that is my life. The one my father created for me and I wove even tighter around myself. I’ll never be free of Marne, or my responsibilities of running La Famiglia. Or the wounds I inflicted on all those around me by always playing the asshole.

  There’s no point in even thinking about what might be different—what might be possible if I divorce Marne, because Desiree’s already smartened up.

  She knows better than to give any part of herself to me.

  Because I’ll take it.

  Consume her.

  And God knows, I would never, ever let her get away.

  That’s why she was so offended about me not getting divorced. It’s not because she’s pissed I fooled around with her when I’m not available, although there might have been a little of that. No, it’s because she recognized the dark truth of the matter. She could just as easily end up on my leash. And it’s nowhere she ever wants to be.

  Chapter 8

  Desiree

  I dream Jasper’s in his bed crying for me. I try to comfort him, but he can’t feel my arms, doesn’t hear my words. I’m a ghost to him.

  I wake up to the sound of Gio’s groan. I remember it’s Jasper’s birthday before I even open my eyes. It’s been four days since Junior kidnapped me and brought me here to take care of Gio. It feels like months. And I just want to be home right now, where I could cry into my pillow all day without seeing anyone.