by Quinn, Cari
I started to smile back until a possible dual meaning of that phrase sneaked into my head and I blushed. He was a handsome, older man, in his mid-twenties to my not-quite-nineteen, and all of the women at the club wanted to be close to him. His special interest in me from almost the beginning had garnered me more than a bit of jealousy. I’d never really encouraged his attention, but I hadn’t exactly discouraged it either.
I wasn’t interested in him. That didn’t mean I couldn’t have some fun, right?
He wasn’t Giovanni. No one was.
“Come now, gattina.” His smile grew as he inclined his chin at his extended arm. “You’re running late.”
Biting my lip, I took another glance at my cage. The chaser lights surrounding it glowed green and purple, my special colors. The structure would start revolving soon, though it was empty.
“Maybe I should just skip the shoes.” I started backing up the steps. “Not like I really need them to—”
“But your costume. Your legs look so beautiful in heels.” His gaze dropped and I gripped the railing, trying not to react to his intense perusal. I was used to men looking at me. Hell, I loved it. I loved knowing I’d made their dicks hard, that they wanted to take me home and never would. I found a control here I’d found so few other places.
By day, I had to listen to my instructors. At night, this was my world, and I ruled it from behind a shy smile. No one suspected I was anything but an innocent college student who’d somehow stumbled into stripping to pay my bills. I wasn’t supposed to enjoy the power that rode in my veins every time I made these men want.
And beg.
“Thank you,” I said demurely, rubbing my bare foot against my opposite ankle. I wasn’t stupid. I knew the movement allowed him to see straight up to the G-string barely hidden by my flared schoolgirl skirt. If he squinted, he might even be able to see the shadowy outline under the nearly see-through white panties.
His nostrils flared and he shifted toward the stairs, locking an arm around the back of my thighs. Before I could react, he’d yanked me down the steps and against him. There was no mistaking the column in his pants. For me.
Suddenly, I doubted what he wanted to show me in a back room had anything to do with shoes.
“Gattina,” he breathed, and his Bourbon-laced breath puffed over my mouth. It didn’t turn me on, not exactly. I had the kind of motor that usually needed a lot of warming up before it ran hot. “You’re needed elsewhere.”
“But my job.” I fingered his ruby tie and gave him a playful smile. “I can’t just take off when I want to.” I licked my lips and his nostrils flared again. “Much as I might want to.”
“You must want a lot, a gorgeous girl like you.” His gaze flickered over my face. “A place like this will never be enough for you.”
I tugged my lower lip between my teeth and made my eyes wide. God, I loved this game. It didn’t hurt anyone, and it was so much fun. “What do you have in mind?”
He pulled me against him, hard, and the moan I let out at the rough brush of his suit-clad cock against my pelvis was only half fake. “Let me show you.”
“Oh, how I wish.” Flashing him a grin, I stepped back up the steps. But my lack of a shoe made me unsteady, and he took advantage by grabbing me again.
“Your shift will be covered. Don’t worry, I know the owner.” The deadly flash in his eyes disappeared as fast as it had appeared. “Come with me now, Carly.”
I blinked, my seductive façade falling away. No one knew me as Carly here. I was Carlotta. Not far from my real name, but far enough.
That didn’t mean I’d let him know he struck paydirt. “Carlotta,” I corrected, adding a practiced smile for good measure.
He brushed my cheek with a blunt-tipped finger. “Now, now, friends shouldn’t lie to each other. And we’re friends, aren’t we?” He waited a beat, his mouth tightening. “Carly Ann Anderson.”
My chest constricted. All of a sudden, the smoke from the machines and mixed aromas in the club—perfume, cologne, body odor—were too much. I couldn’t catch my breath.
He said he knew the owner. That had to be it. All my real information was on my work papers. It had to be. Legalities and shit. That was how he knew who I was.
But then the question became, who else knew? And how long before all those people who knew started talking?
Word could get out to my school. I had a scholarship. Grants. I couldn’t risk them. Then there was my job at the Salad Hut. It wasn’t anything great, but I liked it. I wasn’t ready to give it up.
Then there was Fox, and my sister. Oh God, Mia. They’d never understand. She would never forgive me.
Gio wouldn’t either, even though he’d been the one to unwittingly lead me here in the first place.
I clutched the railing and fought not to sway on my feet. The walls were pressing in on me. Everyone was staring. How many of them knew?
“Who are you?” I whispered.
He smiled and leaned closer, his mouth brushing my temple. “Your worst fucking nightmare.”
Two
I’d won.
It wasn’t the first time, nor would it be the last. The difference was tonight, it was only a prelude to what would come after.
I’d grown used to winning for winning’s sake. Fighting took up my energy, occupied my mind. I enjoyed it like another man might enjoy a casual hobby. That mine involved blood and bruises and pain and took up ninety percent of my waking hours was the irony of my life.
One of them, anyway. I had a few.
The plus side was that fighting brought me money, and money brought me attention. I was good at what I did. Better than I’d ever expected. I was a capo’s son after all, the youngest child of a woman who’d loved flowers more than death and extortion and guns. I’d taken more after Anna Costas and her gentle ways. I’d even followed her into the floral business. My first job had been packaging up blooms in a small local place in Vegas, offering them with tips for their care to beleaguered husbands who’d forgotten an anniversary and boyfriends who were in the doghouse for one thing or another. The work had satisfied me in ways MMA never would.
But that wasn’t what mattered. I wasn’t looking for career fulfillment. Truth be told, I didn’t even intend to survive my suicide mission.
I had one goal—to rise up the ranks until I became a trusted advisor to Roberto Andretti. Then I would kill him.
The alternative was that his men would take me out before I ever reached that high. These weren’t the sort of men who ignored suspicions or doled out second chances. If they picked up even a whiff of something being off with me, I would be out. All the way out. Match over.
So I hid in plain sight, using my nearly unblemished fight record both to court their attention and favor and to buy myself the security of recognition. The more famous I became, the harder it would be for them to snuff me out like a back alley drug runner. I sought crowds and fanfare both in pursuit of my goal and to literally save my life.
I still wasn’t entirely sure it was worth saving, but even an asshole has a self-preservation instinct. Especially one who now faced his opponents with his fists up every damn time, whatever the odds.
Tonight’s fight had nudged me even further up the ladder. It had taken me months to get this far. As a full-blooded Italian, technically my rightful starting position was as a man of honor, someone with direct access to the capo and with all the bennies that afforded.
Money, status. Women.
So many fucking women.
There was only one problem with that. I wasn’t moving into the position in my father’s organization granted by my birthright. That would be too simple. No, my destination was much loftier—and most would say, stupider. A certain death wish for a man who cheated death and all its snarling cousins on a weekly basis.
The organization I was attempting to ascend to the heights of belonged to my father’s greatest rival—Roberto Andretti.
The father of the woman I’d loved and had
planned to marry.
The woman Roberto had seen killed, rather than have her end up with me.
I’d been the target of that bullet. Did I know that for certain? As certain as anyone can be when a message is sent their way without a pretty name tag attached. I’d been warned, many times. So had Emilia. We’d begged and pleaded and eventually, simply ignored. Young and dumb and naïve, we’d believed we could love our way through anything.
Even a hail of gunfire.
Yeah, well, we’d been wrong. And the dual cemetery plot in Woodlawn Cemetery proved that.
But I was still alive. As long as I had breath in my body, I would fight for the chance to look in Roberto’s cold, black eyes while I slowly, methodically squeezed out every drop of life.
Tonight, in one of the endless back rooms of The Pyramid Club after a technical knockout in the first round with a fighter who’d been groomed to beat me, I would move one step closer.
Whatever it took. I wouldn’t blink. Wouldn’t hesitate.
The one good thing about being willing to die? You had nothing fucking left to lose.
I entered the blinged out VIP room with my swagger fully in place. My crowd of sycophants trailed me, shouting their excitement, pumping their fists. I slapped hands and bumped knuckles until my already bruised hands were even sorer, but my smile never faltered.
The champagne was flowing, and the girls were dressed in skimpy outfits that provided a handy distraction from the worry pushing at the back of my mind. That no matter how I thought I’d prepared myself for this night, the game could always be altered. I might posture with the best, but that didn’t change the fact that I was so out of my depth here that I usually had to whale on a heavy bag the moment I left just to get the air pumping in my lungs again.
This wasn’t me. Any of it. Or it hadn’t been before. At some point, the pretending probably took root. I couldn’t be the same man after all of this as I’d been before.
If I even still existed at all.
“Gio, my man, you looked amazing out there tonight.” Z, one of Lorenzo Donato’s most trusted associates and therefore someone I wanted to be closer to, clapped me on the back. “You are a fucking beast.”
“Well, yeah, but who kissed and told?” My grin was second nature, as was the quip that came to hand as easily as the uppercut that could break a competitor’s jaw with a single blow.
Not that I’d done that tonight. I hadn’t needed to. My skill at assessing an opponent and deciding the fastest way to break him had saved my neck a dozen times. I hoped my streak held while I was in the company of these men.
A beautiful redhead with large, liquid brown eyes and an ass that wouldn’t quit sashayed past in a skimpy cocktail dress that clung to her every curve. This time, my grin was real.
There were ladies here too. Couldn’t forget the ladies.
I never did. They were what made the long hours of bullshit bearable. That and the knowledge of what awaited me if I kept climbing. Vengeance. Redemption. A second chance.
I’d settle for one of those, if I couldn’t have all three.
Z laughed, clutching his stomach as if I’d just said the most amusing thing he’d ever heard. He was dressed in unrelieved black like most of Lorenzo’s men. Their ties were the exception. There was a rainbow of them in this room.
Z’s was bright spring green.
“Funny you should say that. I find rumors to be so tedious, don’t you?”
My spine braced, the muscles coiling beneath my black pants and red button-down shirt. I usually tried to match their style of dress, especially when we were meeting as we were tonight, but I’d just come from a fight and it was expected I not be in a suit. Tonight, in particular. I had no idea what awaited me, and a jacket-and-tie just wouldn’t get the job done.
Fighters got to make their own rules. But only the successful ones.
“Depends what kind of rumors we’re talking about.” I kept my smile easy as I took stock of the men who were present out of the corner of my eye.
There weren’t as many as I’d originally assumed. Evidently, I’d brought the bulk of the party with me. My friends and the guys from the gym were still clustered around the doorway, enjoying the access to free-flowing alcohol and all the willing eye candy they could ever want, but they weren’t moving farther into the room. In fact, while I watched, several of them were turned away by one of the other associates.
I didn’t get it. Usually, these parties were for everyone who wanted to play. The crowds typically thinned pretty quickly, as couples paired up and the guys without much flash or cash were turned away from the primest pussy. But that was a sort of natural selection.
Not this.
Z smiled and stroked his tie. “Just saying, why settle for secondhand info when we can get a firsthand demonstration?”
Christ, Z must’ve soaked in smarmy tonight. He was always too slick, though that wasn’t saying much in this bunch. What was being said always had two meanings—what it sounded like on the surface, and the truth.
But I was used to giving them back as good as I got, so my own smile never faltered. “That so? You want to watch me get a lapdance, amico mio?” I laughed in spite of the pit forming in my stomach. Something about the gleam in his eyes wasn’t right.
That was proven when he didn’t reply, just cast a quick glance toward the back of the room and nodded.
Whatever they had planned for me tonight was going in a direction I absolutely did not want.
Not that I wanted to knock off a jewelry store or jump an innocent kid as other soldiers who were being inducted had been forced to do, but even those things were preferable to including a woman in the scenario. I’d gladly risk jail time before I risked another girl.
Hell, after Brenda, and what had happened to her because of my thoughtless actions, even death—mine—was preferable than another woman being harmed because of me.
I already had two on my conscience. I couldn’t stand three.
“Or perhaps you had something different in mind?” I gestured toward my dick and raised an eyebrow, deliberately baiting him.
His smile turned into laughter. “You wish, gumba.”
I didn’t wish. The rest of the crew I’d arrived with was rapidly dispersing, each of them being sent away with sharp bursts of Italian too low for me to make out. I glanced toward the back of the room and tried to resist rolling my shoulders as I did when the ropes of the cage seemed like they were closing in around me. Fighting was my survival mechanism, and it wouldn’t take much of a threat to force me into the mode that had now become second nature.
I might not make it out of this room in one piece, but I’d take a couple of these fuckers with me.
“So what’s the plan for tonight?” I crossed my arms and let some of my pseudo friendliness drop. They knew damn well that I understood I’d be asked to prove my loyalty in whatever way they deemed suitable, and I’d been prepared to do just that to get to the next level. Avenging Emilia’s death was worth anything I might face.
Unless they’d found the one button to push I would never tolerate.
Hearing myself, I wanted to slam my fist into my own skull. Of course they had. They were experts at exploiting what they saw as a weakness, and I wore mine on my sleeve. Emilia’s death was no secret. All along, I’d tried to convince them the reason I’d turned to my father’s rival was due to my certainty that my father had ordered a hit on the woman I loved.
So to prove my loyalty to them, naturally they would select another woman, most likely one I cared about. That was a damn short list. Or else they’d do something particularly awful to one I didn’t—or worse, force me to.
Maybe they’d do a combination of the three.
“The plan will be revealed in due time.” Z smiled and clapped my back as the door slammed shut, enclosing us in the dimly lit room. The sconces high on the walls might as well have been flashlights in a forest. “Well, imagine that. Looks like that time is now.”
“Giovanni, my brother,” Marco said in a booming voice, coming up beside us and clapping my other shoulder. With all this goodwill floating around, why was I concerned?
Oh, yeah, because it was fucking fake bullshit.
“Salzano,” I said in a clipped voice, my patience waning. Marco was one of the men I liked least, and that was a competition to the bottom.
“You looked incredible out there tonight. Really impressive. Lorenzo sends his congratulations.”
“Sends it? Where is he?” I tried to scan past Marco’s beefy shoulder, but unless I craned my neck, his bulk made that almost impossible. Though we were evenly matched when it came to height and close to the same weight, he was as broad as a barn. “I thought he’d be here tonight.”
“He was unavoidably detained elsewhere. But don’t worry. You’re in good hands with us.” His deep laughter grated on every last nerve.
“I didn’t see you at the fight.” My gaze pingponged between Marco and Z. “Either of you.”
“We sent an emissary. Unfortunately, we were needed here. Bas, come here and meet Gio.” He gestured behind him toward the circular booth in back. I couldn’t tell for sure how many people were seated there, because the seatback was high enough to impede my view. My best guess was only a couple, which made the count in the room much more manageable. “Tell him what you thought of the fight,” he added as the taller man joined us.
“Amazing.” Bas tipped his head in appreciation. “It’s an honor to meet you, Costas.”
“Likewise.” I shook his outstretched hand because not to would be a death sentence. I might end up writing my warrant for that tonight, but I wasn’t quite ready to whip out the pen. “Bas, it is? Short for Sebastian?”
“Short for Bastard.” He grinned and showed off his perfect dentistry. “I’ve tried to shake the name, but it sticks around.”
“That’s because you’re very good at your job. You do whatever is necessary for the Andrettis, don’t you?” Marco shot me a glance that was about as subtle as an arm bar.
Bas cracked his knuckles. “The family is everything.”
