Her Italian Hitman

by Regina Wade

  Her Italian Hitman

  A Protective Possessive Instalove Romance

  Regina Wade

  Copyright © 2020 by Regina Wade

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Viva Las Vegas Playlist

  1. Eliza

  2. Enzo

  3. Eliza

  4. Enzo

  5. Eliza

  6. Enzo

  7. Eliza

  8. Enzo

  9. Eliza

  10. Enzo

  Epilogue: One Year Later

  Epilogue: Two Years Later

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  Her Billionaire Rockstar

  Cop’s Obsession

  Her Big Brother’s Best Friend

  Protecting Her Heart Series:

  Also by Regina Wade

  About the Author

  Viva Las Vegas Playlist

  Little Less Conversation, Elvis Presley

  Just Dance, Lady Gaga and Colby O’Donis

  We are Young, fun feat Janelle Monae

  Don’t Stop Believin’, Journey

  Aint that a Kick in the Head, Dean Martin

  Let’s Go to Vegas, Faith Hill

  Get the Party Started, P!nk

  Viva Las Vegas, Elvis Presley

  Luck Be a Lady, Frank Sinatra

  Live Your Life, Rihanna

  Chapter 1

  Eliza

  A little less conversation. A little more action, please. — Elvis Presley, ‘A Little Less Conversation’

  Nobody’s supposed to be from Las Vegas.

  This is a town of transients. It’s where people come to live their dreams and win their fortunes. They show up by the bus full, ready to risk it all on the turn of a wheel, the flip of a card, or the next big idea. Sin city chews people up and spits them out. It’s a temporary place. A mirage of lights in the middle of an unforgiving patch of sand and sun. People don’t stay here, because at its heart, nothing about the glitter and glamour of The Strip is real. Sooner or later, Vegas will break your heart. Nobody sticks around for long.

  Nobody’s supposed to be from Las Vegas. But I am.

  My mom’s been a cocktail waitress on the same casino floor at the same hotel off the strip since the week she graduated high school. Every July, she wriggles into her original uniform for the company-wide employee picture. Stacked lucite heels and everything. My older sister started working there with her a couple months ago, right after my niece was born.

  My dad has been a mechanic at the Pep Boys off of Caesars Palace Drive for all twenty-three years I’ve been alive. Last year they made him assistant manager. It was nice. They gave him a mug.

  I love my family. It almost makes me feel a little guilty, whenever I think about how much I don’t want to become them. I don’t know where I want to be. I just know it isn’t here.

  “Good evening, Miss Piazza.” The cheerful voice of the front desk concierge snaps me out of my internal stroll down memory lane. “Your six pm appointment is already here. Deep tissue massage and exfoliating skin treatment.”

  “Thanks, Sara.” I scan the list of appointments for the night on my way past the polished front desk of the Desert Flower spa and retreat. As usual, it’s booked solid through closing. Only in Vegas do the high-end boutique massage parlors have plastic surgeons on call, vitamin IV infusions on demand, and more famous names on the appointment list than any madam’s little black book.

  People come from all over the world and spend small— and not so small— fortunes on the beauty and spa treatments offered here. Tucked away behind a nondescript adobe wall on an unmarked street behind one of the most extravagant hotels on Las Vegas Boulevard, an appointment spot at the Desert Flower is coveted around the world.

  Catering to some of the most wealthy and exclusive clients in Vegas, getting a job at The Flower is a dream come true for any massage therapist. I’ve only been working here for a couple of months, but my reputation and work ethic are already starting to help me make a name for myself.

  “I’ll just go set up. You can send him in five,” I smile back at Sara. The receptionist started around the same time I did, and I took an instant liking to the girl.

  Once inside, I go through the meticulous process of making sure everything is perfect before my first client of the evening shift. They’re small things, but every detail matters in a place like this. Aromatherapy, luxury massage oils. Classical music. I haven’t been working at the spa long, but I’ve already learned more here, among the world’s wealthiest and most excessively extra than I was ever taught in a single one of my massage therapy courses.

  Mostly, I’ve learned that the most important part of giving a world-class massage is listening.

  Listening to bodies as much as words. Push a muscle too far and you can hurt someone, cause serious damage. But you have to know when a stubborn knot is crying out for force; when someone needs you to apply just a little more pressure, too. Never pain. Always pleasure.

  It’s all a tightrope walk; the ultimate gamble for a girl who doesn’t like playing the odds. So I’m working on securing myself a sure thing, instead.

  I come into work every night like clockwork. I ease knots and massage muscles. Sometimes I listen to rambling confessions. Sometimes I lend a sympathetic ear. Always, my fingers do their job with exact precision. Expert care. I take extra shifts whenever they come up. A few months ago I even got sent out on tour with a rock star. Massage-on-demand. Shoulder rubs at fifty thousand feet, courtesy of The Desert Flower.

  It’s all a continuing education. Part of my plan to get gone, the sooner the better.

  All the while, I squirrel away the tips. Go home every night to my tiny studio room in a seedy, rundown motel way off the strip. The kind with no lease, that rents by the day instead of the month. It’s in the part of town they warn the tourists never to step foot in.

  None of that matters. I sock away every penny, live on dollar store ramen and ketchup spaghetti. Because as soon as I’ve got enough saved up, I’m out of this place. Taking everything I’ve learned and opening my own little spa somewhere over the rainbow.

  I don’t know where. Someplace with a view, hopefully.

  Beyond the glittering windows of the massage table in front of me, the Las Vegas strip blinks and flashes, coming to life in the setting sun. It’s a view that people around the world hope to get to see someday. I feel bad for taking it for granted, for wanting something else for my life.

  The buzz from the doorway sounds louder than usual. Like the goose honk of my guilty conscience barging in on me and my wishful thoughts.

  “Good evening, Mr. —” I consult the clipboard in my hands as my first client for the evening sweeps into the room. “Bianchi.”

  He’s wrapped in one of the spa’s signature fluffy robes, though it’s tough to miss the way even the generous lengths of soft terry cloth don’t quite make it all the way around the roundest part of his distended belly. Dark tufts of coiled hair sprout out from the top of the robe— but not for long.

  “Hey, sweetheart.” A pair of beady, dark eyes narrow on mine. For a moment Bianchi looks me up and down like he’s sizing me up. There’s a moment of brief silence before Bianchi shrugs out of his robe in one easy motion. He stands in front of me, naked as the day he was born, greasy weasel eyes zeroed in on my face. “You ready to put your hands on me?”

  I’m comfortable with nudity. It comes with the territory when you put your hands on people’s bodies all day long.

  But
something about the way this man is looking at me in the filtered light streaming in from the floor to ceiling windows is giving me major heebie-jeebies.

  “If you’d like to lay on the table,” I keep my voice professional, diverting my eyes from the very obvious sign that Mr. Bianchi seems to be enjoying my discomfort at his aggressive proximity. “I can get started with the massage. And only the massage.”

  Instead of diffusing the situation, the defiant tilt of my chin seems to spur the man on. He bridges the space between us in two quick, flat-footed steps.

  “What if you let me massage you, instead?” I suppose his offer is meant to sound seductive. I can’t think of another reason why he would trail his grubby, fat finger along my collarbone at the top of my uniform shirt that way.

  A shiver of revulsion runs through me at the man’s touch. It takes everything in me not to physically gag from the unwanted contact.

  “That is not one of the services we offer,” I say crisply. “Please take your hands off me, or I’ll have to contact security.”

  My eyes dart towards the house phone. It’s all the way across the room, with Bianchi’s sizable bulk between us. That takes most of the threat out of my words, but I hope to hell he doesn’t realize that. My pulse is ticking a little faster in my throat as he creeps in even closer.

  This is not how I planned to start my night.

  I take careful stock of the situation, running through my options and best-case scenarios. When Bianchi’s meaty paw curls around my arm, all of those calculations fly right out the window. My knee comes up, driven by force and primal instinct as soon as he begins to pull me in towards him. Everything unfurls in slow motion, playing out in front of me like a B-movie.

  “What the fuck!” Bianchi cries out, his face contorting into a swollen red mask of pain as my knee makes contact with the soft underbelly and general area where I figure his balls must be.

  “You little bitch! I’m gonna kill you!”

  I twist away from his grip, making a dash for the door.

  There’s a hard crash behind me, followed by a heavy thunk.

  Even before I fully realize what it is, I already know I’ll never forget that sound for the rest of my life.

  Chapter 2

  Enzo

  What’s going on on the floor? I love this record but I can’t think straight any more. — Lady Gaga, ‘Just Dance’

  The night air in Las Vegas is almost painfully dry.

  No matter how many times I’ve been to this part of the world, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to how dusty and dry the desert is. Growing up in Sicily meant the smell of the ocean was never far away. I love to travel, but I’d be lying if I said I don’t miss the salt in the air whenever I’m away for too long.

  This particular job has been dragging on for nearly a month now, taking a toll on my mental and emotional health. I’m ready to wrap it up, head home to Italy; the sea and the sky and the food. Not that the US of A isn’t full of wonderful people, but there’s only so much hunting piece of shit sex trafficking underworld mob bosses a man can do before he starts to miss his own bed.

  I work for the AISE— The Italian External Intelligence and Security Agency. My American friends call it the equivalent of their CIA. My mates in the UK say it’s the same as their MI6. At the end of the day, all I know is that I have a lot of blood on my hands and it isn’t always easy to tell where the badguys end and I begin.

  But jobs like this one?

  Jobs like this one are why I’m the best there is at what I do.

  The Bianchi crime family is bad news. Not just drugs and guns. Alongside the crates of bootleg DVDs and stolen car parts, they move all over the world is a much more precious cargo.

  Girls.

  For years, law enforcement and government agencies around the world have suspected the Bianchi family of trafficking young women from college towns and popular tourist destinations around the world. Other crime families with more honor and less money have turned on them, slipping us bits of information throughout the years.

  This weekend is the first time we have solid information about the location of both Bianchi brothers at one time.

  No doubts about right and wrong this time. Just a relentless need to see justice served and stop the Bianchis before they traffic even one more girl. A few people might have to die for that to happen, but I won’t lose a wink of sleep at ending the lives of scum who deal in sex slaves.

  I slip in through a maintenance entrance of the Desert Flower spa and retreat. Inside, the air is chemically scented and artificially moist. It’s like arriving at a fake seashore. Like everything else in this town, it’s offensively plastic in its aggressiveness; as if someone gave the beach a nose job. Something about the scent makes me want to hurry. Taking the stairs three at a time, it isn’t long before I’m at the sixth-floor landing.

  Weeks of planning have led to this.

  The sharp sound of a frantic scream pierces the stillness of the spa surroundings. It came from the closed door of room number two, right where Gio Bianchi should be getting a massage, having left his bodyguards down in the lobby with strict instructions not to bother him.

  Within moments, I’m through the doors, following the sound.

  The sight that greets me freezes the blood in my veins.

  Floor to ceiling windows frame a multi-million dollar view of the strip. It would be worth the price of the massage to simply lay back and take that in alone. In front of the window, bathed in the glow of the neon lights like an urban angel, is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.

  Even pulled up in a neat and tidy bun atop her head, her hair is wild. A riot of rich chestnut curls, with the occasional hot pink or deep purple strand woven through. It’s as if the lights of the strip aren’t just coming through the window, but refracting right into the shimmering espresso strands haloing her pert face.

  The simple grey uniform does nothing to tame her curves. She’s lush. Generous and colorful from the deep plum of her lipstick to the tiny rhinestone hoop sparkling in her dark eyebrow. I’ve never felt such a raw attraction to anyone before, let alone at first sight.

  And there, sprawled at her feet, is Gio Bianchi. A small pool of blood spreads around his temple. Judging by the angle, he seems to have hit the corner of the massage table before thumping to the floor.

  “Are you ok?” I slip all the way into the room and close the door behind me. “Are you hurt?”

  I disabled the elevator, but I’m suddenly no longer sure about any of my plans.

  This is not how tonight was supposed to go.

  “I— I’m fine. How did you get here so fast? I didn’t even call yet?” The stunning brunette looks from me to the body on the floor again. “Man, they weren’t kidding about security in this place having a quick response.”

  Despite the seriousness of the situation, I have to chuckle.

  Moving closer, I extend two fingers, checking the pulse at Gio’s neck. I already know what I’ll find by the glazed over eyes and the slackness of his body, but I have to check.

  Yep. He’s as dead as he looks.

  “What’s your name?” I ask her without looking up.

  I know I couldn’t have been the only one to have heard that scream. Sure enough, the sound of footfalls begins echoing through the stairwell outside a moment later. We don’t have much time, which means this isn’t going to be easy.

  “Eliza Piazza. He was my first appointment of the night. Listen, he got grabby. I didn’t—”

  “Eliza, relax. You’re not in trouble. My name is Enzo. I’m going to keep you safe.” I straighten up, leaving Bianchi’s body on the floor. Despite the urgency of our situation, I wait for Eliza to turn her dark eyes up to mine before continuing. Even those aren’t just brown, I realize with a start. In the light of the window, there are a million colors reflected in the endless dark pools staring back at me. “I need you to trust me, cara.”

  This may not have been the plan, but Eliza’s
act of self-defense may just have left an opening to catch the biggest fish of all.

  I’m not entirely prepared for the way easy affection rolls off my tongue. I’m not sure where it comes from, or why I feel the need to pull her so close when I pull the Beretta out of my holster. It feels natural, though. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my years working for the agency, it’s the importance of trusting my gut. It’s never steered me wrong, and it’s saved my life more than once.

  “What the—” Eliza draws in a hard breath as I pull her possessively against my body. Her hands come up to her ears a moment later as I instinctively aim for a weak point in the glass wall ahead of us. She lets out a shriek as glass shatters into a rain of glittering dust on the imported teak floor of the spa. “What are you doing? We’re six floors up!”

  I can’t say that I blame her. If it weren’t for the fact that I can hear the heavy rush of boots in the stairwell behind us, I would explain the details of our situation calmly, and in great detail. As it is, I tighten my grip around her waist, hauling her in against my hip as I lead us towards the dry Las Vegas night below.

  “Wait— Enzo!” She scrabbles tighter, clutching the tight black cotton vee of my tee-shirt as we approach the window and it’s clear my escape plan includes going out and down. “I swear I didn’t mean—”

  Before she can finish her thought, the first bullet whizzes through the closed door and past us. Eliza clamps a hand over her mouth, freezing in place.

  “Eliza. Look at me.” I let a precious second tick by. At the door of the room, the crack of the door signals that Bianchi’s security guys are hot on our heels.