Dominico pulled himself together first. “Excuse me for a moment,” he said, heading for the cameraman.
The two of them looked over the pictures while I removed my costume and tried to get my emotions under control. Dominico returned, minus his costume and with a fistful of pictures, and led me out of the room back to the bar where we were cheered, given gifts, and bought drinks.
“Turns out winning is pretty rare,” he explained. “We’re kinda a big deal right now.”
“There was no hidden compartment in the lamp, was there?”
“Nope. If I hadn’t broken it, we would have failed.”
“That’s pretty sneaky of them,” I said.
He shrugged. “This is Vegas. Everything’s fixed, and nothing’s ever what it seems.”
Which was exactly what I was afraid of.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Dominico
IDIDN’T EVEN get to finish my first victory drink with Annetta before my pager interrupted our date. In hindsight, I was lucky it didn’t go off while we were trapped in the escape room since both Carlo and my father expected their pages to be returned immediately. Still, the damn thing’s intrusive beeping made me want to smash it against the wall. Who knew, maybe there’d be a clue inside it as to how to get my life back.
I excused myself from the table and called Carlo to see what he wanted. Carlo never gave away too much over the phone, but after years of working with him, his code was easier to crack than the Escape Room’s had been. A couple of his soldiers had gotten a bead on possible accomplices of Chains’s, and Carlo wanted me to come in so he could give me the details. I promised to meet him at his home office as soon as possible and hung up.
“Is everything okay?” Annetta asked when I returned to the table.
No, everything wasn’t okay. I’d been enjoying my time with her, and had been hoping her old man would still be gone when I dropped her off. Maybe she’d invite me in and I’d get to see what was under that sweater. But now I needed to pump the brakes on all that to hunt down the guys who’d killed my family’s soldiers.
“I got called into work, so I’m gonna have to take you home.”
“Okay,” she said before sucking down her drink.
Hollywood always made mobsters look like players who spent every night in the bed of a different broad. I don’t know which family they got their information from, but Marianis… we worked our asses off. Most nights, I’d settle for sleeping in any bed. Hell, even a sofa would do. But if you didn’t hustle, you didn’t eat. Not only that, your capo would see you as dead weight and eventually trim the fat.
Because of my erratic and heavy work schedule, I didn’t go out much. When I did, most of my dates ended with my pager going off, which girls never seemed to take too well. Yeah, Annetta sounded disappointed, but at least she didn’t whine or complain or accuse me of making shit up. She just grabbed her purse and stood, ready to go.
“I really do have to work,” I said, wondering if she thought I was brushing her off.
She gave me an amused smile. “Do you expect me to beg you to blow off your job and stay?”
Yeah, I kinda had been. “I would if I could. I hope you know that. This has been nice.”
“I know. I get it. No biggie. I had fun too, but it’s time to get back to reality.”
With that, she headed toward the exit. We laughed about our escape room adventure on the drive, and then I dropped her off at her front door. Her old man’s truck was in the drive, so I wouldn’t have gotten lucky even if Carlo hadn’t called me in. Resigned to the shittiness of it all, I pulled Annetta in for one last kiss, beyond caring if her old man caught us. She tasted of the fruity drink she’d just downed, and I wanted nothing more than to find out what the rest of her tasted like. No time, and I didn’t know when I’d have another free afternoon.
“My work schedule is nuts, so I’m not sure when I’ll be able to do this again,” I said.
Hurt flashed in her eyes, but she nodded and gave me a smile. “Thank you.”
Maybe she did think I was ditching her after all. I tugged on her hand, drawing her attention back to me. “Don’t forget that you owe me another date. I do plan on cashing that in. I’ll call you to set it up.”
A smile tugged at her lips. “You don’t even have my number.”
I rattled off the digits I’d memorized from her résumé.
“Wow, that’s kinda stalkerish,” she said, but her smile only widened. “Do you have a number?”
“Yeah, but I’m never home.” I could give her my pager number, but Carlo monitored my pager log and I didn’t want him to know about Annetta. At least not yet. Probably not ever.
