“That’s what you have to do to join the Mob, right? Kill someone? To prove your loyalty?”
His eyes were storm-cloud gray as he stared down at me. A light prickling of sweat broke out on my temples as the seconds ticked by. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to,” he said at last, his voice low and gravelly. “Anddon’task me about work again.”
He turned away. Something close to exhilaration shot through me, ruffling the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck. Jack was a dangerous man, but I’d seen a different side to him only last night. The firm hold of his arms had been a comfort to me. I’d felt his underlying strength, and it was dedicated to protecting me, holding me, all through the night.
Maybe he was a killer. Maybe he wasn’t.
I only knew he would never hurtme.
“I’m gonna head out,” he said after wiping down the little table fastidiously and then washing his hands. I watched him do it, thinking about how those hands had moved over my body last night, wondering where they might have been today. Clutching a neck? Curling round a trigger?
“Okay,” I said, a moment too late to sound natural.
“Remember the gun,” he said, and I started.
“Remember the—? Oh. Yeah.” I looked over to the nightstand, where the gun he’d given me for protection sat, squat and ugly.
“And get some shut-eye.”
“Yeah, yeah,Dad.”
After he left, I considered making a few more attempts at cracking Annie’s private social media accounts, but thinking about going to the Chateau that afternoon, a place that Annie and I had hung out together, where we had always giggled about girding our loins before taking on Roxy Rochford—
I decided that sleep would be a better option. I’d need to be at my best. Roxy could be alot.
I was settling on the bed, my mind hazy and looking forward to rest, when a thought occurred to me that made my brain kick-start like an engine turning over.
Jack had never explained why we had to be so quick at the Chateau.
CHAPTER24
JACK
As the Pintosputtered its way to the docks, I contemplated all the ways in which I seemed to be able to fuck up my life. Vegas had been a wholething. And then there had been my catastrophic mistake with Sandro. When I’d been riding around with Angelo Messina and his boyfriend, I’d fucked up there, too, in misguided loyalty to a different Castellani son.
Now Miller Beaumont.
“The hits just keep on coming,” I muttered aloud.
Time was running out. The Boss had only given me until Thursday, and it was Tuesday afternoon. And if what Miller had said was true, and fucking Sandro Castellani was following me around…well, time might be running out for mepermanently.
But that wasn’t what worried me most. If Sandro had payback plans that includedMiller…
A tide of rage rose up in me, making my whole body thrum, a rage that I’d felt only once before—when I’d found out that my father had been iced.
The man had raised me on his own, after his ex-girlfriend—my showgirl mother—dumped me as a newborn on his doorstep. He hadn’t been a natural father, not in his line of work, but he’d accepted his responsibility, and he’d raised me to look after myself. He was killed when I was fourteen in a contract hit, the victim of his own success. Too effective to risk keeping around for some of the Crime Families in Vegas.
At fifteen years old, and under orders from no one but my own sense of justice, I’d tracked down the man who had killed my father, and repaid the favor. He’d been my first hit. The law couldn’t pin it on me, although everyone in town knew the truth. My reputation as a hitman was born that day, born out of death.
But I’d never again felt such fury again until today, when I thought about the possibility of Alessandro Castellani hurting Miller.
“Calm down,” I breathed. “Calm down.”
Anger wouldn’t help. If Sandro had plans for me, or for Miller, I needed to keep my head cool, my eyes bright, and my gun close.
I arrived at the docks and found Freddy. Legs had ordered us to be there to receive an import, and make sure the Bernardis didn’t try to squeeze an extra protection tariff. “Any luck pinpointing that phone yet?” I asked.
Freddy nodded. “I got the area smaller for you—” he showed me on his phone “—but it’s nowhere near the residential zone. Was your girl a hiker?”
