He stared at me.
“What?”
“I could give you a bunch of reasons, but I guess the biggest one is this: I want to do it because you’re the best. When I do this? I’ll never have to work again. They’ll never ask me to do anything harder. I guarantee that.”
The alcohol I’d sipped churned in my gut. He was serious.
And if he failed, and if I managed to convince Dianora Conti to marry me for my family’s power, and by doing so, force her father to remove the price on my head, Ringo would be the next one with a hit on his head. Because she earned her nickname of Black Widow. Ringo wouldn’t be the only victim. She’d get bored of me eventually. Perhaps I’d live long enough to sire an heir on her, but life as I knew it was over. And anyone who called me friend would be dead, or wish they were.
I’d sign Ringo’s death warrant by wiggling out of the hit.
I glanced at my watch. It had been five minutes. The sober sister won the argument, dragging the drunken bride to the door. And the world was righting itself. “For what it’s worth? I didn’t kill Adelmo Conti.” I stood up and opened my arms wide so Ringo would have a clean shot.
He glared at me. “I’m not doing you here. You have one minute to walk out that door and prove to me you’re the best in the business.”
I stood still, the countdown automatically ticking down in my head. “How are you going to do it?”
Ringo slammed his drink and licked his lips. Then returned to staring me down. His lips pressed into a silent line of focus.
On twenty I took a step away. Then another step.
By ten I was halfway to the exit and Ringo still stood next to the bar. He pulled out his wallet and laid a bill on the surface for the bartender, as if this were just a normal day.
It was anything but.
On zero, I stepped out of the doors into the night air and beelined for the strip. Vegas in all its glory glittered around me. Traffic bustled, street hawkers littered the constant stream of tourists and gawkers like the little pamphlets they dropped.
Cabs and black limos waited near the hotel’s circle. I stepped forward to take the next one in line, but I was shoved to the side by a wide man in a polyester suit. “That’s my ride, and I’m late for my flight.”
If I were carrying, I’d knife the bastard for that.
Ringo emerged from the entrance. His slow saunter, sure-footed and direct. I slipped into the crowds moving toward the fountains, staying agile and slightly outpacing the flow. I took the stairs to the walkway, crossed north, and kept moving.
I entered another casino and cut through their maze of slot machines, hoping to catch a ride at their cab stand before Ringo or another hitman beat me to it. Once there, I would direct the driver to the company’s private airport and then?—
A man peeled off the casino’s column. He approached me with all the subtly of a wallowing hippo. The bulge of his concealed gun was obvious. I stopped, waiting for him in a little alcove where the security cameras couldn’t watch.
Ringo approached from the side, barely a shadow.
How had he outflanked me?
He brushed past, elbowing me out of the way and knocking the man into the alcove. Ringo’s victim collapsed into a lump and didn’t move.
I stepped out of arm’s reach. My friend winked at me and mouthed, “That’s one.”
Bastard. Instead of lingering there like a sitting duck, I hopped the escalator up one floor, then crossed to the pedestrian walkway that dumped me on the opposite side of the strip. I dipped into a hotel, moving toward the shops. There was a ride share loop just off the strip. Perhaps I could steal one of the rides as easily as I’d been thwarted earlier. I was halfway down the escalator when Ringo ran up from the street. I hopped over the rail to the stairs and ran back up. Ringo ran up the escalator, almost beating me to the top. I pointed at the security camera mounted in its little black bubble on the ceiling and cut left. Instead of turning toward the shops, I took the escalator up to the monorail. At the top, I took a quick right into the parking garage hallway.
Ringo was hot on my tail. No matter how much I zigged and zagged, he stuck close. I was almost to the stairs when he caught me and pulled me between two large SUVs.
I had nowhere left to run. There I stood, hands in the air, puffing hard, staring at my best friend since before either of us could shave, knowing he was going to kill me.
There was nothing left but to barter for my life. “You’re going to hate yourself when you figure out who murdered Dianora’s brother, because it wasn’t me.”
Ringo pocketed his gun. “Who did it?”
I rushed him, knocking him hard and climbing over top of his falling body. As I cleared him, I turned to tell him, “I don’t know. But I didn’t do it.”
His hand shot out.
