Vinny tilted his head with a thoughtful look. "Guess you could say they're not-so-nice-but-usually-nice Mexicans to work with for an old Italian in his retirement years. You get what I'm talking about?"
Not at first. But it was beginning to sink in.
Vinny made the situation clearer than clear. "If I'm told to evict a particular tenant myself and make sure they don't come back to their apartment, that's what I got to do to keep thingssimpaticountil my good-for-nothing roach of a son inherits this building—literally over my dead body. You got a nice set, that's for sure. But you ain't worth the trouble. Sorry, kid."
Ugh. Me, too.
So, back to the bus stop it was. Shivering in my red Benton Girls coat, I called Pru.
And I tried to keep my tone cheery when I went straight to her voicemail.
"Hey, twin! Hope the shows went super-well tonight. I was wondering if I could ask you a favor...?"
I trailed off, trying to figure out how to tell her what was going on without violating the terms of the NDA I'd signed.
Add that to the growing pile of reasons never again to sign a contract Cole Benton put in front of me.
The phone beeped with an incoming call from another number before I could come up with anything plausible, though.
I stop walking when I saw the name on the ID.
"Tony? What's going on? Why are you calling me? Don't you have a fight tonight?"
"Yeah, yeah, I got a fight in, like, an hour," Tony answered. "But..."
He suddenly broke down crying. Huge, despairing sobs.
"Oh, Tony! What's wrong!"
"I know we broke up, but I need you,mi amor. I need you...."
He started crying again, too hard to finish his plea.
But he didn't have to. My answer was a no-brainer.
"Of course! Of course!" My heart constricted with love as I pulled up the expensive rideshare app I hadn't allowed myself to use since my life blew up last December. "Just tell me where you are...."
CHAPTER18
Cole
She's late.
But I refused to check my watch. Again.
Instead, I paced back and forth like a lion across the open-plan main floor of my penthouse.
Stopped.
Took in the night view of Vegas sprawled underneath my feet and bathed in neon light.
Reminded myself that I own this town.
Sunny thought she could slip away. That was because she hadn't realized how thoroughly I'd already trapped her. I'd cut off all her escape routes.
So where the hell is she?
I gave in and checked the watch that I still kept on a 24-hour clock after my years in the military school for troubled teens my grandfather shipped me off to when I was sixteen. And Nora had reached the end of her rope with me.
