Page 43 of The Masked King

Two men in black suits, one with a thick, tattooed neck and gold rings on his fingers, the other with a bit of a paunch from what I can see at this angle.

I rest my arms on the polished mezzanine rail and check out the rest of the floor, comparing it to the mental diagram I drew in my head when I first sat down. There don’t appear to be any other newcomers, and neither has anyone left.

Back to the men at the bar. They accept drinks from the bartender and make their way upstairs to the mezzanine. I tug my hair around my face, and stare at a spot directly ahead while keeping them in my peripheral vision praying they won’t sit too close to me, and sigh with relief when they stop at the top of the stairs and slide into a private booth, which I guess is reserved for VIPs or the owner and his special guests.

I wait till they’re seated before I pull my phone out of my purse and raise it to my ear. “Where are you?” I keep my voice low, confidential, as I stand up and peer over the rail. “I’m upstairs waiting for you.” I turn around, my gaze skimming the private booth as I go.

My breath sticks in my throat, and I sit back down, heat rushing to my face.

The larger guy with the graying hair has his back to me, but the man sitting opposite him with a full view of the entire mezzanine is the bodyguard from JADED with the inked snake coiling around his throat.

I keep my eyes firmly fixed on the casino floor and wind a long loose strand of black hair around my index finger. There’s another staircase at the far end of the mezzanine, but when I stand up to leave, I’ll be in full view of snake-guy if he’s curious enough to look my way.

My pulse is racing when I raise my voice enough to carry to the tables closest to me and adopt an exaggerated Southern drawl. “On mah way, honey. Don’t you go anywhere, now.”

My eyes drift towards the booth as I keep my phone pressed to my ear. Snake-guy is watching the casino floor and doesn’t appear to have noticed me. His companion reveals his profile when he turns sideway to check out something of interest on the floor below, and I get the fleeting sensation that I know him from somewhere.

But I’m not about to introduce myself.

Snake-guy stuck his tongue down my throat the last time we met, and I’m not so vain to think I made a lasting impression, but he got beaten up for the privilege, and my guess is he won’t let that go so lightly.

I get up, clutching my phone in one hand and my purse in the other and take my time navigating the tables. My heart is hammering when I reach the bottom of the staircase at the far end of the mezzanine; now all I need to do is cross the casino floor without drawing attention to myself. Partly shielding my face with my cell phone, I weave my way around the areas where the largest groups are congregated, taking care to keep my face tilted away from the upper level.

I’m almost at the exit when I glance up and lock eyes with a woman I recognize instantly. I freeze. She holds my gaze for several long beats, her expression unreadable, before returning her attention to the man by her side.

He isn’t familiar, and for that I am grateful.

Megan introduced me to the woman the day she was preparing to leave town.

Her name is Bianca Sabatelli.

11

ENZO

“I’ve seen you looking better,” Bianca says as she sits down on the couch opposite me in my apartment. Her eyes narrow, appraising and clearly finding me lacking. Her gaze slides in the direction of the brandy glass on the coffee table. “That won’t help.”

“Thanks for the advice.”

I sit forward, reaching for the decanter to refill my drink, but she snatches it away and takes it to the kitchen where I hear her emptying the dregs down the sink.

“I can get more,” I raise my voice so she can hear above the rustling of the coffee packet as she switches on the machine.

“Go right ahead. I already told your PA not to let any more liquor into this apartment.”

She rummages in the cupboards for ingredients, and I hear her pulling pans out of the drawer. The swelling on her face has reduced enough that she looks more herself again despite the gaunt cheeks and the bruises slowly fading to a dirty shade of green, and she’s more serene than I remember seeing her in a long while.

Too long.

I haul myself off the couch where I’ve been since I stumbled home in the early hours of the morning, flinching at the imprint of my body left behind on the plump cushions. I cross the room, swaying when it lurches out from under me, and practically fall onto a chrome stool at the breakfast bar.

“What are you doing?” I watch her fill a tall tumbler with ice and bottled water from the fridge and set it down in front of me. I don’t wait to be told to drink. I guzzle it down in one go, wiping my lips with the back of my hand when I’m done.

Bianca refills the glass and slides it back across the counter to me. “Take this one slowly or you’ll be sick.” She sounds like our mom.

It’s on the tip of my tongue to make my observation out loud, but my brain isn’t so fried I don’t understand what it will do to her. She hasn’t seen or spoken to her kids in two years, and yeah, it was her choice, but Bianca was a good mom to Leo and Sofia, and you don’t stop being a mom because you make bad choices.

While she waits for the coffee to brew, she heats some butter in a deep pan, chops up a couple of onions, and scrapes them into the sizzling butter. She crushes some garlic and adds that to the pan along with some herbs, then goes back to the coffee machine and fills two cups with steaming black liquid. She adds a spoonful of brown sugar to each and hands one to me.