by Rebel Hart
“Anything, Nique. If he tries to kill me. If he brings someone else when I told him to come alone. If he tries to threaten me. I have to protect myself and my family, so if he gives me a reason to, I’ll have to kill him.”
“Ooh, it sounds so dark and cool. I have to protect myself and my family. You sound like a real mafia don or something.”
My laugh was born more of irritation than actual humor. “You have got to stop. We’re not in The Godfather.”
She snorted as she turned to sit properly in her seat. “Then why does it feel like we’re in The Godfather?”
Much to Nique’s disappointment, the place that I’d asked Bryce to meet me was not some shady back alley or an isolated shipping yard, but a casino situated in the heart of the Las Vegas strip. Even if Bryce was hiding the story of his family and his role within his family behind loose details and misdirection, the core of it was true—he’d caused his family a bunch of trouble. If I wanted to play things as safe as I could, rather than meeting with him in an off-the-beaten-path, not easily accessible spot, it was smarter to meet with him where there were literally hundreds of prying eyes. I’d feel fine leaving Nique parked in a garage where people were coming and going constantly, and the heavy crowd would hopefully keep Bryce from doing anything too crazy, lest he risk causing more problems for his mom.
At least that was what I was banking on.
The casino I’d picked had an attached parking garage and was right near one of the monorail stops, so there were always people around. I pulled into a spot as close to the hustle and bustle as possible, then turned off the car and undid my seatbelt. When Nique took her seatbelt off, I didn’t take issue, but when I opened the door to climb out and heard hers open as well, I turned around and grabbed her.
“Hey!” I screeched. “What are you doing?”
“I’m not letting you go in there alone! You just said that he could potentially try and kill you or something.”
“Nique.” I slammed my door shut and then reached around her and shut hers as well. “I need you to listen to me. This is not a television show, okay? You’re not gonna let me go alone? What are you going to do? Your will to be useful isn’t going to protect you from a bullet if he shoots at you.” She opened her mouth to argue and I held up my hand to stop her. “No. It’s not a negotiation. He could want me dead, and if he sees you, he’ll know he can use you to get to me. It’d put you in danger. Your parents. Hell, your school even! This isn’t a game. I’m not trying to be mean, but you don’t have a skill that would be useful to me if shit goes awry. You’d just slow me down.”
“I’m fast! I ran track!” She protested. I combed my hand through my hair out of frustration and Nique grunted. “Okay! I won’t come! Fine!”
She crossed her arms and pouted and I felt bad. I understood what it was like to be the one stuck doing the boring stuff while everyone else got to have fun—I knew it well—but this was about her safety. Whether or not she agreed, this was in her best interest. “Okay… If I let you help me, will you please not be mad at me?”
She side-eyed me. “Help you how?”
I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and dialed her number. Her phone started to ring and I nodded at it. “Answer it.” She answered her phone and looked at me like I was crazy. “I’m gonna leave my phone on the whole time. Let’s create a codeword for trouble. If I say that codeword, you cannot come in, but you can contact TJ and Marcos.”
She lit up at the suggestion. “Yeah! Okay! Um… codeword… Um…”
“Literally any word will do.” I won’t use it anyway.
“No, it has to be a good one. Um…”
“How about—”
She waved her hand in my face. “Come on! You get to do all the fun stuff. Let me come up with the codeword at least.”
“Okay, but can you hurry? I’m meeting him in ten minutes.”
She continued to mull over it so far I thought her head was going to pop open, but finally she snapped her fingers. “Spider monkey!”
“Spider monkey?”
“What? It’s a word you’d never use in casual conversation, and there’s no mistaking it. I thought about beluga, but then I was like, ‘Eh, I could confuse other words for that.’ Arugula, Buddha… Chattanooga!”
I opened my mouth to comment, but then shook it off. “Sure. Spider monkey it is.”
“Great.”
She sat there staring at her phone like it was made of gold, and convinced that I’d finally distracted her enough to keep her in the car, I tapped her on the hand and climbed out. When I got a few feet from the car I whispered into my phone, “Okay, I’m putting you on mute and sliding you into my pocket. See you soon.”
I threw one look back at the car, but she was stone still, staring at her phone, so I put her out of my mind and walked into the hotel. Most of the places on the strip were popular, but I chose a hotel smack dab in the center of the strip, not far from my territory, but far enough away that Bryce wouldn’t feel threatened to meet there. In the middle of the hotel’s casino was a fancy granite bar. There was a mirror ceiling above it, allowing guests to view their drinks as they were being made.
And allowing any mafia heirs to see the hands of their opponents at all times.
I picked an open barstool and sat down. Seeing my natural blond hair and green eyes in the mirror above was almost foreign to me, but it felt good to be myself for a little bit.
A couple of minutes after I sat down, a bartender approached me with a smile on his face. “Hello. What can I get for you?”
“A whiskey sour please,” I replied.
“Make it two.” I looked over my shoulder, and Bryce had managed to get behind me in that half-second I was distracted. Either he was incredibly lucky with his timing, or he was much more skilled than I was giving him credit for.
The bartender nodded. “Two whiskey sours, coming up.”
Bryce took the barstool next to mine and smiled at me. “You know, I have a confession to make.”
“What’s that?” I said.
“Last night, I told you that you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen in my life, but that was untrue.”
“I’m not stupid. I knew it was charm meant to distract me.”
“No, it’s not that it’s just…” He smiled, like he was actually a little embarrassed. “I’d seen you once before with your natural hair and eye color. No crazy makeup designed to make you look different. That version of you is actually the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen in my life.” He gave me a quick up and down look. “This version of you.”
As much as I tried to fight it, I couldn’t keep a smile from coming to my face. Regardless of the circumstances, having a guy that looked like Bryce say something like that about me was flattering. It just was. “You’ve seen me before?”
“I had to do a little reconnaissance,” he said.
“So exactly how long have you known who I was. From the very beginning of the date?” I asked.
“You’ve been causing my mom some trouble and she asked me to figure out who you were. I had a friend who was able to point me in the right direction, and I did a little spying on Sunday.” The bartender came by and slid us our drinks before moving on. “Sorry, I know that’s a little creepy, but it’s also my job, so.”
“So when you told me you were out of work because your family doesn’t trust you… that was a lie?”
“Actually, no. None of what I told you yesterday was false,” he said. “The only thing I said to you that wasn’t true was your fake name.”
I took a sip of my drink and tried to process that. Everything he told me? Did that mean I’d actually gotten more information than I realized? I got so caught up in him that I wasn’t sure.
“Well, does that extend to right now?” I asked
“Is there something you want to know?”
“Why me?”
He swished the ice around in his glass and then took a quick sip. “You are the only thing
stopping my mom from making a successful deal with MasCat. Everyone else is on board but you, and she wanted me to stop that.”
“Stop it, how?”
He laughed. “Don’t ask me questions you already know the answer to.”
“Where does that put us then?” I said. “Are we not both walking away from this bar?”
“Well in all honesty, I don’t want to do that. I was hoping a nice date could entice you to step down, and then you and I could continue to… explore our mutual interest from last night.”
In a flash, my entire body heated up as I remembered the night we shared before. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t interested in more of what Bryce had to offer in the bedroom, but I couldn’t just continue to consort with a man who just told me he’s been ordered to kill me with the same casualty as he used to ask for a drink. Not only that, but I could think of ten reasons in a second why I couldn’t give up the MasCat deal. It was a list that started with my parents killing me and ended with my entire family losing so much ground that they were raided and ended in a single night.
“As much as I would enjoy… exploring,” I said, trying to match his level of confidence. “I can’t give up the MasCat deal. If you were able to convince your mother to stop trying, then we could continue to explore just fine.”
“So what I’m hearing is that we’re both interested in exploring.” The look he gave me was dark and seductive and it lit me on fire, though I had to hide it. “Unfortunately, I’m not going to have any luck convincing her to take that particular task in another direction.”
“Then it seems we’ve reached an impasse.”
This only seemed to amuse Bryce more. “It seems we have.”
“So what’s the solution?” I asked.
“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ve told my mother that I’ll continue to work you until I have the leverage or information to get her what she needs, even if it means wasting such an incredible woman,” Bryce explained.
“That’s what I have to do as well.”
“Well, what if we just… continued to fail to get information?” he asked.
I narrowed my gaze at him, trying to figure out where he was at. If I wasn’t mistaken, he was suggesting we play in the stalemate so that we could continue to see each other, but to suggest something like that, he was either lying or liked me enough that he was willing to risk everything with his family just to continue having fun with me.
Either he was incredibly smart or incredibly stupid, and the fact that I couldn’t discern which was unsettling.
“So no one makes a move? We tell our families it’s all part of our master plan and just… continue to see each other?” Either way, it wasn’t what I was expecting to hear him say.
“What do you say?” he said. “You can’t deny that there was a spark last night. I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel sparks very often.”
There was a sincerity in his voice that couldn’t be denied, and as much as I didn’t want to give his attitude any positive reinforcement, I couldn’t lie about the fact that the date I had last night involved me feeling some things I honestly never thought I’d feel. “Me either.”
What was the downside to this? I’d know better than to ever think of it as anything more than me waiting for my perfect chance to end Bryce before he could end me, and in the meantime I could learn even more information about him. On top of that, if he was being serious about me, I could keep him from applying additional pressure to the MasCat deal and maybe even throw a permanent wrench in Gina’s plans. As long as I could keep myself from getting too swept away, this could be a win-win situation for me.
“You still haven’t given me an answer,” Bryce said.
A smile warped my face as I imagined getting to spend a little more time with him while at the same time buying my family some much needed leverage against the Misterro storm we’d been up against lately.
I picked up my glass and held it out towards Bryce. “To lying.”
He laughed and nodded before lifting his glass and clinking it against mine. “To lying.” We both took sips of our drinks and then Bryce nodded towards the door. “So… do you wanna go find a spot to eat and get a little more comfortable then?”
“I would, but I haven’t checked in with my parents since the day before yesterday. If I’m going to be lying, it’s going to have to start immediately.”
“Later then?”
I nodded, the heat between my legs undeniable. “Yeah. I’ll call you later.”
His pure, excited smile was pretty adorable. “I’m looking forward to it.”
Making sure I was the first to leave, I stood up from the bar and walked away, knowing full-well that it left Bryce with the tab; but whatever, he could handle it. My phone was still on in my pocket, which meant Nique had heard all of that, so my first task was trying to play down as much of it as possible to her.
Letting her hear everything had been a bad idea.
When I climbed into the car, music was playing, which I quickly turned down. “Hey. Sorry that took so long. You can end the call.”
She rolled her eyes at me. “I ended that call twenty minutes ago.”
“Really?” I asked. “Why? You didn’t want to help?”
“Help keep you from getting killed or something. Not just listen to you flirt.”
“What?” I asked.
She turned and looked at me like she was so sick of me. “You told me you were coming here to meet a guy who may want to kill you. The only thing I heard was someone with a serious hard-on for you, and if this is your way of rubbing in my face that you’ve got a new, hot boyfriend, I don’t appreciate it.”
I shook my head and tried to push all of that out of my mind. “Nique. What exactly did you hear?”
“Um. He told you that he’d seen you once before and thinks this version of you is the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen in his life—barf—and him telling you that he did recon because it’s his job. I think the last thing I heard was him apologizing because looking at you was his job. I don’t know. He’d sold you like twelve lines in a row in like five minutes. If I’d realized this was a date, I would have just let you go.”
It was a relief knowing that Nique hadn’t heard much of the important stuff, but I didn’t like her describing it as a date and us flirting. I thought I’d kept my cool pretty well. “Well for your information, I was playing him.”
“Okay,” she said with a laugh.
“What?” I yelped. “I was.”
She looked at me like she wanted to cut my head off. “Mari. You were giggling. You never fucking giggle. And right now, you’re practically glowing. You’ve got it bad for this guy. Whatever, it’s fine, I’m not judging. Just leave me out next time.”
“I swear, I’m not into him like that. I mean, sure, he’s hot and all that, but he’s still an enemy to my family. I’m not seriously gonna date him or anything. I’m gonna keep him busy long enough to get what I need, then I’m gonna dump him in a river.”
“Well, when you do that, call me,” she grunted, and then murmured under her breath, “but I ain’t holding my breath.”
I started up the car with anger coursing through me. “You’re way off base. I’ll show you. He’s gonna be dead by my hand within a month.”
“If that’s true, then I’ll never ask to do crime shit with you ever again,” Nique said.
“Deal!” I stuck my hand out. “Shake on it.”
With a confidence that only made me more angry, she took my hand and shook it. “May the best woman win.”
I laughed at her. “Thank you. I intend to.”
11
Bryce
Striding into my mom’s office with some solid information already felt like such a victory. She was on the phone, pacing back and forth in front of the screen cast on the windows behind her, and she was speaking rapid Spanish. Living up to my mom’s legacy was difficult, because on top of being a tech guru, she was also fluent in ten diffe
rent languages, and had product functioning and bringing in money from fifteen different countries around the world. The software that she was attempting to sell to MasCat had gotten its trial run through the university system in Spain—I could only guess that was what she was dealing with now.
Normally, seeing her handling such high-profile work would intimidate me, and I’d leave and try and catch her at a time when she was doing something less important, but this time was different. After a year and a half knocked down, I finally felt like I was getting back into my groove, and not unlike a little boy running to his mom with a drawing for the fridge, I wanted to tell my mom all about my successes.
“Gracias, Gonzalo. Estaré en contacto. Adiós.” She set her phone down on her desk and lifted a remote, clicked it in the direction of her screen, and it disappeared, leaving nothing but the afternoon sun behind her.
“How’s Spain?” I asked.
She sat down in her chair. “Gonzalo has a friend in France who visited and loved the software in their system. He gave her my information and told her to call me. I could be selling in France soon. Twenty cents additional on every dollar—spreading in Europe is our cash cow, Bryce, I’m telling you.”
“So you don’t care about how things go here in Vegas then?” I joked.
She gave me a half-lidded glare. “Does that mean you’ve failed?”
“Quite the opposite.”
“So you’ve killed Mariana Westun?”
“Well… no. But…” I pulled my phone out of my pocket and set it on top of my mom’s desk. I navigated to an app of her design and opened it up, clicking the link I’d titled “Mariana Westun” and her voice filled the room.
“I can’t believe you took Nique with you!” a voice I recognized as TJ Westun’s, said. “That was so dangerous.”
“No kidding. She’s so goddamn nosy, I’m surprised she didn’t run in there after you.” That time it was Mari’s other brother, Marcos.