Even though it was what they worked toward, Niki could still feel her body a few weeks behind where her mind wanted to be. The hot, long baths helped her to recover a little faster so she could be ready for what he had in mind next.
"Give him a whip and he'll be the perfect taskmaster." Saying that aloud made her cheeks turn red. Merely the thought was enough, especially of Taylor with a whip. Not that she was into that kind of thing, but there were certain connotations to keep in mind.
Her train of thought was broken when her phone vibrated as her show went into commercial. She couldn't help a small smirk as her gaze picked up the name on her screen.
"Speak—or think—of the devil, in this case." She pressed the accept call button. "Hey, Taylor, what's up?"
"Not much. I’m calling to see if you are up for a late dinner."
It sounded more casual than the one he had taken her to the night before. Most guys would wait at least a couple of days—letting absence make the heart grow fonder or something—but she needed to get it through her head that he was not most guys.
"I'm not…uh, dressed."
"Okay…well, even in Vegas, you can't go out without any clothes on. Or you could, but only once. Assuming you are willing to go out for something to eat and don't want to get arrested for indecent exposure, might I suggest something simple? Like…jeans and a t-shirt. Nothing fancy tonight."
Niki paused to look at the clock on her phone. "Okay, I'm down for a casual night out on the town. Give me twenty minutes to get ready."
"Is that the kind of twenty minutes that turns out to be forty-five? Because hotels like the Aria don't appreciate people parking their four-by-fours in front of their entrance for extended periods."
"It'll be twenty minutes, jackass."
"Okay, fair enough. It'll take me about twenty-five minutes to get there, so I'll see you then."
As much as she liked to show off the fashion sense Jennie had helped her to acquire, she did prefer a casual night out. For one thing, she didn't have to wear her heels. As much as they looked knockout gorgeous on her, whoever had designed them hated feet and wanted to see them die.
Sure enough, almost exactly twenty-five minutes later, the four-by-four he had bought so he didn't have to drive around town in his truck pulled up to the entrance. One of the valets moved quickly and was already at the edge of the sidewalk before the vehicle had come to a complete stop, but Niki stopped him with a firm hand on the shoulder.
"Don't worry, this one won’t need your services." She assuaged his hurt feelings by slipping a ten-dollar bill into the chest pocket of his bright red uniform. "I don't think he'll park for very long."
Taylor hadn’t seen her when he stopped and unbuckled his belt and grasped the door handle before she tapped the passenger window.
"I know you like playing the gentleman and everything," she said and slid into the car before he had the chance to get out, "but I am capable of opening doors on my own, you know."
"I never doubted that."
"Of course. Where did you have in mind for our late dinner? Hopefully somewhere with decent food portions this time?"
He laughed as he strapped himself in again. "Well, it would have to be, honestly. It's a twenty-four-hour Italian place called the Bootlegger Bistro."
"Italian places are famed for their overwhelmingly large portion sizes, so that sounds about right. Have you ever been there before?"
"I have."
Niki narrowed her eyes. "Come on, we won’t play the game where we both pretend we haven't gone out with other people before each other, so if it was with one of your…can I even call them exes? Whatever. The point is you might as well tell me."
He shook his head as he pulled them onto the street. "No, not one of my exes, although probably someone as distasteful to you. Rod Marino wanted me to meet him there for a meal. All things considered, I thought it would be an interesting idea given the news that I shared with you today. Plus, the people who run it know who Marino is, and I thought I might check it out to see if they remember me having that dinner with him."
"So you thought you would check the place out before you thought of asking me out for dinner. Why did you ask me, then? Not that I mind going out for a meal with you, even as an afterthought."
"You weren't an afterthought. You said you wanted to be at my side when I beat those mafia thugs into paste, and I thought it would be a good way to show you why you would be there, assuming the owners will tell Marino about us."
She laughed aloud and darted an amused glance at him. "It seems like an interesting tactic. What do you think he'll do if he realizes you're dating an agent for the DOD?"
"I doubt he didn't know about it already, but if it's news to him, so much the better."
"You like fucking with the guy, don't you?"
It was his turn to chuckle. "Honestly, I don't usually like screwing around with people. Mind games aren't my thing, but if there was ever someone to fuck around with, it's Marino. He did start it, though."
He made a good point, and she had as much reason as anyone to want to see the mob boss fucked with. The guy had made threats against her family and despite the fact that they were now in some kind of tenuous alliance, she still wanted to get in what few shots she could before things turned hostile again.
Besides, the Bootlegger Bistro looked like a classy establishment and very much the classic Italian restaurant that might have looked at home in New York during the sixties or seventies.
Taylor already had a reservation for nine in the evening, and from the looks of it, the head waiter did remember him. The man waved him in and made welcoming gestures as he guided them to their table.
In fairness, her escort was a difficult man to forget once anyone met him.
They barely had time to pick their menus up before one of the waiters arrived with a tablet at the ready. "Can I interest the two of you in some drinks?"
Her companion nodded. "I'll have a beer. Whatever you have on tap."
The young man turned to Niki. "I'll have the same."
"Coming right up."
Taylor smirked. "I was never a cocktail kind of guy."
"And I was never a cocktail kind of gal." She tilted her head and regarded him with a small frown. "There's a dirty joke to be made in there somewhere. Something about cock and tail, but I can't think of it right now."
He didn't answer immediately but he tried to fight a grin that spread across his face.
"What?"
"It's…cool to see you like this. Your class-bitch act is very entertaining to watch, but seeing you relaxed and hopefully enjoying yourself…it's nice."
She met his gaze and smiled. "It's nice to feel it too, I have to say."
Letting her guard down did cause anxiety to flare up but so far, he had shown no sign that he was worthy of such doubt.
The beers arrived, and Taylor motioned to her menu, a non-verbal question whether she knew what she wanted to order. She nodded in the affirmative.
"I think we're ready to order too," she noted aloud.
"Very good. What can I get you?"
"I think the Osso Bucco for me," she told him and motioned for Taylor to get his order in as well.
"I'll take the Scaloppine di Lorraine, thanks."
The waiter tapped their orders into his tablet and made his way to the kitchen.
“What the hell kind of an Italian restaurant sells steak?" she asked as they took another sip of their beers. "If you come to an Italian place, you come to eat Italian food, right?"
He raised an eyebrow at her. "Uh…you know that Italians eat steak too, right? And have their own ways to prepare it and everything? They even have Italian names for it too."
"Yeah? Name one."
"Bistecca alla fiorentina." He smirked like he had expected her challenge. "Which means beefsteak Florentine style, but it's still a staple of Tuscan cuisine."
Niki thought about it for a few seconds and couldn't think of any way to take his argument
apart. "Okay, fair enough."
"Besides, if you're a regular in here, you'd want something other than only pasta, right?"
"Again, fair enough." She took a sip from her beer. "So, do you think Marino knows we're here yet, or will they only call him in the morning?"
"One of his goons will by now, at the very least, but is that what you want to talk about?"
"Come on. You made no secret about the fact that you only chose this restaurant because you wanted to fuck with the man. But you did invite me here, so if you have something else to talk about, by all means."
Taylor nodded and after a few seconds, it became clear that he hadn't thought about what he wanted to talk about when he'd called. It had been a spur of the moment decision with no agenda. She wasn't used to that but it wasn't a bad thing, she decided.
"You look nice," he said finally and she couldn't help a chuckle.
"Is that the best you could come up with?"
"A compliment seemed to be the safest bet in this particular situation. Besides, you do look nice."
"Well, I expected something a little more graphic than merely 'nice.'"
He shrugged. "Okay, let's see…you're walking, talking sex on a stick whether you’re wearing something fancy or not. Although the best would be wearing nothing at all."
"That's better."
They paused when the waiter returned with their plates. As expected, the portions were larger than those offered at the French restaurant. The plates looked like trays instead, and they were heaped with steaming food that filled the whole room with a fresh dose of aromas that made her mouth water. From the way her companion watched the waiter approach, he experienced the same thing.
"You look like you're about to tackle the help." She laughed as the young man put the platters of food down.
"I'd never let it go that far." Taylor chuckled nervously in a way that made it sound like he was lying at least a little. "But yeah, after our little workout in the desert, Bobby and I had a quick workout in a nearby gym."
"That sounds dirty."
"Or your mind is merely in the gutter—hot fucking damn," he muttered once he took the first mouthful of his food. "That's some good shit right there. I would tackle a waiter for this kind of food on the regular."
Niki grinned. "I doubt they serve this kind of food in prison. Unless you have mob connections who let you live out that part from Goodfellas. You wouldn't happen to have any mob connections, would you, Taylor?"
She could only agree that the food was fantastic. But there was no point in not busting his balls whenever she could. Despite the fact that he could be gentle and supportive at times, he didn’t necessarily turn down an opportunity to be a pain in her ass.
Her expectation was that he would inhale his food, but while he attacked the plate at a determined pace, he took his time to enjoy every mouthful before he washed it down with a sip of beer.
"I'll tell you something. This is me," he stated and shook his fork a few times as he chewed his veal. "Simply enjoying life and copious amounts of good food with absolutely no pretensions about it. I can do the dress-up, but to me, this is more natural. You look much better now that you're comfortable and able to feel like yourself. Don't get me wrong, you looked good last night, but—"
"I look better like this, I get it. Neither of us are fancy people. Deep down, all we need is comfortable clothes, a nice Italian restaurant, and a big fucking platter full of protein and carbohydrates. You know, even though you're the guy who drags his knuckles across the face of anyone who looks at him wrong, I forget that you can use that stuffing you have between your ears."
"How the hell do you think I managed to survive so long while dragging my knuckles across so many faces?" He looked at the waiter, tapped his glass, and held two fingers up. The young man nodded and jogged away to fill the order.
"How would you feel about getting into it with two more?"
He tilted his head. "What do you mean?"
"I happened to mention your plans to teach the mobsters a lesson to Jansen and Maxwell and how you were training for that with Bobby. It was in passing, mind you, merely telling them where I would be and what was happening when the night of the fight came along. They happened to mention that you might want to put your skills to the test. I don't mean that Bobby isn't a good sparring partner, but they pointed out that it might be a good idea for you to spar with more than one partner since you'll fight more than one mobbed-up asshole. I thought it was a good idea, especially since Jansen did some professional boxing and Maxwell holds five or six black belts."
Taylor finished his first beer to the dregs a few seconds before the waiter arrived with their refills. "Well, I can't say it's a bad idea."
"Sure. They get much-needed release since I imagine following me around the world isn't what they might describe as fun. Plus, you guys are all merely testosterone on a powder keg, which will let me see what you need to practice when push comes to shove."
He shrugged and took a sip of his beer. "It sounds fine by me. You'd better make sure they're ready for a serious can of whoop-ass being opened on them, though."
Niki laughed aloud, ran her fingers over her beer glass, and scribbled randomly over the condensation. "Well, never let it be said that you don't have balls the size of an elephant."
"It makes walking around a little difficult, but I always have a wheelbarrow on standby when I need it."
"Did you get a look at the guys Taylor will fight?"
Niki shook her head and glanced at the rest of the team as they began to load the suits into the trucks. "No, but Bobby had a good look at them when they tried to throw their weight around. They won’t roll over with a mean look."
"Uh-huh. They’re probably refrigerators full of bricks, which is why Bobby went at him hard enough to trash his face like that. He's getting ready for a tough fight." Jansen tapped the SUV lightly. "And what happens if we tune his ass up?"
"You what?"
"My partner is asking what you'll do to us if we hurt him," Maxwell explained and folded his arms in front of his chest.
"He'll heal is what. Why do you ask?"
"We're a little worried about you putting a .45 up our asses if we hurt your boyfriend."
Niki opened her mouth, shut it again, and shook her head. There wasn't anything she could say except that the two idiots were trying to bait her.
"No, I won't do anything to either of you if you hurt my boyfriend."
Jansen grinned. "Now, was that so hard to say?"
"That I won't hurt either of you?"
"No, calling him your boyfriend."
"Honestly? It was something of a shock, but I could tell it was what the two of you tried to get out of me." They continued to chuckle and she glared at them both until they stopped. "You don't care?"
"You're my boss, not my sister." Maxwell leaned back against the SUV. "But with that said, if he breaks your heart, I'll break his legs."
"I'll hold him down while Maxwell breaks his legs," Jansen added. "And we'll only make sure that he's strong enough to protect you if things get rough and he doesn't have a suit around to protect him."
Niki wasn't sure what to make of that. "And you'd make sure because…"
"We only beat up guys who are trying to date someone we care about." The smaller man finished her sentence for her.
"Yeah," his partner agreed. "And assholes. Or people you shoot. Or people we're paid to beat down on. Mostly people we're paid to beat down on."
"Well, I'm not paying you guys to beat on Taylor, so either you do care about me or you think he's an asshole."
The two men exchanged a glance.
"Both?" Maxwell asked.
Jansen nodded. "Both."
The heat of the desert was relentless. Being there was better than being in the Zoo, but not by much. Many people imagined that the desert was one of the things that hindered the Zoo’s spread to infect the rest of the world like a virus. Sal, of course, knew better. Ground Zero had been loc
ated in the same arid landscape and the Zoo had simply erupted into rampant growth. Even now, it pushed relentlessly to swallow the so-called insulation of the Sahara that offered no resistance to the encroaching jungle in the least.
Not only that, it was a sucky, sucky place to be.
The sand kicked up by the retreating Hammerheads made tracking them difficult, but he could still manage. He focused and watched them move away from the meeting place.
Madigan wasn't wearing her combat suit, which had been her idea. Coming with him had been her idea too. She wouldn’t let him go out there alone and face the trap on his own. But neither of them wanted the people they met to think they were in any danger whatsoever. That would defeat the purpose of the trap.
"Is that it?"
She almost sounded disappointed as she moved away from their Hammerhead, her gaze focused on the retreating vehicles as well.
"They simply paid ten million dollars in cash, took our offering, and left."
He couldn't help feeling some disappointment that they had left without trying to kill him. Not because he enjoyed the excitement—although that was true enough—but because the results of the firefight that ensued would have made the rest of their plan much easier.
"Is that it?" Davis echoed through the comms. "What happened to the action? I was promised action. Lots of it. That's the reason why I agreed to spoon with a fifty-caliber rifle and cook for an hour in sand that's hot enough to barbeque a brisket within a suit that's barely keeping me alive in this fucking mess of a place. Where's the action, Kennedy?"
Madigan laughed. "Hey, I'm as surprised as you are by them leaving us alone. Sal, do you have any theories about why they didn't at least try to kill us to get out of paying us the ten million?"
"Money clearly isn't a problem for them," Sal noted. "I think we knew that already. But if they wanted to give us problems, the best place to do it is out here. They wouldn't do it in the Zoo because we know it better than they do, they can't attack in the base, and they won't attack us on any of the roads since satellites are watching them every second of every day. And if they did their homework, they'd know it would be fully suicidal to try to stage an attack on the compound. If they intended to attack us, it would be here. No doubts about it."
Monster In Me (Cryptid Assassin Book 8) Page 7