Page 48

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SADIE

I stare at the door, watching it close once again. When the latch catches, I leap on my feet. Aubry pats my arm like he’s trying to assure me everything is fine. But the guy who just cut off an ear is still here. Still has us trapped. And is rooting through the drawers.

Knives, ropes, and everything a person would need to play Clue in real life fall onto the desk. The gun spins around in place and my body takes a full step back.

“Talong?”

The scary old man stares first at Aubry, then his gaze slides to me trying to leave my body. Aubry notices and slips a hand behind my waist, pulling me back to his side.

“Yes?”

Mr. Oli braces his knuckles against the desktop, then leans over. “I have a…proposition for you.”

Uh… The freaky weird, geriatric mobster is not trying to get a threesome. Right? Today’s been weird enough already, but I don’t know how to say no, thank you, without losing a kidney.

“I’m listening,” Aubry says.

“Tom’s work was always sloppy, but ambitious. I suppose that sums up the man himself. It’s frankly a miracle he kept anything running. I’m beginning to wonder how much of that was thanks to your influence.”

“I was just a grunt,” Aubry says, but his eyes shine as he trails Mr. Oli’s every move.

“Modesty will get you nowhere in this business. But I think you already know that.” He stops staring at Aubry and looks directly at me. What does that mean? What’s going on?

“What do you want from me?”

“I find myself in a bit of a pickle thanks to Tom’s ever expanding reach exceeding his grasp. Crudité cannot be allowed to fall.”

Aubry nods.

“Now, don’t get me wrong, it will require a complete and thorough gutting of management.

I’d say you start with this room…” Mr. Oli stares at the mural before he shudders.

“Then work on your loyal employees. You know the drill. Two close by, another two for them to keep an eye on each other. So on and so forth.”

Aubry winces and shakes his head. “What does this…? Why are you telling me this?”

After giving one last discerning eye to the room, Mr. Oli turns back, hand on his chin. “Because it’s yours.”

“What?” both Aubry and I shout together..

“Crudité, it’s assets, the operations contained within, and—of course—the subsequent parking garages, storage facilities, and docks.

I can transfer them all to your name in an hour.

” Mr. Oli bends over and picks something off of the ground.

As he twists it in his hand, I realize it’s the piece of ear.

“Hmm. Better make it two in case the old owner passes out from blood loss.”

“This is…a joke.” Aubry keeps shaking his head, his hand on my waist tightening with each twist. “You’re fucking with me.”

“I assure you, son, you’d know if I was fucking with you.”

“No. Why? Don’t you have…kids? Two sons and a daughter?”

“Two of them are currently running my other casinos. And the third is lucky he doesn’t drown in the shower. If I put him in charge of anything more complicated than a Rubix cube, we’d all wake up in chains. There is also the matter of the agreement.”

Aubry keeps shaking his head as if he can’t believe any of this. “What agreement?”

Mr. Oli leans closer to whisper to me. “He’s quite good at playing dumb, isn’t he? No wonder Tom never saw your betrayal coming.”

“I didn’t—”

“As long as the Nightshades have one casino on the strip, then there won’t be any gang wars back in the old country.”

“But Mr. Ato was going to takeover all of the Strip.”

A slimy smile winds up Mr. Oli’s lips. “He was going to try. In truth, I never had the collateral to remove him. The Nightshades didn’t care that he was a grubby, incompetent, grasper. And I never had the proof I needed to finally remove this splinter from my eye. Not until you.”

With a dramatic turn, he faces me. “And you as well, my dear. I haven’t forgotten your assistance. She’s quite the dame.”

Even as he stares through space and shakes his head, Aubry still pushes me behind him. But I can peek over his shoulder, watching Mr. Oli smile. I’m a weak point for Aubry, and he knows it.

Come on. We can leave. Just get out of here. Hit the road. Never look back.

I try to pull on Aubry’s arm but his body’s rigid.

“Why would I accept?” Aubry asks.

“Why wouldn’t you? Power? Wealth? Enough pussy to drown yourself?

” Mr. Oli full on winks at me with that and I scowl.

“I understand your reticence. Things under Tom were getting out of hand. He employed a bit too much force for our liking. We’re a simple, Christian organization that prefers to keep the kneecap breaking to a minimum.

If you’re in charge, you get to set the rules. If you’re not…”

He lets the unsaid ring out in the room.

Sure, Aubry could try to change things, make a more touchy-feely mafia that only does moderate drug dealing and the occasional truck theft.

But he’d be here, trapped as some suited mafia crime boss.

Sleeves rolled up, hands digging into the desk, dark eyes staring down at me until they flash purple.

No. No, no, no. He doesn’t want this. He can’t want this.

“Who?”

“Hmm?”

“Who would take control if not me?”

Mr. Oli rolls his hands. “Well, the Bells and Mr. Goji are both out for obvious reasons. I suppose the old family will pick someone at random. They probably have an inbred bastard kicking around. It’d give him something to do instead of wasting all of Daddy’s money.”

Aubry’s thinking way too hard about this.

I keep biting my lip, squirming as the two of them just trade looks without saying anything. In a flash, it comes exploding out of me. “He doesn’t want this!”

“Child…” Mr. Oli warns, but my dam’s shattered.

“He wants to be free. To make banana sauce spaghetti. And have a cat. And be happy. Can you offer any of that? No. Because this place is nothing but misery and pain…and torn off ears. And whatever the fuck that thing is! I think it’s a painting of a seal fucking a mermaid. What is wrong with you people!”

“Talong, silence your woman.”

The air vibrates with the threat of every weapon Mr. Oli pulled out of the desk. I ram my tongue into my teeth to shut up and nervously glance to Aubry.

“No. She can say whatever she wants. Without her, I’d be dead, and you’d still have Ato hanging off your neck.”

Mr. Oli doesn’t look happy about this, but he shrugs, then rubs his throat as if a whole ass man is dangling off him like a necklace. With a gentle brush of his finger, Aubry caresses my cheek. “Sadie? What do you think?”

I’ve lost him.

For the brief hour as we drove back to Vegas, I thought we’d pull this off.

They’d come in, take out Mr. Ato and his gang, then Aubry would be free to run away with me.

But this is all he’s known. It’s his world and a shit ton of money, power.

What the hell can I offer him other than a body that shuts down in the presence of his cum?

Aubry closes his eyes and presses his forehead to mine. “It’s okay,” he whispers before standing back up. “I need time.”

“I can give you an—”

“First, I’m taking her back home.”

Mr. Oli glares at me, but he pushes his tongue into his cheek. “How do I know you won’t run away?”

“If you can’t trust me, this would never work in the first place.”

A quick chuckle falls from Mr. Oli. “I knew you were the brains in this.”

“Second.” Aubry stares over his shoulder to the door that’s both a couple feet a thousand miles away. “You cannot kill anyone.”

“Excuse me?”

“Goji, Red, Green, even Mr. Ato—I expect them to be alive by the time I get back.”

“Well, Mr. Ato’s going to be returned to the head family where they will decide his fate. It is out of my hands. But the others are trash for the incinerator. They tried to kill you.”

“I’m aware.”

“But still you fight for them? You are a strange one, Talong. They’re loyal to the man you betrayed.”

“I know that too.”

Mr. Oli looks poised to argue which would kill this deal right now. And kill us too. Then he shrugs. “Very well. It’s your funeral. If you wish to have traitors at your back, that’s your business. I shall keep your…companions alive for one day. If you haven’t returned by then…”

“I understand.” Aubry drapes an arm over my shoulder, pinning me to his side.

“Once she’s home, I will come back with your answer.

” With his head high, he turns the both of us to face the door and takes an exaggerated step for it.

My knees quake, certain I’m about to feel the bite of hot lead in my spine.

But the door opens, two men in suits and sunglasses holding it for us. Aubry won’t let me get more than an inch from him, his head swiveling as he takes everyone in.

“Talong,” Mr. Oli calls out from the desk. “I’m the one who told the Squash how to find you.”

The door slams shut.