Page 33 of Sin City Obsession (De Salvo Empire #1)

Rocco had opinions of the more obvious men. He didn’t want to believe any of his father’s selected figureheads would make that choice.

Alessa wanted to let him hold on to the hope that his own people were innocent of the charge, but she wasn’t so sure it was truth. Someone had gotten that assassin into Senior’s office without triggering an alarm. To her mind, that had to mean they had privileged information.

So, once Rocco had finally collapsed into sleep, she slipped from the bed and tiptoed downstairs with her phone. Her laptop rested on the dining table, where she’d set it when they’d finally worked on unpacking her things, so she settled there. It was as good a spot as any.

It was after midnight, but she texted Emanuele anyway. He was the only one beyond Rocco that she completely trusted to be innocent of this suspicion.

I need a list of names and any relevant positions of everyone in the family who had security clearance to Cavallo Senior’s office as of Sunday morning. Include any non-familial casino staff, indicated. Thank you .

Alessa set the phone down and went to work on what she could do immediately—research on the other area families. She’d learned the heads’ names, heard their voices, but aside from the way they’d carefully chosen to project themselves for those few minutes, she was woefully undereducated about them.

She started with the Parisi family, currently headed by Vito Parisi, aged forty-six.

The Parisis had a long, sordid, undoubtedly embellished history in the Vegas area.

Their roots ran deeper than any of the other active families, but their power no longer reflected what should have been a proud legacy.

Too many conflicts, too much interior strife leading to bloodshed, and too much police involvement.

By the time Rocco Senior had taken his seat of authority, the Parisi name was little more influential than mud.

In the past two decades, Vito had pulled what remained of his family together and seemingly hauled them up to their feet all on his own.

Parisi-owned businesses began to open up shop again.

The name slipped into conversations, raising awareness, drawing interest. There was a report of a legal investigation, suspicion of fraud, but Alessa found no record of the findings.

The Parisis were doing better than they had in almost thirty years.

They hadn’t managed it without butting heads with the locals, but even her inelegant search found evidence enough to reveal the success.

The problem was, a rising star was entirely likely to want to cut down their supposed competition.

Nothing she found reassured her that Vito or his brood were above-board .

Her phone buzzed with an incoming text and Alessa leaned away from her laptop. She stretched, rubbed at her eyes, and lifted the phone. A small pinch of guilt twisted in her chest.

Emanuele: Give me until noon.

He didn’t ask a single question, didn’t challenge her request at all. Just complied.

She ought to have found that suspect, but she knew what the reason was.

And she was just sleep-deprived enough to admit it to herself.

As far as Emanuele was concerned, she was the boss’s woman.

So as long as she didn’t take an action against Rocco himself, or request something that would directly hurt Rocco, he would come through.

She set the phone down without responding and blew out a heavy breath.

None of this—absolutely none—was how she’d pictured her time in Las Vegas to go.

At some point, she was going to have to have a hard conversation with herself.

And that was something she was not ready for, so she laid her fingertips over the keyboard again, minimized the Parisi information, and set about searching out what she could find on the other man and his ilk.

Viktor Sobol, fifty-seven-years-old, head of the Sobol bratva. There weren’t a lot of reliable resources as to when the Sobols arrived in Vegas, but Alessa found enough to be sure Viktor was not the first. In fact, Viktor was likely not related in any biological way to whomever had come before him.

For a brief time, the Sobol name had been attached to a thriving casino planted right on The Strip.

But their unabashed tendency toward violence, particularly in the days before the government got so heavy-handed with organized crime, had quickly seen their customers fleeing for safer options.

The Sobols had a history of struggling to maintain businesses, and businesses often being dragged into the news as a result of violent crime.

They didn’t seem afraid to let their crime scenes meet with media attention.

That realization gave Alessa pause.

The assassin hadn’t just shot himself. He’d escaped down to the casino level, run into the throng of ignorant, oblivious gamblers, and blown his brains out all over one of the roulette tables. There was no keeping that quiet.

But was that too obvious a direction? Too weak a connection?

She leaned back in her chair again, frowning at the screen. What was it Viktor had said to Rocco before disconnecting from their call?

“Why does it look like you’ve been sitting at that table all night?”

Alessa started, her muscles tightening as she twisted toward the voice. Rocco’s voice, of course. Thick and rough from several hours’ hard sleep.

He stood next to the pillar that more or less defined the dining area, his hair a mess and his chest bare. A frown bent his lips. “Whatever that is, it can wait. It’s after three.”

She winced, glanced briefly at the screen, then closed out of everything and quietly shut the lid. “Sorry,” she said on a whisper. She pushed to her feet and crossed to him. “What woke you? Is everything—”

Rocco cut her off with a hard, demanding kiss. His arms came around her, one hand raising to tangle in her loose hair, while his tongue plundered her mouth. He kissed her like he hadn’t seen her in weeks, like he was starved for her.

The exhaustion that had been building up inside her disappeared, chased away at the feel of his body pressed to hers and the taste of his kiss.

He turned them, his hands sweeping up beneath the oversized shirt she was supposed to be sleeping in, and hooking into the hem of her panties. His lips moved to trail along her jaw, down her throat, as he pulled her panties down.

Alessa sank her fingers into his hair, her body humming, and stammered, “R-Rocco, you should be sleeping.” They both should, though she probably would have stayed up a while longer if she’d been left to herself. She certainly wasn’t feeling like sleeping in this moment.

His hands hooked under her butt and he lifted her off her feet, her panties falling away as he stepped between her legs.

He pinned her to the pillar and raised his lips to ghost over hers.

“No self-respecting man would choose sleep right now.” He nibbled on her lips and one hand dipped between them, his fingers spreading her folds and teasing her.

“Not over this pretty, dripping pussy that’s begging to be fucked. ”

Her body pulsed and she lowered her own hand, slipping it beneath the waistband of the boxers he’d left on when he’d fallen into bed.

“Is that what woke you up, sweetheart? Did your cock miss me?” She curled her fingers around his hard length and pumped, simultaneously locking her ankles behind him .

Rocco groaned, his forehead falling to hers. “All of me missed you. The bed was fucking cold.” He slammed his mouth to hers, his thumb rolling over her clit as his hips bucked into her hand. He extended two fingers, pushing them inside her without relieving pressure from her clit.

Alessa tore from the kiss with a curse. “Rocco, sir , hurry, before I—”

His hand disappeared, she helped him shove down his boxers, and then he was filling her.

The delicious, already familiar stretch of his cock sent jolts of pleasure coursing through her as he buried himself in her aching, needy core.

And it felt so damn good. It shouldn’t have felt that good, but the tears dotting her eyes were proof enough.

“ Fuck ,” Rocco hissed, his lips against her skin, beside her throat. “That’s better. That’s fucking better.” There was note of relief twisting his voice, blending with the rough and wild edge of his lust.

It sounded exactly like how she was feeling.

Alessa curled her arms around his shoulders. Her chest tightened and she bent her head, breathing in a lungful of his scent as she fought with herself.

Rocco’s hands slid up her sides, beneath the shirt that was technically his, and his tongue teased her throat. “Your pussy’s squeezing me so tight, beautiful. If I move, I think we’re both gonna come.”

A strangled laugh escaped her.

He sucked on the skin beneath her ear and rocked his hips, slowly drawing out. When she gasped, nearly proving him right, he chuckled and murmured, “That’s my good girl. Enjoy every inch. Don’t be shy.”

She barely heard more than the vibrato of his tone rumbling through her, because by the time he was done, he’d thrust forward again and picked up a merciless pace.

He was well and truly pounding into her, his lips never entirely removed from her skin, and she clung to him.

He was her lifeline to the world. He was her soul’s salvation.

His tongue teased the shell of her ear and his voice reached down inside of her as he commanded, “Come.”

Every single muscle in her body responded.

Her fingers latched onto him, nails digging into his skin, as her toes curled on open air.

Her back arched, her head fell back against the pillar, and her vision went white as the air raced from her lungs.

Everything was fire, but the addictive, euphoric type of fire.

Rocco rained kisses across her skin, a restrained agony in his voice. “So fucking beautiful,” he murmured. He rocked against her, grinding hard, pressing himself deep. Then he let out a roar, one hand flying to the pillar at her back as his body shuddered with the force of his own release.

Alessa held him as tight as her suddenly exhausted muscles would allow. She threaded fingers into his hair again, gently massaging his scalp.

He was breathing hard, one hand anchored so firmly over her hip she suspected she’d see a bruise there in the morning. But he lifted his head, kissed her temple, and murmured, “Fucking perfect. My perfect queen.”

Her heart did one of those funny flipping things she’d noticed it doing in the past couple of days .

Rocco eased back, set her gently on her feet, and cupped one hand against her cheek to hold her gaze. “I think I’m just tired enough to agree to go back to bed, but you’d better be coming with me. No arguments. You can tell me about whatever you were doing tonight in the morning, over breakfast.”

Alessa blinked, then smiled softly. “No arguments.” She should be arguing.

Every time he called her his queen, every time he claimed her as his, she should have been arguing.

At the very least, she should have been pointing out that whatever they were was temporary.

But she never could make herself say the words.

She wasn’t entirely sure they were still true.