Even Money

  He picked out a piece and looked away. I reached for my wine glass and fought the urge to reach out and shake all of the unknowns out of him.

  On the balcony, the wind pressed against me like a Black Friday crowd. I watched him light a cigar by the railing, his hands cupped around it in an almost tender fashion.

  “You smoke?”

  He flipped the lighter closed and drew on the end of the cigar. “Occasionally. When I need a distraction.”

  He stared out at the view, a canvas of neon lights and moving traffic. I expected him to look at me, to follow up the comment with what he needed a distraction from. He didn’t, and I wrapped the blanket a little tighter. I looked out on the horizon and saw a faint glow.

  “Look.” I pointed. “The sunrise.”

  Had it been that long? I glanced back at the table, at the half-completed puzzle and the empty bottle of wine. My mind moved through the conversations and the pauses. He had told me stories of growing up in Louisana, of swamps and voodoo. He’d talked about Vegas, of places he wanted to take me and dishes he wanted me to try. I’d told him about the horses I grew up caring for and my first days at The House. I laughed at his ridiculous ego, and he’d told me that my smile made him happy.

  He straddled the chaise lounge and sat down, patting the spot before him. “Come here. Sit.”

  He held the cigar to the side and moved back, reaching out when I sat down and pulling my back flush against his chest.

  Together, we watched the sky change, a bright orange wave sweeping over the buildings, the streets almost empty. I followed a street sweeper as it moved down the Strip and saw a police car stop beside a woman.

  The city, coming to life.

  Our night together, ending.

  His hand cupped my chest, holding me to him, a firm squeeze of reassurance.

  I turned my head, resting it against his shirt. “Do you think you’ll live in Vegas forever?”

  “Probably. Why?”

  I looked out on the city, one I felt swallowed by. Funny how, on the street, I never realized its enormity.

  Up here, it seemed like a monster.

  I sighed. “I don’t know. Just wondering.”

  He pressed a kiss against the nape of my neck. “Come on. Let’s go to bed.”

  In bed, we didn’t talk. He shed my robe like it was tissue paper, then pulled my naked body against him, my back to his chest, his arm around me. I tried to stay awake, tried to memorize all of the pieces of this moment. The smooth sheets. His warm body. The muscles of his body. The brush of his lips against my back. The husk in his voice when he said my name.

  “Bell.”

  The dawn light streamed through the room and highlighted everything in its path. Expensive fabrics. Stainless steel. Marble. Wood. I swallowed and could still taste the wine on my tongue. There was still the faint smell of cigar on his skin.

  “Bell.” He tightened his grip on me and I realized I’d fallen, or almost fallen, asleep.

  “Yes?”

  “Thank you for tonight.”

  I wasn’t sure what he was thanking me for. I drank his wine. Butchered his puzzle. Went to third base and didn’t give him much of an ending. Kept him up way past the hour when a businessman should sleep.

  Still, I smiled. “You’re welcome. Thank you.”

  He kissed my shoulder, and I closed my eyes, letting the pull of sleep drag me into its depths.

  I woke to blood.

  Sixteen

  The blood was on the sheets, long dark streaks that had dried, flecks of black dotting the white surface. I held my breath, pulling back the sheets carefully, and lifted my hands, half-expecting to see them stained red. They weren’t. They were pale and clean. I looked back at the bed, Dario’s side empty.

  “It’s okay.”

  The sudden voice had me shrieking, my hands clutching the sheet to my naked chest, and I whipped my head around to see him in the doorway.

  “What happened?”

  He shut the door and strode toward me, his hands busy on the cuff of his left sleeve. “I didn’t realize I was bleeding like a stuck pig until I bent down to check on you and saw the blood on the sheets.”

  His demeanor was calm, his voice wry, and I relaxed my grip on the sheet. I noticed the bright light from the window and glanced at the clock on the bedside. Almost noon.

  “Let me see the cut.” I reached out for him.

  He sat on the edge of the bed and lifted his elbow, exposing the back of his forearm.

  I hissed. “Jesus.”

  The cut looked deep and painful and already had a salve applied over it, a greasy substance that wasn’t stopping the blood. I watched a line of it drip down and he pressed a pad of gauze to the spot.

  “It’s fine. I’ve got a doc in the living room, he’ll give me a few stitches.”

  “What happened?”

  He shrugged. “Just some business that turned sour.”

  “It’s not even noon yet.”

  I thought of Vince, and the men he’d come to The House with. “Why isn’t your security protecting you?”

  “It’s fine.” He leaned forward and kissed the top of my head, a dismissive gesture that only added anger to my worry.

  “It’s not fine. When did you leave? Why didn’t you wake me up?”

  He stood up and the tenderness fell off of him. “I run a business. A lot of businesses. I can’t sleep until noon on a Monday.”

  “I didn’t ask you to sleep until noon. I asked why you didn’t wake me up. Did you even sleep?”

  I could see the answer in his face, in the tired lines that pulled at the edge of his features.

  I yanked back the sheet and got out of bed. Stepping into the bathroom, I threw the door closed, waiting for the satisfying slam of the wood. There was none, and I turned to see his body blocking the opening, stepping forward, closer. He came up behind me and pressed me hard against the counter, his hands sliding down my arms and he gripped my wrists, pulling them behind my bare back. I struggled, then stopped, the fight futile. He surged forward and I felt the hard length of him against my ass.

  His eyes met mine in the bathroom mirror, then dragged down the length of my naked body. “You think I had sleep on my mind?”

  He transferred both of my wrists to one hand and used his other to slide up my stomach, his touch dominant as he ran his palm over my breasts. My nipples pebbled under his touch and I fought the contact, pushing back on him with my ass, irritated for being aroused at the sight and feel of his touch. He groaned at the increased contact, his eyes meeting mine in the mirror, and my angry facade slipped for a moment when a grin broke through my scowl.

  He caught the smile and shook his head. “You’re gonna be the death of me.”

  The words were a growl against my neck, and he kissed the spot and pulled off of me, the heat between us fizzling out into nothing. I saw a fresh smear of blood across his white dress shirt and pointed to the spot. “I bet you keep your dry cleaner busy.”

  “At times.”

  A line of blood dripped off his hand. The soft splat caught my attention and I watched the bright red drop stain the grout line between two marble tiles.

  “Who cut you?”

  He shook his head slightly. “A nobody.”

  I’m a nobody. A naked nobody who caught Dario Capece’s eye. One he found entertaining and decided to keep around. I swallowed, and the sour aftertaste of last night’s wine hit my tongue. “What happened to him?”

  Dario lifted a robe off the hook and passed it to me, watching as I shrugged into and tightened it around my waist. “Does it matter?”

  I considered the question, staring at the dark spot of blood on the floor. I shook my head. “No.”

  “Miller Lite?”

  The waitress held up the bottle, and I raised my hand. “That’s me.”

  She held out the beer and I half-lifted out of my seat to grab it.

  “Super classy, Bell,” Meredith mused.

  “We??
?re at a strip club.” I shot the response back to Meredith, who completely missed the comment, her hands moving to wave frantically at the disco-haired brunette who had just come on stage in roller-skates.

  “Look! That’s Tracy!”

  “She’s going to spin on the pole in those skates?” Lydia asked.

  “Shut it. It’s her first night,” Meredith snapped.

  As if we needed the reminder. That was the reason we had trekked across town to Saffire—to provide emotional support for Meredith’s friend. The girl had finally succumbed to the hole which claimed half of hot Vegas women: stripping or prostitution. She had chosen stripping … but we’d suspected she’d dive into hooking pretty soon. It was too tempting for most of them, especially with the cocktail of drugs they passed around backstage. I watched her slowly circle the pole, her hands reaching back to pull at the strings of her top and thought of the guy at The House. The one with the chip—Dario’s chip—and the fifty-thousand-dollar offer.

  Maybe I was just a few bad months away from this myself. I watched her turn, saw the tight pinch of her features, the nervous press of her hot pink lips, and tried to imagine myself on stage. I tried to picture the lights, the stares, the sweaty hands and offers, the backroom jerk-offs and sugar daddy setups.

  I thought of Dario’s sleek suite with the million-dollar-view. That morning, Vince had stocked the closet with designer pants and a silk top, the tags still attached. In that opulent bathroom, I’d pulled on a thousand dollars worth of new clothes. I’d bent down and fastened the strap of a Prada sandal. I’d walked out and kissed a man who may have beaten someone up just hours before.

  My throat closed and I tightened my hand around the beer, lifting it to my mouth.

  The strip club manager liked us, sending over champagne and food. We got drunk, cheered on Meredith’s friend, and talked about celebrities and classes. I laughed when Lydia got on the table and danced. I flirted when the hockey players next to us got friendly. I let a big Ukrainian goalie pull me onto his lap and sing me some song about beautiful women.

  Throughout it all, I thought of Dario.

  I thought of the way he’d dropped me off, his Rolls pulling up to my driveway, his hand passing me the suite’s access card. He’d told me to text him if I needed anything, and to use the place whenever I felt like it. I told him I wasn’t ready for it, and he pushed the card on me anyway.

  I’d hid it in my T-shirt drawer and vowed not to use it. I’d changed out of the new clothes, hung them in my closet, and decided I wouldn’t wear them. I’d scrubbed the scent of him off in the shower and fought the smile that came as I thought of him.

  I had to remember our differences. I was nobody and he was somebody. I was single and he was married. I was too young and naive, and he was too old and …

  There were too many words to complete that sentence. He was too everything—a black hole that could suck me in without even feeling the crush of my soul.

  “They don’t mean anything to me. Maybe I’m ready for someone who does.”

  I couldn’t get him out of my mind. And worse, I didn’t want to. I tipped back my third beer and looked away when the goalie smiled at me.

  DARIO

  The room was blindingly bright, the fluorescents reflecting off the white tile walls. Dario shut the door and flipped the lock, giving his eyes a moment to adjust. He stepped forward, undoing the buttons of his dress shirt and taking his time as he eyed the two men slumped against the far wall. One moved his foot and the chain scraped against the concrete floor. The bigger of the two lifted his head.

  “Who’s there?”

  Dario didn’t respond, shrugging out of his shirt and examining the bandage on his forearm. The bleeding had stopped, thanks to the neat line of stitches from the doc. Not the first stitches he’d received this year, and probably not the last. He hung his shirt carefully on the door’s hook and stepped closer to the two men, his dress boots clicking against the concrete floors.

  There was a special place in hell for men who hurt women. He’d learned that at an early age, when he’d watched his father beat the shit out of his mother when the Saints would lose, or when his beer was warm, or when his luck at the casino had turned to shit.

  It was why Dario didn’t drink. Or gamble. Or watch football. It was why he’d forced the Cajun drawl from his speech and abandoned work boots and jeans for suits and ties. It was why he’d avoided the fishing boats and had gotten his first job on the casino floor.

  His entire life, he had strived to be the opposite of his father. Now, he looked down into the swollen face of a man so much like him it made his fists ache.

  “If you’re gonna kill us, just do it already.” The man coughed, and a spittle of blood came out.

  “I’m not going to kill you.”

  He’d decided that after seeing the look in Bell’s eyes when she had asked him about the man who’d cut him. He’d seen the worry there, had noticed the way her mouth had tightened, her jaw set. If she ever brought it up again, he wanted her to be happy with his answer. And if making her happy meant keeping people alive, then fine.

  He squatted before the man and examined his swollen face, the eyes now puffy slits, the top lip split and hanging in an unnatural way. This one had squealed when he’d tied him down, his fat body flopping against the restraints. It’d taken two of them to get him into place and into a position where he could use the bolt cutters and the cauterization tool.

  The man’s lips cracked open. “Why are you doing this?”

  An excellent question. The man must have been surprised at the dark suits waiting outside the small-town bar. He must have been confused when they duct-taped his mouth and handcuffed his wrists, must have hated the back of the Hummer, especially once they closed the lid. Fifteen minutes later, when they’d tossed in the second man, he’d probably wondered who he’d been, had probably been annoyed by the stranger kicking and flailing inside of the tight compartment. He’d certainly seemed surprised when Dario had pulled off his blindfold, and he’d realized the man was his son, also prisoner inside this room.

  All day, Dario had left them alone. Plenty of time to think about who he was and why he was torturing them. Dario grabbed the man’s shirt and pulled him forward. “You tell me why I’m doing this.”

  It was the same command he’d given the men that morning. And all morning, the two men had confessed. Thefts. Deceit. Abuses. Rapes. They’d given names and dates, details and apologies.

  But they hadn’t given Dario what he wanted. And they still didn’t realize what this was really about.

  Dario thought of the file he had received on Bell, the court-protected seal worthless when the right cash hit the right hands. He’d opened it without the proper reverence, unprepared for the horrible details that had covered those pages. Details that had never had a resolution. That beautiful girl, damaged by these monsters. That beautiful girl, ignored and disrespected by the system put in place to protect her.

  It’d taken a week, but they were here now. Sniffling. Weak. Afraid. He leaned forward and pressed his fist into the bloody crotch of the man, putting his weight into the action, and appreciated the painful wheeze that resulted.

  “Tell me. Tell me what you’ve done.”

  Finally, the man’s mouth moved and the right words came out.

  Seventeen

  BELL

  Lydia groaned. “I can’t believe you screwed us out of front row seats, Bell. You know I’ve never been to a hockey game.”

  Meredith nodded. “Plus, he was hot. You should have at least taken his number.”

  I shifted my weight and pushed the seatbelt tongue into the buckle, thinking of the cute Ukrainian, his cautious smile and the gentle way his fingers had curled along my lower back. He’d offered us front row seats and a tour of their facilities. He’d also asked me to come home with him.

  There’d been a moment where I’d thought about leaving with him. He’d leaned in close, whispering in my ear, and I’d thou
ght about turning my head. Letting him kiss me. Seeing if there was a connection—the sort that might lead to a night of rumpled sheets and moans and orgasms.

  But I hadn’t. Instead, I’d pulled away from his lap and turned down the hockey invite, and absolutely none of it made sense because I shouldn’t, couldn’t, make decisions based on Dario, or on any man’s weak comparison to him. And that had been half the problem—that the goalie, that Ian, that every man seemed suddenly unimpressive when compared to Dario’s pull on me.