and the occasional kiss from Lady Luck are the hallmarks of a Raphael Visconti party, and tonight is no different. Despite the rumors and the fan-fare that surround any event I tack my name onto, it’s this simple Holy Trinity that has amassed me a fortune within the nightlife industry. Everything else is just fluff and elaborate marketing.
It’s the first trial night. The crowd is tight-knit, the atmosphere is electric and care-free. Drinks flow and laughter floats. You’d never know the Viscontis were on the brink of a civil war, or that less than an hour ago, I made the decision to liquidate my majority stakeholder shares in Miller & Young, the logistics company that has been my third largest source of income for the last five years.
But I suppose us Viscontis have always had a talent of burying our problems underneath velvet tables while we piss away our ill-gotten gains with ridiculous bets over the top of them.
Talking of ridiculous bets. Across the table, Benny and Gabe are playing Vegas Rummy. When we were kids, they’d play it under the back pew of our father’s church during Sunday service, but now, the stakes are a little higher than a couple dollars and a pack of Big Red gum, and, well, Gabe is a lot less forgiving.
If Gabe loses, Benny gets his Harley. If Benny loses, Gabe gets to break three of Benny’s fingers.
Of his choosing.
Usually, I’d be head-over-ass invested in such a show, probably throwing a few bricks of my own into the ring for pure entertainment value. But not tonight. Because tonight, a certain copper-haired brat with sticky fingers and an attitude problem keeps stealing my attention.
Penelope Price.
She’s working behind the bar and it’s safe to say it’s the first one she’s ever been behind, regardless of what her resume says. She’s been on shift for just over an hour and already three crystal tumblers have met their demise on my mahogany floors. Three. Each time I hear a smash, another spark of annoyance zaps down my spine, and it gets a little harder to maintain a gentlemanly composure.
She wasn’t buying it, anyway.
Every time I glance in her direction, she meets my scowl with one of her own and I remember yet another thing I dislike about her.
I dislike the massive dick she scrawled on my mirror; dislike that I laughed aloud when I saw it. That obnoxious lipstick print she left on a tissue in my bathroom, too.
But what irks me more than anything is how she looks in her uniform, and worse, how every red-blooded male on board—with the exception of my pussy-whipped older brother, of course—is clearly thinking the same thing.
Never in my life have I seen these men get up and go to the bar to order a drink, like commoners at a local pub. These are men that don’t even need to look up when the whiskey in their glass dips below a certain level, because another will just magically appear on a silver serving tray. But right now, there are two Viscontis and three of my former business associates forming a line at the bar, waiting like simps for Penelope to serve them.
I’d chalk it up to her being fresh meat on the Coast, but as my gaze, once again, slides reluctantly to her, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t understand the appeal.
Earlier on the terrace, I overheard one of my men comment that she looks like Jessica Rabbit, and while I don’t pay him to perv on my girls, he’s right. She’s got these big, blue eyes that seem to fool everyone but me. Pale skin that flushes crimson at the slightest insult. Freckles on a button nose that merge into a single mass every time she scrunches it.
And that body—don’t even get me started. It’s like she’s jumped right out of a 1950’s pin-up poster. On every other girl circulating the room, the uniform looks like a smart black dress. So why does it make her look like a stripper role-playing a slutty cocktail waitress at a bachelor party?
But it’s not just her looks, it’s the way she uses them to her advantage. Like right now, for instance. She’s resting her palms against the bar and gazing up at Marco with a smirk on her lips, like there’s a million dirty thoughts racing behind that innocent gaze. Of course, my idiot second-cousin is lapping it up, no doubt convinced he’s getting into her panties tonight. But I know the truth—she’s not interested in what’s under his suit, she’s interested in what’s in his wallet.
How do I know? Because when she slid up next to me at the bar last Thursday night and peeled off that fur coat like she couldn’t wait to show me every inch of her body, I almost fell for her act too.
Not almost—I did. Gave her my beloved watch, didn’t I?
It makes sense, I suppose. Made men are attracted to trouble and this girl epitomizes it.
I slip the poker chip from my pocket and flick it between my thumb and forefinger, as if it’ll save me from the claws of irritation digging under my skin. I don’t get irritated—I pay people to get irritated for me. But something about the way my newest member of staff is gazing at my dumb-ass cousin rubs me the wrong way.
Despite Nico asking so nicely for a favor, I hadn’t planned on giving her a job. Nothing about a loud-mouthed girl in a stolen dress screams employable, but while I was on damage control duty at the hospital, she’d rolled into my room with a nasty gash on her head and my lungs had tightened.
She’d been there, at the port, and suddenly, the word coincidence had lost its calming edge. Every ounce of logic that has gotten me this far in life tells me the whole doom card thing is bullshit. Even if it isn’t, there’s no chance in hell Little-Miss-Hot-Mess-Express is it. But logic only stretches so far, so, under the pretense of changing my mind about my favor to Nico, I’d offered her a job. It was purely a selfish decision. I’m a busy man, and I need to squash this paranoia that this five-foot-nothing redhead is going to lead to my downfall. I need confirmation that the loss of my watch and the port explosion really were just coincidences. Despite knowing I was being ridiculous, I couldn’t help but get her to draw a card from my deck.
Bullshit or not, if she’d drawn the Queen of Hearts I’d have put a bullet between her eyes. But she didn’t. She drew the Ace of Spades, of all things. The luckiest card in the deck. I was part relieved and part pissed off that I’d only fueled her egotistical belief that she was lucky.
With a sideways glare at the four-leaf clover around her neck, I roll my shoulders back and take a sip of whiskey. Yeah, she’s not my doom card. If she was, my world would be going up in flames right now. Sure, I’m down fifteen G’s tonight because I’ve lost every hand I’ve picked up, and after that shit-show meeting in the boardroom, I’m cutting ties with one of my most lucrative investments, but these things happen.
“Shit.”
A dark hiss shoots across the table from Benny’s lips and I smirk into my whiskey glass. Gabe’s just thrown down a Joker, and now, Benny’s staring at the back of his inked hands, as if he’s weighing what fingers he could cope without for two-to-eight weeks. Clearly unable to decide, he shakes his head and scoops up the fanned cards.
“Best of three.”
“It’ll cost you,” Gabe retorts. He’s feigning boredom, but I know he’s itching to snap a couple of Benny’s bones.
“Cost me what?”
“Another finger.”
Benny pauses, before grunting out a monosyllabic agreement and dealing out another round.
Idiot. He should know by now Gabe doesn’t just break fingers; he smashes them with his favorite hammer.
Out of the corner of my eye, the women’s restroom door swings open and Rory staggers out of it. She stops, blinks at the five-deep line of girls waiting to pee, and holds her hand up in an awkward apology. A few seconds after, Angelo strides out after her, straightening his tie with one hand and raking his tousled hair with the other.
I give a small shake of my head. Even Benny can keep his cock in his pants longer than Vicious these days, and that’s saying something.
He’s a fool in love, not a capo on the brink of war.
Angelo catches my eye and drops me a wink, before slapping his wife’s ass and sauntering through the French doors, where Cas smokes a cigarette under a heat lamp. Rory smooths down her red dress and weaves between tables, making a beeline for the chair next to me.
“Oh, swan,” she mutters as her stiletto buckles underneath her. Before she can face-plant on the table, my hand shoots out to grab her forearm and I gently lower her into the seat. “It’s these darn shoes. I’m more used to running sneakers than heels these days.”
“More used to OJ than white wine spritzers, you mean?”
She squints up at me like she’s looking into the sun, a lop-sided grin on her lips. “White wine spritzer, you say?”
Amused, I beckon the nearest server and order another round, plus a large water.
Rory slumps against the chair, twirls a curl around her finger, and studies me. I gulp the last dregs of my whiskey in preparation. Here we go.
“So…are you feeling lucky tonight, Rafe?”
“No more Blackjack, Rory.”
“Aw, come on. Just one round.” Her eyes dart up to Angelo out on the deck, then come back to me with a mischievous spark. “Or are you a chicken?”
My lips tilt. “I’m scared shitless, darling.”
Last month, Rory started playing Visconti Blackjack with Angelo’s men. It’s similar to regular Blackjack, but you play against an opponent, rather than the house. I guess she didn’t connect the dots between her winning every round and her opponents being on my brother’s payroll, because when she asked me to play with her, she was shocked that she lost. She lost the next game, and every game after that. Now, she owes me three-hundred grand of her husband’s money and can’t seem to get enough of trying to claw it back.
Of course, I’d never actually cash the debt in, but it’s been mildly amusing to watch her squirm about it.
“Fine,” she sighs. She sweeps a curious gaze over the Venetian chandelier about our heads. “Nice yacht. Does it count as a business expense now that you’re using it as a party venue?”
“Are you working with the feds, Rory?”
She lets out an easy laugh. “Nope, just trying to make conversation with my new brother-in-law.”
“Brother-in-law? You were due to be my aunt up until a few months ago.”
A server places two drinks in front of her and a fresh whiskey in front of me. She reaches for the wine glass, but I push it out of reach and rap my ring against the water bottle. “This first.”
She scrunches her nose but doesn’t protest. Three glugs later, she slams it down on the table and basks me in her attention again. “Well?”
“Can’t you get to know your other brother-in-law, instead?”
She lunges over and clumsily slaps Gabe’s shoulder. He doesn’t flinch. “Me and Gabe? We’re already as thick as thieves.”
“Yeah?” I can’t imagine Gabe bonding with anything except his motorbike or a new gun, let alone Angelo’s blond, bird-loving wife.
“Yeah. He helped me build the bird hide in his garden. Dug the pond out for me, too.” She leans in, wide-eyed and whispering. “And just last week, he let me shoot his—”
“What did I tell you?” Gabe cuts in, glancing up from his cards with a scowl.
Rory pretends to lock her lips with an imaginary key. “Oops, I forgot. Gabe says you’re a snitch.”
Mild amusement tugs on my lips; I throw my arm over the back of her chair and settle into the conversation. “Did he now?”
“Uh-huh.” She gulps her wine. “Says you’ll squeal to my husband like a little pig.”
“Is that right?”
“Yup. And we don’t talk to snitches.”
Gabe nods in approval, tosses the Jack of Diamonds on the table, then holds his fist out for Rory to bump. She does so, but immediately winces and tucks her balled hand into her lap when she thinks nobody’s looking.
I sip my whiskey and set it down with a dark chuckle. It soon evaporates into thin air, however, because a loud laugh shoots through the casino and sucker-punches my jaw. Gritting my teeth, I cut a reluctant look to the bar and find its owner.
Another thing to add to my list of dislikes: The fact that her laugh is the loudest thing in the room. What’s so funny, anyway? She’s only talking to Nico. He barely says three words in the same breath, and he couldn’t tell a joke even if he read it on the back of a Laffy Taffy wrapper.
I regard her through a lens of mild contempt. Strands of her red ponytail fall off her shoulders as she tosses her head back to laugh again. If I hadn’t hired her to satisfy my superstition, the girl would be out on her ass before the end of the night, and not just because I bet her fifty bucks she would be.
I’ll let it slide, but only until I’ve confirmed she’s not my doom card. Then she can crawl back into whatever hole she escaped from. For the sake of keeping the peace for the short time she’ll work here, I brought her into my office in an attempt to extend an olive branch, but the moment she sauntered in and scowled at me—in that uniform—I practically snapped that branch in half.
She’s irritating, but I’d be lying if I said she didn’t pique my interest. Aside from her penchant for outdated bar tricks and her egotistical belief she’s lucky, I know barely anything about her. Nico only told me her parents worked at the Visconti Grand when he and Penny were both kids, and she left town when she was eighteen.
I run a thumb over my bottom lip and give a small shake of my head. Eighteen, Christ—that was only three years ago. She’s still a kid, so fuck knows why I’m even looking at the length of her skirt, let alone wondering what’s underneath it.
I shift my brain to a topic less X-rated. No one turns up in Cove in a stolen dress with a suitcase on a Wednesday night. She’s running from something, and my blood is itching to know what. I slipped a Sinners Anonymous card in her coat pocket, and another between the pages of the Bible in her hospital room in the off-chance she’s a God-fearing Catholic girl, which I highly doubt. I’m hoping when I check the voicemail on Sunday, I’ll find a naughty secret in the inbox.
As if suddenly aware I’m glaring at her, Penelope’s laugh comes to an abrupt stop. The doe-eyed darling pretense melts away, and she meets my eyes with annoyance.
I’m not the type of man who averts his gaze, even if he doesn’t like what he sees.
She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t back down, either. I’m not usually one for insolence, but Jesus, it’s kind of hot. Nico is leaning over the bar and talking shit in her ear, but she doesn’t take her eyes off mine. We glare at each other for what seems like minutes—but surely can only be seconds—before she slowly lifts her hands to her high ponytail, splits it in half, and pulls.
A little huff of air escapes my lips. Fuck. It’s an innocent enough move. I’ve seen lots of girls adjust the tightness of their ponytail like that, but for some reason, when she does it, I feel it like a white-hot bolt of lightning in my groin.
She might as well have tugged on the end of my dick.
I grind my molars and glance at the liquor wall behind her head for a split-second’s respite. When I look back, she’s still staring at me, a smug smirk dancing on her lips, and irritation, itchy and hot, creeps down the back of my collar.
It was a short, silent game, and she just played dirty to win it.
Irritation is chased by a dark, electric thrill.
Silly girl. If only she knew I don’t just play games; I create them. I can’t wait until she finally picks up the phone and plays my most exciting game of all. I make a mental note to slip another Sinners Anonymous card into her locker, then turn back to my sister-in-law while a server tops off my glass.
Back to being a gentleman.
“I’m sorry you’re not in Fiji right now, Rory.”
“Eh,” she says with a shrug. “I’d rather stay on the Coast and watch Dante get his head blown off.”
My glass halfway to my lips, I still. Benny flashes me an I-told-you-so look. I know what he’s thinking: the Hollow brothers have a theory that Vicious’s new wife is a secret psychopath. Said theory only strengthened a few nights ago at a private game over in Whiskey Under the Rocks, when Castiel told us that he and his Russian girl went over to dinner at their house just before the wedding. Cas had made a comment about them needing a new chef, because the lasagna was dry, and it turned out Rory had cooked it herself.
She’d smiled sweetly and told him there was no need to apologize, but after dessert, Cas went out to his Lambo to find all but one tired slashed and a little angry face scratched into the rear window. When he mentioned it to Angelo, he brushed it off with a hard flick of his finger and an ice-cold threat. Told Cas his darling wife would never do such a thing, and if he mentioned it again, they were going to have a problem.
Rory’s all right in my books. She brought my brother back to the Coast, hates Dante as much as I do, and if she did slash Cas’s tires, then that’s pretty funny. It’s a well-known fact that, although made men are attracted to trouble, they marry meek. It’s refreshing to sit next to a Cosa Nostra wife who doesn’t stare at the napkin in her lap and speak only when spoken to.
“Did Penny pee in your Cheerios?”
Only when Rory’s question grazes my right ear do I realize I’m staring at Penelope again. Half the room is staring at her, because she’s going at it with a cocktail shaker with such vigor, her tits are threatening to pop out of that low-cut dress.
Heat instantly rushes to my groin, and images of her bouncing up and down on my dick with the same enthusiasm flash in front of my eyes.
Christ. I lean back in my chair, grip the poker chip with one hand, and drag the back of the other over my mouth in an attempt to conceal my annoyance. It irks me more than it should knowing my dick is just one of a dozen in this room growing hard at her little stunt.
I slam the rest of my glass and pin Rory with a tight smile. “Ah, you know my newest recruit.”
“Uh-huh. Penny’s real nice. Used to keep me company during my night shifts at the diner.”
I cock a brow. “Night shifts? Did I hire a vampire?”
Instead of laughing, Rory looks down at the table. She traces a finger over the white grid markers and swallows. “She didn’t sleep much after her parents were killed.”
My eyes narrow. “What?”
“Yeah, we were around fourteen when it happened. I started working at the diner at sixteen, and she was still coming in most nights.” She rubs a hand down her arm, like she’s suddenly cold. “I was the same when my mom passed, but only for a few months. Guess you can’t put a timeline on grief.”
Nico didn’t tell me that.
I chug down this new information with a gulp of whiskey, but the liquor doesn’t make it any easier to swallow. It doesn’t sit right in my chest. People only get killed on this Coast if a Visconti pulls the trigger, and our staff only get killed if they are traitors or thieves.
I’m sure the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.
“Why are you glaring at her, anyway?”
I huff out a breath. “I’m not glaring, Rory. It’s her first shift; I’m simply observing her to make sure she’s not”—my doom card—“bad at her job.”
Rory shrugs, a cheeky grin splitting her face. “She seems to be doing just fine to me.”
I follow her gaze and watch as Penelope pours a slushy yellow liquid into a glass and slides it over to one of my now-former business associates at Miller & Young. She lets out a girlish giggle and slips an umbrella and a curly straw into the drink, and, in return, Clive hands her a fistful of notes and a business card.
My stomach tightens. Christ, I’m in a shitty mood tonight.
“If you’ll excuse me, sis.”
Before Rory can beg for another game of Visconti Blackjack, I’m on my feet and striding toward the French doors. I need a cigarette somewhere dark and cold to collect myself.
Somewhere Penelope’s laugh doesn’t heat my blood.
