Two Hitmen: A Double Bad Boy Mafia Romance (Lawless Book 1) (95 page)

“You haven’t been over to Mikey’s have you, or out to see Fat Tony?”

“Well, I may have popped by.”

“Daddy! I’m working to get us out of this mess, and you’re going to bury us in it again.”

He was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, “I’ve been winning, Princess. There. That’s not so bad.”

“Daddy, you always win. But you always lose, too. Have you been winning more than you’re losing, Daddy? That’s the thing.”

“Princess, you don’t have to worry.” Oh, boy. When her father said that, it brought up some terrible memories. That was the worst of the worst. And he didn’t say anything about the club at all. Princess couldn’t remember having a conversation with him ever, not in her whole life, where there wasn’t something said about Hotsteppa’s.

Princess hung up then sat and watched the New York traffic glow brighter as the light slipped from deep blue into the streaks of sunset. She had to come to terms with the fact that her father wasn’t going to be much help to her getting the club back.

In fact, if she was going to get the club back, he probably wouldn’t be much help running it afterwards. They couldn’t let it be so vulnerable again, such easy pickings. The business side of it wasn’t fantastic but it was profitable.
 

It was Daddy’s carelessness that brought Hotsteppa’s to the situation it was in, and she’d have to keep him from doing it again. Princess would have to take it over.
Out with the old
, she thought,
in with the new
.

With a shock, she wondered if she had started thinking like a gangster.
No
, she told herself,
this really is just business. Daddy and I need the club, and the club needs to be protected.
That sounded like something a gangster might say, too.

Pierce Agostini was not going to get to her. She wouldn’t allow it. However hot the moment in the kitchen had made her, however strong her recollection of his scent. However much she felt the memory of his heat on the front of her body. She bit her lip.

All that she was doing was thinking about what she would need to do to protect the business from a man like Agostini. Anyway, all that was fantasy; it was just a dream until she was able to get the club back from him.

Would he keep to his word? If she helped him with his launch of the financial instrument, whatever that was supposed to mean, would he keep his end of the bargain and turn the club back over to her?

Princess thought that he would. She thought he could be warming to her, too. Whatever he’d said about it, the way he’d dealt with the Mr. Horner, offering to cover his grandson’s college debts, saying he’d lease the land back to him, she felt there had been a strong sense of justice, of fair dealing at work there.

There was a danger of her warming to him, too, and she knew it.
And he’s hot as a poker
. She had to keep her mind off that track. How was she going to find out about last night other than by asking him directly?

She heard sounds in the main room. Calhoun, Callaghan and Dino had returned. Sparkling laughs and squeals told Princess they had found some excitable female company to bring along.

She heard a tap at the door and Calhoun’s voice. “We’ve some food, Miss, if you’d like something.”

About a half a dozen girls spilled out of the elevator. Behind them, Dino, Callaghan and Calhoun grinned like schoolboys. Dino introduced Julz, Toni, Shawna, Kat, Mona, Alicia, Dawn and Roxy, saying, “This is Pierce. He’s the billionaire gangster whose apartment this is.”

Pierce grabbed him by the elbow and wheeled him unceremoniously over to the kitchen counter. “Don’t do that bullshit, Dino. You know I hate it.”

Dino looked at him shamefaced. “Sorry, Pierce. I was only trying to have us a little fun.”

“Sure, Dino, I know. But no slack talk like that, all right?”

“Sure,” Dino said. “You’re the boss, Pierce.” Pierce squeezed his elbow until he saw a reaction on Dino’s face.

“Don’t forget it.”

He looked around and saw Princess following Calhoun up for the promise of food. When she saw the girls, all shiny, shimmery and sexy, she scowled. Agostini disengaged himself from Dino and introduced Princess to the girls, seeing if he could remember all of their names.

Callaghan and Calhoun set out the Thai food on the kitchen counter with plates, cutlery and chopsticks. Dino went to gather the girls. He encircled them like a big, cuddly sheepdog. His mood recovered as he chatted, purred and cooed with them. He moved over to the stereo to put on some music.

Pierce beckoned the tall, dark eyed girl with pink lipstick. “Princess, this is Shawna.” He waved to Kat, the bouncy blonde, and introduced her, then slinky, sly-looking Julz, and Toni, the relaxed and gorgeous tomboy.

As the music started up, it sounded like something that would drift out of a restaurant in Little Italy. Toni made a face and said, “Excuse me,” and she worked her phone as she went over to Dino by the stereo.

After a moment, some bright Cuban music started up and Toni turned back with a bright smile. She put a hand on her belly and her hips rolled.
 

Agostini smiled. He said, “Over there is Mona.” The slim redhead waved back and smiled as she danced a playful figure eight around Calhoun and Callaghan.

Pierce called to Dawn, Roxy and Alicia, who were wide-eyed, pointing and gasping as they took their drinks out to the loggia. Then he perched on a stool to eat near Princess.

She took some food onto a plate then sat. She ate with a fork. Agostini liked to use the wooden chopsticks.

As she ate, Princess fixed him with her eye. “About last night.”

He picked up a butterfly prawn and some noodles with his chopsticks. “What about it?” The new Thai place Calhoun had found was good. Delicate flavors, not just spicy.

“Last night in the hotel?” she said it with a lift at the end, like there was some significance.

He said, “Yes, what about it?”

She put down her fork. “‘What about it?’ Things like that happen all the time, do they?”

“What?”

“No, you’re right, of course. It really wouldn’t mean anything at all to you. I was stupid to think otherwise.” She picked up her plate and headed back to the dungeon.

What the hell had she been talking about?

She put the plate of food down on the table in her lounge. Now she wished she’d picked up a drink, but she wasn’t about to go back out there. The glass in the bathroom with some water would do.

Damnit, her appetite was gone. Something
must
have happened last night. And from the way that he acted, it meant nothing at all to him. Nothing.

The bastard.
 

The room was dark but she didn’t put on the light. After he had his fill of rice, noodles and seafood, he would be feasting on one or more of the girls that Dino had obviously brought back for him. Brought him for desert, no doubt.

That, she assumed, was what he would do on any night of the week. Send his henchmen out to trawl for girls and then have them. Two or three at a time, most likely.

She lay on the bed, facing the thin muslin that draped over the window from the ceiling to the floor. Unhappily, she pulled the thick, soft covers around her and stared unseeing through her window at the twinkling lights of Manhattan.

She watched and wondered about all the people in their cars, driving through their ordinary lives. Ordinary lives like the one she never wanted. Had she been wrong, had she chosen badly?

The light grew more faint.
She half-remembered him in the bar, saying, “This is the part where I say, ‘Why don’t we take a bottle upstairs.’ And you say, ‘Your room or mine?’” Had he said that, or did she dream it?

She knew that she dreamed him kissing her, long, deep and wet, throwing her onto a bed, grabbing her hair and tearing her clothes. She knew that was a dream because her dress was still intact.

He couldn’t have ripped the front of it open, staring into her wild eyes as he did. It was not possible that he tore her panties with his teeth. Nor sucked her, driven his tongue into her like a deep, soulful kiss, massaged her there with his lips.

It was a dream or—or what?—her vivid picture of his body enfolding her and taking her, his hands freely taking pleasure in all of her dark places.

The image of his eyes glowing, the sensation of his breath burning her skin, the memory of her gasps of astonishment as he lifted her, spun her. Filled her and drilled her. She must have conjured all of that for herself out of somewhere.

And still, the recollection was as clear as any real event. And her regretful yearning, was it over the fantasy, the dream that she knew she shouldn’t have had, or was it for the fact that she had awoken from it? Awoken to find it gone. Melted away like a Hudson morning mist.
 

She dreamed of a dark figure and she knew it was him. Threw her up against a cold, brick wall. Turned her to face the wall and dragged her legs apart. She shivered, remembering the cool air and the relief as he tore her soft undies.

Then she felt the hot, hard rod.

Her hands were in her panties. Her hips bucked as she encountered the tang of her own scent. She should be thinking about what to do next, and she knew she shouldn’t be thinking about him like this at all.

There seemed only one way to get him out of her pants. For now, at least. Her wet, flying finger had to flick him, beat him, rub him away. Harder. Harder.

She was in darkness. Standing at the end of a long corridor.
 
There was nothing she could do. A low voice behind her said, “Are you sure this is what you want?”

“Yes.” She shivered as she spoke. “I’m sure.”

Then the voice said, “There’s no going back.”

Unable to make a sound, Princess’ head shook.

The voice commanded her. “Kneel.”

She sat up in the bed, startled and panicky.

“The refit isn’t quite complete yet,” he told her as he held open the door. “And there are still some touches of decor and lighting to be done, but I want you to see how it’s coming along.” She chewed her cheek like she was about to be shown around her new jail.

The club was transformed exactly the way Agostini had wanted. Touches like candelabras and drapes he remembered from a suite in Vegas combined with lighting that he’d seen in a hotel bar in Miami, all came together and made an atmosphere of sophistication and exclusivity.

He kept the style of the regular members’ area but the dark woods were more polished. Steel and chrome were replaced with a more discrete, understated sheen of brass. A notch up in the classiness stakes, he thought.

The most important change was the VIP area he created, taking almost half of the old club room, plus some kitchen space and all of the unused storage areas.

Princess wore a black brocade vest over a beautiful white silk shirt and soft, black pants. Her hair was up. He hadn’t seen her wear it like that before and it showed what a lovely neck she had, and her fine profile.

He led her into the showroom and she looked around at the transformation. The dark, sunken dance floor and stage areas had completely new surfaces, buffed and glossed to a deep shine. Behind the bar, counters were polished brass and bottles shimmered backlit in front of mirrors. The bar-top was polished black marble.

The space had a more accessible feel. Still upmarket, but more open and lively. It took a little while before Princess noticed the reduction in size. “Where’s the rest of the club gone? What’s going on?”

“Come with me.” Pierce held out a hand. He was looking forward to showing her around, giving her the private view, the guided tour. “I’ll show you where the rest of it is.”

He took her along the discreet passageway to the wide, black lacquered double-doors, framed with carved silver. Thick, red velvet ropes hung across the doorway.

“Welcome to the VIP area.”

“But it must be most of the club.”

“That’s right, it is.”

“I love the idea of a VIP zone, but if most of the place is VIP, then surely it loses its value.”

“Come and see.”

Pierce moved the rope aside and opened the doors to admit her into the select sanctuary, the semi-connected, discrete, intimate spaces. Leather couches and chairs surrounded low, wide marble tables.

Larger spaces had room to seat a dozen or more, while others were hideaways for three or four people. The whole of the space had sumptuous, concealed lighting that subtly shifted color and tone.

Walking her around, he said, “We can run the lights from a program, or key them with multimedia and sound-to-light from the sound system.”

The club’s old-school cigar room vibe had been teleported into the twenty-first century, reinvented as a playground for adults of privilege. The space was transformed into an understated, masculine, twilight playground. A place where secret societies might meet. A sanctum for serious assignations.

“There’s one extra feature, just for the tonight’s event.” He opened a door to the wood paneled games room. A roulette table dominated at the center with a large card table and seating for a dozen, and smaller, round tables at each end.
 

“Roulette, draw poker, and blackjack.”

Princess’ eyes were wide and her voice was low. “You can’t get a license for those in New York.”
 

“Oh,” he waved a hand, “I invited a few judges, the deputy police commissioner, and the deputy mayor. And it’s exclusively a private event. I think we’ll be safe enough.”

He knew that her experience in the club business was more than enough to know that it was against every rule in the book. Her eyes gleamed.
 

“How do you think your financial types are going to feel about you flouting the law like that?”

“Are you kidding? They’ll love it. They’ll be all over it like dogs humping a velvet couch.”

Twenty chairs at the far end curved around a dais with lectern and a microphone. “That’s for the presentation,” he added.

She looked up at him. “Is it an auction?” He had liked the auctioneer’s place of authority and imitated it. He’d even found a big, heavy black ledger to turn as he gave the address. He liked that Princess recognized where he got the idea for the setup.