Stefano

I take Corey back to the suite, checking my phone for a message from Nico. I haven’t heard from him since he called on the way to see our dad in prison, and I’m a little worried. Before we arrive, I get an urgent communication from Tony in the earpiece I’d shoved into my gym shorts pocket.

“We have a situation.”

“What is it?” I bark, adjusting the device in my ear.

“Knife wound to one of the guards. A guy stole some lady’s purse and he caught him.”

“Fanculo. Did you call 911?”

Corey shoots me a worried look as the elevator doors open. I grab her elbow and usher her to my suite.

“Emergency vehicle’s on the way.”

“Who’s the guard?” I key the door open. An entire rack of clothing for Corey has been delivered while we were gone, but she doesn’t move to look at it, she’s watching me, listening.

“Joey Spitazzi.”

“Merda. You call his wife?”

“I’m about to. I’ll get her number from HR. What do you want me to do with the bastard who did it?”

“You have him in hand?”

“Oh yeah.” There’s menace in Tony’s voice. He’s not a mean guy—doesn’t get off on inflicting pain—but he’s loyal as hell. And Joey’s part of the Family, albeit far removed. He’s a grunt, a young soldier. Someone’s cousin or other relation who wanted a job from us. Still, he’s one of our own. And we protect our own with our lives.

“No, you gotta turn him over to the cops. If an ambulance is coming, authorities will be involved. We can always handle things our own way if we’re not happy with how they come out.”

“True that. Okay, boss. You want me at the hospital after I talk to the cops?”

“You hold your position here. I’ll go to the hospital. Thanks, Tony.” I end the call and head into the bedroom to take a quick shower and change back into a suit.

Corey follows me in, standing in the bathroom door as I shuck my clothes, like we’re a married couple. “Someone’s hurt?”

“Yeah.” I climb in the shower and rub a bar of soap quickly over my body. “One of the guards got knifed by a purse-snatcher. I’m going to the hospital.”

To my surprise, Corey steps in. As much as I’d love to drill her against the tile, I don’t have time for this shit. But she doesn’t look like she’s trying to seduce me. “Want me to come along?”

I blink at her, water running down my face. Huh. “Yeah. Okay.” Why the fuck not? She might actually make things easier with dealing with the guy’s wife. Especially if Joey dies.

Then again, this could be her ploy to escape, and I definitely don’t have the bandwidth to keep a leash on her while I’m trying to deal with shit.

She holds her hand out for the bar of soap and I give it to her and step out, my mind already at the hospital, hoping to hell we don’t lose a soldier.

Fifteen minutes later, we head down to the parking lot. Corey’s wearing an ivory blouse and a pair of black jean capris with her high heels. She looks like a model showing the summer daywear line. I lead her to Nico’s black Mercedes and call Tony to find out which hospital Joey was brought to. Twenty minutes later, we enter the waiting area.

A young woman with two preschool-aged children stands up when we get there. Her face is tear-stained and pale, dark hair pulled up in a messy bun on her head. “Nico?” she asks tentatively.

“Stefano Tacone,” I say. “Nico’s brother.”

“I’m Trisha. Joey’s wife.”

I pull her into an embrace because, well, that’s how it’s done in my family. A guy takes a knife for you, you’re gonna hug his wife, even if you’ve never met her. “What’s the word on Joey?” I ask when we come apart.

Tears pop in her eyes. “He’s in surgery. I don’t know. They said even when he comes out, I can’t bring the kids back there.” Her two little girls hide behind her legs and peek out at us.

“Well, they can stay out here with me,” Corey offers. “Or do you have someone who can watch them? I could drop them somewhere.”

Relief flickers on Trisha’s face. “Yeah, my girlfriend can come when she gets off work, but if I can go see him before then, I need to.”

“Of course. I will hang with the kiddos.” Corey smiles at the little girls, who stare up at her like she’s a princess. And who could blame them? With the heels, Corey stands almost five feet ten inches, and her flame-colored hair cascades in waves down her back like she’s royalty. I have to push away the fantasy of wrapping it around my cock and jerking off to it.

“Mommy, I’m hungry,” one of the girls says, eyeing Corey, like she’s testing to see how sincere she is.

“Let’s go find you a snack.” Corey holds out her hand.

The little girl shyly takes it.

“Except I’ll need Uncle Stefano’s wallet because I don’t have my purse.” She slides me an almost teasing look.

I step to her side and touch her back. It’s not that I don’t trust she’ll come back. I can’t see her kidnapping or abandoning a kid. It’s that I’m too fascinated by her to want to let her out of my sight. “I’ll come along. Where are you headed; the Starbucks down the hall?”

“Yes.” She leans down to the look at the little girl. “Think we can find you something there?”

The girl nods gravely. It’s a bizarre feeling walking with Corey and a small child through the halls of a hospital. Both new and unique and yet strangely familiar all at once. It would be true of any experience under the sun—with Corey.

She’s that different. That right. I never in a million years would’ve guessed she’d be good with kids. She’s not the warm and fuzzy first grade teacher type, yet here she is with a small child wrapped around her finger.

We stand in line at the hospital Starbucks and Corey orders a latte for herself and Trisha and Ninja talks the little girl out of a donut and into a yogurt with fruit. I order a double espresso and drink it before we leave the counter.

“Anything you’re not good at, Corey Simonson?” I toss the drained cup in the wastebasket.

Surprise lights up her face. “What are you talking about?”

I lift my chin at the little girl, who is chattering away as she walks beside us, carrying the yogurt and two spoons so she can share with her sister.

Pink stains her cheeks. “I’m not good with kids.” She shrugs. “I just figure someone needs to step up right now.”

“I read your file. Bachelor in psychology, graduated summa cum laude. Why are you working as a croupier in Vegas?”

She slows her steps, a frown appearing between her brows. “First of all, what file did you read?”

“The one my brother put together when he started dating Sondra. I guess he already knew your dad’s a fed.”

Her expression clouds even more. “‘Kay. I’m a little freaked out now. But maybe no more than I was falling asleep last night with my wrists zip-tied to the bed.”

Damn. My concern she’ll never forgive me for that seems valid.

She shakes her lovely hair. “Don’t respond to that.” We arrive back in the waiting area and she hands Trisha the coffee as the girls hunker down together to fight over who gets to hold the yogurt while they share.

Corey takes a seat and I sit beside her, still waiting for an answer. After a moment, she says, “I know it seems like I gave up on my career—my life. My parents definitely think so. I came here for grad school and ended up getting a job at the Bellissimo for shits and giggles. I dropped out three months later.”

I knew this much from her file, but I love hearing it from her. I stay quiet, hoping she’ll go on.

“The Bellissimo satisfies an itch in me. I always hated the mundane. I get bored quickly, you know?”

I nod, because it makes sense. She’s a smart woman—ordinary wouldn’t cut it.

“I mean, I grew up in Marshall, Michigan, for God’s sake. It’s the join the soccer team and mow your grass on Saturdays kind of place. Only I always knew I didn’t fit in. I had a dad who worked for the FBI for one thing. And for another, he was a functioning alcoholic and an asshole. Tragically, I probably get my impatience with the rest of the population from him. He was always tearing everyone down. He saw through every lie, destroyed every dream.”

She laughs, but it’s bitter and I already want to kill her dad. It wouldn’t be hard to do.

“Sondra and her family lived across the street—the model of what a family should look like. Cheesy, supportive parents, report cards pinned on the fridge.” She stares down at her fingernails, the low-key French manicure making her fingers look even longer. “Sondra’s parents used to come to her soccer games with their faces painted in the team colors. They carried banners and signs cheering her on.

“I always prayed my dad wouldn’t come because he would stand on the sidelines and chew me out for every wrong move. He chewed the coach out, the other team’s coach. The other kids. It was a freaking nightmare.”

“Father of the year,” I mutter.

“Yeah.” She jerks her head up suddenly to look at my eyes. “Why am I even telling you all this?”

“You were explaining how you came to be a croupier.”

“Right.” She sighs and stares across the waiting area at the exit. “Why I hate normal. So yeah, I have a degree in psych because I’m interested in people. What makes them tick. But school was too ordinary, too boring. Too structured and delineated and confining. So I figured why learn from a textbook when I can study the Bellissimo clientele to my heart’s delight? And the money’s good.”

Something inside my chest rearranges. I can’t quite name the clawing need rising up. A desire to fix her pain? Protect her from more of it? Free her from all the bullshit of life? As if that could be done. No, life’s a shithole for most everybody. A few people rise above because they have that raw potency the rest of the population foregoes. I think that may actually be what Corey’s talking about with her rejection of normal. She’s not going to lie down and take it. She’s fighting back, even if being a croupier seems like she laid down to take it to the rest of the world.

“You ever think about going back?”

“To school?” She raises her eyebrows. “Nah. I often think I should. I won’t have any career to fall back on when my boss fires me for calling him an asshole one too many times.” She darts a glance under her lashes at me that makes my dick twitch in my pants. I might have been wrong about her not being submissive under all the bluster. “Or if I break my ankle and can’t stand behind the table for hours on end. Or when I get bored with categorizing gamblers. But I really can’t get myself excited about it. Up until I dropped out of grad school I was still trying to prove my worth to my dad, who never saw it. And now that I finally realized my idiocy, I just can’t make myself do things that conventional wisdom says I should do.” She shrugs. “I don’t want to be ordinary.”

Corey

Oh shit. What in the hell made me overshare like this?

Stefano stares at me, his dark, curling lashes thick and beautiful against the backdrop of such a masculine face. I can’t read him, but his attention makes me shift in my seat, change the crossing of my legs.

A nurse comes out and calls for Trisha. We all stand up and watch as Trisha rushes over. When she returns, she says, “They said he came out of surgery and is stable. He probably won’t wake up tonight, so she said I should go home to rest and come back tomorrow.” Her lip trembles.

Stefano reaches in his pocket and produces a business card. “My cell number’s on there. Keep me posted, all right?”

She bobs her head, eyes filling with tears. “Yeah, okay. I will. Thanks so much.”

He touches her shoulder. “The Bellissimo will take care of all the medical expenses and missed pay. All Joey needs to worry about is recovering.”

Trisha surges forward and gives him a tight hug around his waist.

Stefano one-arm hugs her back. As we walk away, he interlaces his fingers with mine. My breath stalls a moment. After all the things he’s done to me—we’ve done together—it’s odd that holding my hand is the gesture that feels most intimate, but it does.

It’s tender. Sweet.

Things I don’t associate with Stefano Tacone, royalty to the Vegas underworld.

I can’t even imagine why he’d do it, and yet it also feels perfect. Exhilarating, even.

On the ride back, he calls into the casino for a report and lets them know the status of Joey.

I arrive back at the Bellissimo a changed woman. It’s like I’m seeing things for the first time as I glide in with Stefano’s hand on my lower back. Seeing them from his perspective, realizing how much he has to worry about with Nico gone.

And yet he doesn’t ditch me straightaway, as I expected. I wasn’t even going to complain. No, he asks me which restaurant in the casino is my favorite.

“Caffe Milano,” I tell him, indicating the eatery modeled after a Italian sidewalk cafe. It has cute little tables nestled together and sprawling outside the restaurant in a lush patio. “They have the best Caprese salad.”

His lips twitch and he leads me there, requesting the table out on the “sidewalk”—which really just means outside the pseudo-enclosure, with a view of the casino hustle and bustle.

“Is this so you can keep an eye on things?” I ask as he holds my chair for me.

“Yes. You keep an eye out, too.”

I love that he recruits me like this, the way he did last night on the floor before the ill-fated game. He thinks I might have something to contribute to his efforts. It makes me want to please him, which is probably dangerous territory. I don’t need to be working hard to impress a guy. I did that way too long with my dad. But maybe I purposely chose a loser like Dean because I didn’t want to have to impress a guy.

“Tell me about the categories you put gamblers in.” Stefano shifts his gaze from the passersby to me.

I curse the flush that hits my cheeks. Why did I ever tell him so much?

“Come on, don’t be shy.” He pours more wine in my glass. “I want to hear what you’ve learned. It could be useful for me working security.”

I tilt my head to the side. “Yeah, it probably could. It’s how I knew something was off with you that first night.”

His sensual lips spread into a slow grin. He leans forward, eyes glittering with intensity. “Tell me.”

I’d like to say I’m immune to having my every word hung onto by a sexy, powerful man, but it does something crazy to my insides. My nipples harden, but it’s beyond sexual. It’s more like energy swirling around me, whispering dangerous things in my ear. Things I want to believe.

I take a sip of wine. His attention remains riveted on me. “There’s three kinds of big gamblers,” I tell him. “The cerebral, the wild and crazy and the energetic, for lack of a better term.” I go on to explain each one and he hangs onto my every word.

“And so if someone’s spending big and he or she isn’t one of these three, you know something’s off.”

I nod. “Right. And I should’ve known last night because Donahue didn’t fit, either. I had a lot of signs things were off with him, but I didn’t put it together fast enough.”

Stefano covers my hand with his. “I’m sorry you had to see that. I really am.”

I don’t want to contemplate what it means that he didn’t say he was sorry it happened, or sorry a guy’s dead or any of that. I mean, I would’ve done the same thing in his shoes. The guy was going to kill him. But he’s taken it all pretty coolly.

His comms unit buzzes and he listens and speaks into it. Then he looks at our empty plates. “I need to get out on the floor. You want to come with me? Be my shadow for the night?”

It’s a Stockholm Syndrome sign that I get excited by his offer, as if he’s taking me out on the town for a fancy date, rather than letting me out of his room. Still, I nod eagerly, because it’s what I want.

“Let me see you in one of those dresses they brought up to my room, then.” He stands up and leads me to the elevator.

I ignore the fact that there’s a little thrill at the idea of dressing for him, providing the visual stimulation he was looking for when he asked me to work the private games.

“So are you going to let me back on the floor, or am I still your private game dealer?” I ask in the elevator. What I’m really asking is—will my imprisonment ever end? Will I still have a job? When can we get back on familiar ground so I can recover from this insane ride?

He considers me. “I’m not sure, amore. What’s your preference?”

“Back on the floor,” I say without hesitation.

He nods. “Where you can observe the masses?”

“Exactly.”

He shrugs his shoulders. “I think you’re meant for more, bella. Your skill set goes way beyond flipping cards and counting chips, although you’re damn good at it.”

And just like that he upsets my cart—the stroke of my ego making me almost miss the fact that he’s refusing my choice again.

His cell phone rings and something akin to relief flickers over his face. “Nico,” he answers, “What the fuck?”

I hear Nico say something about his phone being dead.

“How’d it go?” Stefano asks in a low, serious tone.

We’re in the suite now, but I don’t move, wanting to hear. Stefano slaps my ass and lifts a chin at the rack of clothing. I scowl at him, but move away. For all I know, they’re discussing something illegal. Lord knows I don’t need to be implicated in any more crimes.

The clothes Stefano had sent up must cost a fortune. They’re from one of the casino’s luxury shops—a place for high-rollers to spend their winnings. It’s all high-fashion couture, brand names and they make me look like a million bucks. Too bad I don’t get to keep them.

As I change into one of the red dresses—a close-fitting dress with a strip of fabric around the neck, but a cutout across my chest to show off my cleavage—I hear Stefano curse in Italian. “And Sondra? She okay?”

I stand in the doorway to listen and Stefano doesn’t shoo me away.

“Thank fuck,” he says, which I take to mean that Sondra’s okay. Does Stefano’s relief indicate she almost wasn’t? He listens for another minute, then says, “All right, I’ll see you tomorrow. Looking forward to meeting my future sister-in-law.” He winks at me, but the line between his brows make his expression appear serious. He ends the call and walks over to me, touching my waist. “It fits. Christ, you’re beautiful.” He brushes my hair back from my shoulder and bites my neck.

“Yeah, this one will do as my replacement dress.”

“Keep all of them.” He waves his hand dismissively. I’m not sure if he realizes that rack probably encompasses over 10K in clothing. “Nobody should wear a red dress but you. You’re a fucking knock-out in red.”

I snort. “Don’t you know redheads aren’t supposed to wear red?” I’m already calculating how much I can make selling them on Ebay.

“Oh, I know. But you’re no ordinary redhead.” He emphasizes the word ordinary like he really heard me earlier, really gets what I meant. And I realize I’ll never sell a single one.

“What happened with Nico and Sondra?” I demand.

Stefano shakes his head. “Just some shit Nico had to work out.”

“About getting out of his marriage contract?”

Stefano arches a brow. “You know about that?”

I put my hands on my hips. “I told you I’m practically family.”

He grins. “So you are.” He rubs his shadowed jaw. “Nico fixed it. Our brother made him sweat it, though. They scared the hell out of your cousin, but she’s fine. I would apologize, but if I took responsibility for the nasty things my family does, I’d never stop.”

My heart squeezes a little for Stefano. Like me, he can’t help who his father is. He hasn’t escaped the legacy of violence.

His comms unit buzzes again. “Let’s move, bella. We’ve got shit to do.”