Luck of the Dragon (Entangled Covet) (7 page)

Deadly all the same.

She had to get out of there.

“You two coming?” Gino called from the dark restaurant doorway.

“In a minute,” Joey said and looked at her for confirmation. Lucy struggled to breathe, but the pained look on Joey’s face had her nodding
yes
, even as her head screamed
no
. Joey hurried to the restaurant and clapped Gino on the shoulder as he entered.

“Lucy,” Gino yelled from the door. “I’ve got your brother in here. You’ll want to come on now.” Gino’s words were courtliness held up by threat.

Lucy considered running straight out the handprint-smudged entry doors, into the dark concealing night, away from Gino…take a taxi to McCarran and get on a plane… She had contacts all over the world…curator job offers galore…she could start over on her own. Sell everything in Vegas through an agent.

But what about Joey?

Would Joey be all right without her? Her heart stuttered with fear.

Except for the few years she had been in Europe completing her Ph.D, they had always been together. Even when she had been abroad, they had talked by email or phone every day. They had promised to always be there for each other, although that was mostly before his gambling had become such a problem.

Gino started toward her, his steps heavy even on the concrete floor. “I’m starting to feel stood up here.” His words were joking, but his smile, and eyes, were flat.

She couldn’t leave Joey alone in this mess. Gino would eat him for breakfast, and Joey would never forgive her if she ran out on him. She would just have to convince Gino that using her and Joey was a bad idea. They were inexperienced, with bad family luck.

Nobody in Vegas would risk bad juju when they were planning a score.

“Coming.” Lucy walked forward, curiously calm. Her relaxed manner was more disquieting than her earlier panic. Was she crazy? They said it ran in families. She remembered reading that the early twenties were especially vulnerable times.

She was overdue.

Their mother had gone off the deep end when their Dad went to prison. She would pull all her clothes out of drawers and stuff them in a suitcase, then run outside barefoot, only to circle back looking lost and confused. It had taken Lucy several frightening episodes of watching her leave, lugging a bag bigger than herself, before she could believe that their Mom was coming back and not abandoning them. Lucy would help her refold her clothes and put them away in the drawers, every damn time, over and over.

Gino waited for her to reach him and ushered her inside the restaurant. The darkness of the room was momentarily blinding. When her eyes adjusted, she saw the thick-armed guy from earlier and two other muscle-types leaning against the wall. Four against two, counting Gino. Those were bad odds even in Joey’s head. The air seemed to leave the room, but she did not flinch or step back. She’d survived bullies before and knew better than to cower.

Lucy sat beside Joey and Gino at a square four-top table and rested her napkin on her lap. A candle flickered inside a red glass globe on the table, making Gino look even more snakelike, coiled and ready to strike.

“Get us three porterhouses and milks,” Gino told a plump waitress whose cleavage hung out of her black uniform.

“I’ll take a Jack and Coke,” Joey called after her, but the woman did not stop.

“I call the shots here,” Gino said. “And I say you’ll have what I’m having.”

“But I don’t like milk.” Joey sounded like a whiny kid.

Gino picked up a steak knife and stabbed the table between Joey’s fingers. “You’ll have what I say you’ll have.”

Lucy pushed back from the table in surprise, almost flipping her chair. One of the burly dudes cleared his throat behind her and scooted her back to the table. Too close.

She couldn’t breathe.

“What was that for?” Joey held his hands together at his chest, looking offended.

“You eat what I offer you or next time, I take off a finger.”

“I told you, I’m in.”

The enforcer turned toward Lucy. “I hear your brother here making noises, but I hear nothing from you. I think you still need some convincing.”

She was trapped against the table, trapped in this deal with Gino. Cold sweat broke out on her brow, and she saw her reflection in the metal napkin holder, pale, drawn, shaky. Her confidence drained away with the blood in her face.

“Joey and I are amateurs. You don’t want us in on this.” Her voice sounded weak to her ears.

“Lucy!” Joey kicked her under the table.

Lucy winced and moved her legs away from him. “We’ll only mess things up.” She tried to give Gino her most beseeching look.

The waitress returned with three full glasses of milk and set them on the table.

“True.” Gino took a gulp of his milk. In the red candlelight, his teeth looked fluorescent white. “But nobody gets alone with Alec Gerald, his men are always hovering around, and in you waltz,
testa rossa bellissima
…I say you’re gonna get this done for me.”

“No,” Lucy whispered.

Gino pounded the table, making the candle flame flicker. “All those jewels—they belong to me! That whole casino belongs to me! I’m taking it, and you’re gonna help me.”

Lucy shook her head, staring at the rough weave of the tablecloth for courage.

“Tell you what.” Gino leaned back, and she thought maybe he was considering her argument. “You do this, or I kill Joey here.” Gino clapped Joey on the shoulder, all friendly-like.

Lucy’s heart jumped in her chest.

Joey frowned. “That’s not necessary, Gino, just give her some time to get used to the plan. She’ll come around.”

“Your daddy would be ashamed of you, girl.” Gino squeezed Joey’s shoulder.

Joey’s frown deepened, and he fought a wince. Gino cranked his palm into Joey’s arm joint until he cried out in pain and fell off the chair. The waitress returned with three plates loaded with steak and baked potatoes with all the fixin’s. The room was quiet while the waitress put the plates on the table, except for Joey’s whimpering from the floor.

“Get off the floor, you
mamaluke
.” Gino cut a generous hunk of raw steak away from the bone and chewed it slowly. Blood oozed onto the plate, making a splotchy canvas of pink grease. “Eat, before it gets cold.”

Joey regained his seat, kept his gaze down, and dove into his plate like he had never had a meal before.

Lucy’s throat tightened and she swallowed hard. How was this going to end? Would Gino let them leave? Would he really kill Joey? She pushed food around her plate while the two men ate and talked shop as if it were Friday night dinner at Mazzio’s.

“Eddie Falcone has a pawn shop that needs protection… A couple of slot machines need a regular pick-up guy. Someone in the linen business might need some talking to…” The words floated over Lucy’s head like so much bad air. She had to get out of there. Get back to her house. Behind her gate. Lock the doors and pack.

Gino swallowed his last bite and used his napkin to wipe his face. “Okay. It’s done then. You’ll get the print. There’ll be a drop in the casino bathroom, same as before.”

Lucy shook her head, exasperated and terrified.

In a flash, Gino embedded the steak knife in the back of Joey’s hand. Joey’s screams filled her ears.

“Stop!” Lucy tried to get up but the burly thug held her chair snug to the table.

Gino smiled, and Lucy knew his snake’s fangs had just sunk deep into her jugular. “Stop being a
finocchio
, Joe…or I’ll give you something to really cry about.” The three muscle-guys laughed heartily at the scene.

Joey’s muffled cries turned into bottled-up moans that pulled at her heart with tortuous fingers. She all but felt the knife piercing her own hand.

“Let him go.” She was surprised by how steady her voice sounded.

“It’s up to you,
testa rossa
.” Gino twisted the knife a quarter turn. Joey cried out before squeezing his hand over his mouth and closing his eyes. “All I need to hear are the words, ‘Yes Mr. Narcisco, I’ll get you that print.’”

“This is never going to end, is it?” Even as she asked the question, she knew it was true. “I do this for you, and next month you have another job. Right?”

Gino pulled the steak knife out of Joey and wiped the blood on a white cloth napkin. “If it’s money you’re after, we could come to an arrangement.”

Joey wrapped his bleeding hand in his own napkin, his eyes wide and shell-shocked. “Luce, quit playing around,” he whispered. “Do what he wants.”

Lucy’s gaze ping-ponged between Gino-the-snake and Joey-the-bait. There was no way out of this. She and Joey would definitely have to leave Vegas for good when this was done. She had not really accepted it as truth until now. She had built something here, a reputation, a home, a life. Sadness swamped her along with crushing hopelessness.

“Okay.” She placed her hands flat on the table, leaving a sweat mark. “I’ll do it. But I want your word that Joey is in the clear, and I’m not doing any more
favors
for you.”

Gino smiled and reached his blood-smeared hand across the table. He picked up her hand and kissed it. “Sounds good to me,
testa rossa
.”

He was lying. She knew it. He knew it. But there was nothing she could do about it. Gino saw her weak underbelly now in Joey, and she was at his mercy. Her stomach twisted in knots.
Don’t think about it now.
She would find a way out of this mess.

First, they had to get out of the bingo hall alive and with all their fingers.

Lucy stood, trying to appear agreeable instead of defiant. She inched her chair back. This time, the burly dude let it slide. She nodded once at Joey. “Let’s go.”

Joey stood, cradling his bleeding hand to his chest.

Gino stayed seated. “Bruno here will escort you home, go over the details with you, and take you to the casino tomorrow. Make sure you don’t get confused or nothing.”

Lucy moved toward the door with deliberate strides. “Just keep walking,” she whispered to Joey.

“Oh, Luciana,” Gino called as they cleared the threshold. “I want your green sapphires. You give Bruno your earrings, as a token of your appreciation for me bringing you two amateurs in on my score.”

Chapter Six

It was 7:50, Thursday morning. Alec watched the lobby surveillance camera from his room for Lucy’s arrival. Frustration still pounded through his chest at his thwarted attempt to get rid of his old enemy. Their dragon hunter had tracked Ambrogino to a seedy motel on the north side of the Strip, but by the time Alec got back to the casino, he was gone.

Ambrogino was feeling bold to have come to Vegas, to Alec’s turf. He usually hid himself away and operated through surrogates. He would have to be dealt with, and his return now, before the ceremony complicated things. There were those among the dragons who still believed Ambrogino’s claim to the throne.

Alec rolled his shoulders to relieve the tension and focused on what he knew about Lucy. Her brother’s gambling debts had to be the source of her erratic behavior. Alec knew Joey’s kind, adrenaline junkies who thought every roll, every card, every horse held the answer to their problems.

It was sad, really. They rarely won, and when they did win, the money was spent as soon as the chips were cashed. They fueled his casino, and for that he liked their undaunted optimism, but not if it upset Lucy, not if it endangered her and forced her into stealing.

He had to get Lucy away from Joey without scaring her. He needed time to sway Lucy to him, seduce her until she understood what a future as his mate could be. Unfortunately, with his dragon form fading and the ceremony a few short days away, he did not have a lot of time.

Lucy stepped into the gilded entry at precisely 8 a.m. She carried a briefcase, wore a buttoned-up dark suit and low heels, her hair was tucked up, and she had on dark-framed librarian glasses. Alec smiled at the monitor, intrigued by the abrupt change in appearance. Was this the real Lucy, or the vamp from the night before?

He pushed the com button on his phone. “Jane, please show Dr. De Luca to my suite.”

“Your
personal
suite, Jer’ol?” Jane couldn’t keep her astonishment from her voice.

“Yes.” The word was final.

Jane’s question was well deserved. His suite was on the top of the casino, 130 stories up, in the dragons’ private quarters. No human had ever been brought into their inner domain.

Dragons considered humans an inferior race, weak both mentally and physically. When it was discovered that the Fates had chosen a human mate for the Dragon King, there would be serious problems. The dragons would doubt his authority and power in the face of such a providential
insult
. And then there was Ambrogino, somewhere out there, stirring up a revolt. There would be rumbles of dissention, and he would probably receive a blood challenge, or two, or three…

Alec let out a sigh. He hated, above all things, to kill one of their own, but sometimes it could not be avoided. Kill or be killed—even in the 21
^st
century, the dragons still adhered to the ancient ways.

His dragons, housed on the top floors of the casino, were already jittery because of the arriving families and approaching ceremony. Their musky mating scent could be detected by any dragon in Nevada, and probably the entire West Coast. The reinforced concrete walls of the dragon towers would be tested for strength before everyone settled into their destined pairs.

Alec needed to get things settled with Lucy and refocus on his people. In generations past, it had not been impossible to find places in the world where they could congregate. His grandfather’s rule had been largely peaceful, on a remote South Pacific island. But his father’s people had seen their haven disturbed by satellites and would-be explorers.

Questions that would not go away, asked by humans who would not leave them alone.

Alec had traveled the world, gathering his lieutenants from the hidden dragon folds and enclaves, speaking words of peace to warring factions, promising a place where they could do more than survive, a place where they could thrive.