It’s a prospect that even Mack can’t deny with a straight face. I’m sure he’s thought about it. Money and benefit are all he sees when he looks at her—and maybe a hot piece of ass, not that he’d admit as much around Darcy.
I know fuckers like him inside and out. Hell, Iamone. A mad dog always plays both sides of the fence.
“Fine,” he concedes, eyes narrowed. “You could send one of Arno’s men with her—”
“No. Him.” Once again, the woman breaks her role by speaking up. She’s suddenly at my shoulder, her scent teasing the air, her hair swishing against her lower back. “Hecomes with me.” She even points one slender finger in my direction.
I can’t smother a laugh. I’m her guard dog, apparently. The convenient mutt she fucks whenever she needs a fresh dose of pain to reinforce the fact that she’s away from a man she seems to fear more than death itself. The cut on her palm is a leash, and she flexes the wounded hand as if subconsciously giving that tether a little tug.Heel, Dante.
I turn on that fucking heel and head for the door. “Send her alone.” I don’t give a fuck if Mack strings her up for his own gain. I don’t care if she’s fucked on camera by a million sweaty businessmen with bones to pick with Stacatto. Let the little junkie get her fix.
She’s high off the danger, apparently, and I was such a fucking fool for thinking that the heroin could even faze her. When revenge was your drug of choice, nothing was more addictive than the steady drip of your own self-destruction.
But she doesn’t like that course of action, and her gasp stops me in my tracks. There’s confusion in that damn sound. Even more amusing, there’sfearin it. For all of her bravado, she can’t jump into hell by herself, apparently. She needs an escort. She needsme.
“I’m fine with that plan,” Mack says. “We’ll leave now. This guy gets antsy after sundown. Pissing off Stacatto has left him with very few...friends, if you catch my drift.”
Through a window straight ahead, I can see that the sky is already gray, the sun sinking below the horizon is a fiery kiss-off. It’ll be a new moon tonight; there’s no sign of it waiting in the wings to take the sun’s place. It’s a perfect setting to pick the kingdom of a mob boss apart. Some sick bastard might even deem it “poetic.”
And Stacatto’s beloved little whore is ready and willing to drive the final nail into his coffin. She even wants me to hold her hand while she does it.
“I’ll take good care of her,” Mack promises, and I can sense the smirk he’s wearing without even having to turn and see it formyself. “I’ll even give her another taste of the good stuff to make sure she’s a happy camper.”
I don’t know why I look over my shoulder at her. Her back is turned to me, her posture perfectly erect. You could balance a book on her head—she’s that stiff. Does it faze her at all that she’s signing her freedom and sanity over to Mack as easily as most people decide what to wear in the morning? There’s no care in it. No finesse. Hell, to a criminal, her lack of tact is fucking insulting.
“Wait.” I turn, and in two steps, I have a good grip on her shoulder. She can’t fight it when I drag her two steps back merely to throw her off-balance and watch her stagger to regain her poise. “I go with her. We get the information, and then what? You gladly march in and lead an assault on Stacatto’s enclaves?”
Mack reaches up to flick something imaginary from his chin. “Don’t be hasty, Dante,” he says. “All in good time. First things first.”
First things first. I glance at the woman from the corner of my eye.Danny,she said her name was. I’d expected something complicated or foreign in the few seconds I felt bored enough to wonder.Felecia. Anastasia. Dolores.
Danny is too fucking simple. It’s a crown of weeds and thorns for this prissy, stolen queen.
“Fine,” I say. Then I shove her toward the door and leave Mack to follow. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Daniela
They take me to a hotel,and it’s the irony to end all ironies; for five years, my prison was hidden inside of a hotel. To find my freedom, I have to delve into another—with a monster at my side—all while wearing a black corset hidden underneath a long coat.
“Look pretty,” Mack snarled before pressing the clothes into my hands and shoving me into the back of a van while Dante rode shotgun.
Pretty.It was Vinny’s favorite word, but would he apply it to me now? The concierge who pretends not to notice me entering the lobby doesn’t seem liable to. He averts his gaze with a practice that I figure this particular establishment has trained its employees to perfect.
Lavish wealth drapes everything from the polished marble floors to the shining oak-paneled walls with gold filigree. Once you take the elevator up to floor thirty-seven, however, that extravagant atmosphere gives way to a simpler layout of black carpeting and forest-green walls. It’s dark. Discreet. It’s theperfect place for a man to have a half-naked woman delivered to his door just as easily as he might order a bottle of wine.
I inhale sharply as we turn the corner in search of suite number eighty-eight. Dante’s silent beside me, and I know without even having to look at his face that he doesn’t appreciate my bold little sacrifice. In the same breath, it doesn’t faze him. He’ll stand by the door and wait patiently while I fuck another man for coveted information. He’ll let someone else leave their mark on my ruined flesh, and he won’t give a damn.
It’s a dizzying thought. I have to brace one hand against my chest to keep my heart there, neatly in place. Something firm nudges my fingers, and I pretend that it’s one of the ribs of my corset so that my face gives nothing away.
These men treat heroin like candy. They dole it out in prefilled syringes with neat, clear caps and seem almost too eager to jab the poison into your veins to send you off to Neverland. The moment the van pulled up to the hotel, Mack couldn’t wait to yank a syringe from his pocket and free the needle.
“Now be a good girl and hold still,” he warned before reaching for me from the driver’s seat while Lucifer watched.
Like a patient lamb, I waited until right before he could jab the tip into my vein. “Not there,”I protested.
After all, we wouldn’t want the buyer to know that his little bit of collateral wasn’t fully present, now would we? How could he make her scream for Vinny’s benefit? I knew of other discreet places. My legs maybe? When Mack seemed more than willing to jab his needle there as well, I asked to do it myself. Rolling his eyes, he gaze me the syringe, and I brought it to my thigh, hissing on cue at the burning pinch.
