“You know they already pawned it all anyway, and you ain’t just fuckin’ broke, Vin.”His brows crawled up his head.“Now you’re in the red because patchin’ you up from this ain’t fuckin’ free.”He shook his head.“You need to let it go, focus on healing up, and then you’re just gonna have to hustle.”
“And while I’m at it, I’m gonna put a knife in Richie’s fuckin’ back.”
“You wouldn’t do that, and it ain’t worth it anyway, Vin.”Meyer leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, leveling his steely blue eyes on me.“You wanted me to help you look out for your bottom line. Exacting fuckin’ revenge against Richie for this ain’t gonna help your bottom line.”He leaned back in his chair.“I got some ideas for gigs that don’t require bringing your own sound equipment. You can do that for a while until we get enough cash to replace everything.”
My head sank into the pillow, and I stared at the ceiling, defeated because I knew he was right.
“Gia came by a couple of times,”he added after a stretch of silence. Rage coursed through my weakened veins.“She knows we know she helped him set it up. I told her to get lost.”
I gritted my teeth and mumbled,“Good. Fuck her.”
“Yeah, fuck her,”Meyer agreed.“Fuckin’ broads ain’t nothing but fuckin’ trouble anyway. Especially broads that need somebody to fuckin’ take care of them.”
“Yeah,”I echoed.
“Yeah,”he underscored.
We slipped into silence for another stretch before Meyer broke through it with a deep, quiet chuckle.
“Four fuckin’ bullets.”He shook his head.“I gotta say, Vin, you are one lucky mother fucker.”He chuckled again, rubbing his chin.“Vincent De Lucky. That should be your fuckin’ stage name or some shit.”
I laughed gingerly, and shooting pain surged through my body.“Yeah, no fuckin’ shit, right?”I groaned, carefully pressing my fingers to the gauze taped to the side of my torso.“I mean…Lucky Luciano got his name ‘cuz some mobsters tried to stab him to death.”
Meyer’s laughter faded, but he continued to rub his stubble-covered chin.“Ain’t actually a bad idea now that I’m thinking about it.”He turned over his palm to gesture at me.“Lucky De Luca.”He hitched one shoulder.“It’s kinda got a certain ring to it.”He crossed his arms over his chest and shrugged again.“I mean, you’re basically starting over now. Might as well give yourself a memorable new name.”
“Yeah,”I agreed, rolling it over in my mind.“Something memorable so I can remember to never trust another fuckin’ soul for as long as I live.”
* * *
“Are you okay?”
I drag my gaze from staring off into space back down to Ava’s face. “What’s that?”
She looks at me funny and a bit more alert. “I was asking you why you go by Lucky instead of Vincent. I didn’t mean to pry.”
I force a pleasant smile. “You’re not. I didn’t quite hear you.” I clutch her body more firmly against mine and lead her through a slow turn. “Kinda loud in here,” I say dismissively, then add, “Folks started calling me Lucky ‘cuz I kept wipin’ the floor with ‘em at poker way back in the day. And it kinda compliments my last name better than Vincent. Don’t ya think so?”
Before she can answer, I lift her arm above her head and give her a spin.
“Yeah,” Ava says as I draw her back to me. She tilts her head and looks at me below a knitted brow. “But you’re not crazy about it.”
“Whaddya mean?”
She starts to slow her steps while still following my lead. “I’ve seen about a thousand videos of you, and you’ve never looked sad like this before.”
I scoff. “I don’t looksad.”
“Yeah, you do. Normally when you smile, you get these little crinkles next to your eyes. They’re not there right now.”
The admittedly put-on smile is frozen in place on my face, and the pleasant, yet slightly drunk expression on hers makes it feel like she’s optically dissecting my soul. I feel naked. And not in the way I want to be with her. I can’t have her needling her way into shit she that’s none of her business, and she’s going to be here for aweek. I have to put a stop to this now. She needs a distraction.
A big one.
“Aw, Ava,” I murmur, draping her arm around my neck again and then cupping her chin to tilt it upward. I tug her waist so that she’s flush against me. “I don’t even remember the last time I met anyone as sweet as you.”
She opens her mouth to respond, but I silence her with my lips before she can speak. She utters the tiniest little whimper and melts against me. This kiss is meant to distract her, but it’s just as delicious as I was anticipating. It sends my mind into a frenzy of ideas for what I intend to do to her and what I intend to have her do to me. I’m getting high on mental pictures of all the things I want to do to this shy little creature. I see her drowning in so much lust and rapture that she lets me lean her against the balcony off my bedroom while I fuck her from behind, and we both gaze out over the entire, cacophonous, music-saturated French Quarter without a single care about who’s watching below.
My fantasy breaks up at the feeling of her pulling her lips from mine. “Why did you do that?”