Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 113056 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113056 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
Tessa sat beside me and she finished her glass before any of us had barely made a dent in our beverages. She looked a bit flipped out. It was a lot to take. Sex club opening where she might see the guy she had to be having nightmares about.
Nino and John Lewis were keeping the conversation going. Nino was good at it, too. He kept things moving so that anyone with eyes on us would see us as behaving no differently than the other groups that were in the room, not as if we were watching for a specific person and not that our group contained armed bodyguards. Katie was charming and flirty with everyone and kept engaging me in conversation about my pregnancy, regaling me with stories of her five pregnancies, one being twins.
She looked amazing for having pushed six humans out so I joked I hoped I could keep my shape after one baby.
After Ben and Olive escorted in the second group of investors, John Lewis and Katie joined them at another table and ordered drinks. Although I got the impression that Katie would’ve preferred to sit with us, I’d seen Tommy and John exchange pointed looks so had the feeling things were choreographed a certain way.
The room filled with more and more people as tour groups entered and well into our second drink, close to when we were to attend the theater show, I felt Tommy straighten. I looked at him and saw his eyes aimed at the door. Tessa got up from her chair and said, “I need the ladies room. Tia?”
“Wait,” Tommy said, his eyes not leaving the door. I glanced in that direction and saw Leo Denarda moving into the room with a very pretty blonde on his arm.
His eyes moved in our direction and he snickered as his eyes hit Tommy and then purposefully moved to Tommy’s sister. Leo’s eyes traveled the length of Tessa’s body and he licked his lips in an oily and perverted way. Tessa saw him and her body locked tight. She glared. He jerked his chin casually at her and then his expression made my skin crawl.
Tommy’s demeanor would seem cold but impassive to anyone around, but I could feel the energy in the room change, to a level I could only think of as “Danger.”
Other than his eyes looking hard and stone cold, the rest of him was completely still. He took a sip of his drink and put it down and he stared at Leo Denarda.
Tessa stared at Leo as if he was something she’d wiped off her shoe and then leaned over and put her mouth to my ear and whispered, “Look at him, look right at his crotch, and then laugh.”
I didn’t feel good about it, because I didn’t want to do anything to antagonize this situation but I did what Tess had asked. She bumped my shoulder with hers and then Tommy said, “G’head. Dex? Show the girls to the ladies’ room. Staff bathroom, to the right of the bar.”
I kissed Tommy’s jaw and he squeezed my hand but his eyes never left where Leo stood with his date, getting served champagne. His lip was curling just a little and then his face transformed. He gave Leo the heart-stoppingly gorgeous Ice Cream Parlor Hottie smile and my heart skipped a beat.
He was going to kill that guy. Murder. Cold blood. Lots of blood.
My heartbeat was in my ears and I felt a little light-headed. I moved behind Tess, who’d grabbed my hand, Dex behind me, and he steered us toward the employee’s ladies’ room, which was not far away from our table. I suspected that this was intentional so that we wouldn’t have to pass Leo.
Once we were inside the bathroom, she grabbed me and held me tight. I hugged her. She was shaking.
“It’s okay. You did good. No, you did great, Tessa. We’re almost through this,” I told her.
She started to hyperventilate. I rubbed her back and when she seemed to be settling down a little, I let her go. She started breathing harder so I dashed into the stall finding what I’d hoped would be there. In the stall there was a dispenser of small brown paper bags. I grabbed one.
“Wanna try to breathe into this?” I held it out.
She shook her head and grabbed the counter edge at the sink with both hands and stared into the mirror at her own reflection and hunched, blowing air out.
We knew Leo Denarda would show.
One of his men had agreed to help out tonight with the promise of support of his taking over Denarda’s role once the fuckhead was taken out. That man had been the rest of that organization’s choice to take over when Denarda’s uncle died.
The guy had been like a son to the uncle, but Leo was blood-family, so it’d been a problem in their organization. It was a small organization compared to most players in Vegas, but they owned some big construction contracts in Nevada and had some strong ties with politicians as well as had pull in the bookie business.