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“So are you going to tell me what’s going on? Or are we just going to sit here staring at each other for the rest of the ride?”
“Aria was engaged to Valducci’s son,” he tells me hoarsely. “Her dad is mafia, too, and she was the chip they were using to cement the bond between the two families. Right up until the fucker nearly beat her to death right under his father’s nose.”
“Fuck, man—”
“Valducci’s also the one responsible for killing Dylan. With my father’s blessing, of course, but still. He’s the one who had it done.”
Jesus Christ. My heart’s racing so fast at this point that for a second, I think it might actually explode. Dylan was Sebastian’s best friend from childhood. He was murdered when we were in college because of his gambling debts. Dylan had a gambling problem and Sebastian had used his trust fund to pay off his debts numerous times in high school and college, but this time he wasn’t there to do it and Dylan died. His death broke something in my friend. Something I’d figured was unfixable until I started to see him with Aria this trip. To find out that the same man was almost, indirectly, responsible for what happened to her, too? Shit. No wonder Sebastian’s been chomping at the fucking bit to make this meeting happen.
“You don’t think that’s something we should have discussed before now?” I demand. “Nothing like letting me walk in there blind.”
“You’ve been a little busy with your new wife,” he answers. “Not that I was invited to the wedding or anything…”
I roll my eyes. “I already explained that.”
“I know. But I’d be lying if I told you it wasn’t fun to watch you squirm.”
“Oh, yeah? Is that why you decided to spring your Valducci connections on me five minutes before we’re supposed to meet the guy? To make me squirm?”
“I just found out about Aria.” His hands are clenched, his jaw tight. It worries me, considering I saw him lose it with one of the high rollers in his own casino just a few days ago. That fight was also over the guy’s treatment of Aria.
Not that I have any problem with him taking care of the woman he is obviously in love with—I’m not a hypocrite—but it does worry me that he just found out about Aria’s past. His emotions have to be running pretty fucking high—mine would be—and now isn’t the time for that. We need clear heads, need to focus, if we want to come out of this meeting with our goals, and our bodies, intact.
“You sure you’re okay to go in there?” I demand sharply. “Because this isn’t going to work if you try to strangle Valducci with your bare hands.”
“I’ve got this. I’m not going to lay a hand on the bastard.”
“You sure about that?” When he glares at me, I hold my hands up in surrender. “I’m just saying you’ve been pretty tightly wound lately. Which I get, believe me. God knows, Chloe keeps me on my fucking toes. But you can’t lose it in there. Stick to the plan and in a few weeks, it will all be over.”
“I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t think I could keep it together.”
“Bullshit. I know you, man. With the k
ind of history you have with Valducci, you wouldn’t walk away from this meeting for anything short of a gun pointed at Aria’s head.” I don’t remind him that I was the one there picking up the pieces after Dylan died. I saw how devastated, how enraged, how broken he was. That kind of grief and anger might dull as the years pass, but it never goes away. Add in Aria’s own dark past…and I’d be lying if I said I’m not worried the guy is going to go all loose cannon in there. Which is not what we need right now.
Valducci calls himself a businessman and I’m willing to treat him as such, but underneath that is the knowledge that he is a brutal man capable of almost anything.
“I’m fine—” Sebastian starts to answer, but he falls silent as Geoffrey pulls into a parking lot. He stops the car in front of a surprisingly tasteful little restaurant, considering that in Vegas, low-key and tasteful are two words that have pretty much been stripped from everyone’s vocabulary.
“Don’t fuck this up,” I tell Sebastian as I open the car door.
“Same goes,” he answers with a deliberate sneer.
Okay, then. We’re definitely on the same page.
It’s barely ten, so the restaurant isn’t open yet. But when I try the door, it swings open easily. There are about thirty tables inside the small dining area, all with white tablecloths and candles. Valducci is nowhere to be seen, big surprise, but three men who are obviously muscle are sitting at one of the tables. When we walk in, they climb to their feet.
“I’m Ethan Frost and this is—”
“We know who you are,” the one in the black T-shirt says. “Mr. Valducci will be here in a few minutes.”
Of course he isn’t here yet. I check my watch—sure enough, we’re not early. If he’s trying to intimidate me, it isn’t working. These are the tactics of an insecure man obsessed with his own power. Which tells me that if there weren’t guns in the room, we would definitely have the upper hand.
But there are guns in the room—several, in fact—and those are only the ones we can see. Which is why I don’t fight it when the goon in the blue button-up tells me to turn around so he can pat me down. Sebastian looks like he wants to argue, but in the end, he doesn’t say anything, either.
I breathe an internal sigh of relief. As long as Sebastian plays along, everything should go just fine.
When they don’t find any weapons—I’m not sure what it says about my naïveté that I didn’t even think to bring one—they invite us to take our choice of tables as we wait. The third guy, dressed in a white T-shirt, offers to get us a drink. We both decline.
