Page 52 of Jackpot Joker

Clearing my throat, I clarify, “I mean, I want the you I’ve gotten to know. I want the man who makes me smile, even when I’m trying to be stubborn. I want the man who makes jokes.”

“I am the joke.” Dario sounds completely defeated as he repeats the words his father fired at him earlier tonight.

I reach my hand across the console and place it on his lap. “You may be a joker, Dario, but you aren’t a joke.”

He stares down at my hand that is admittedly too close to something I would definitely want to explore if I didn’t want to jeopardize the already-strained working relationship we just created. When his eyes look into mine, his tongue darts out over his bottom lip. “I’m in no mood to make jokes tonight.”

“Then what are you in the mood for?” I think about what my life has looked like since I moved out here. As painfully embarrassing as it is to admit, Dario is honestly the only friend I’ve made in Vegas. I consider what I would do if it were my girls out here with me. “If you need me to listen, I have two ears waiting. If you need a hug, I suppose that can be arranged. Tell me what you want, Dario.”

Though only the streetlamps in the parking lot illuminate the interior of the vehicle, I can see his chocolate eyes smolder. “You, mio toro.”

My heart flutters as he calls me the two words I had to translate—my bull. “Then walk me upstairs.”

Chapter 26

Dario

Much like the drive over, the ride up to the sixteenth floor is silent. It wasn’t Jasmine who humiliated me tonight, but like always, it was my father. I’ve always been his biggest disgrace, reminding him far too much of my mother. She was an angel living under the devil’s roof, and that’s ultimately what led to her demise.

I swallow down the lump in my throat as memories resurface from the night she was gunned down simply for being his wife. The beautiful woman who was the epitome of grace and elegance was not responsible for any of the decisions made by my cruel father, yet she’s the one who had to pay for his crimes.

Martina and I were upstairs, playing the newest video game in my room, when the gunshots rang out. Gio and Luca were out of the house, accompanying my father with one of his dealings. They were already considered men worthy of threatening and killing our enemies, even though neither was old enough to drink the celebratory bourbon my father forced upon them when they did a job well done.

“Stay here,” I told Martina as I stepped out of my room and descended the grand staircase. The door was open, and I could feel the chill of the air. It may have been three days past Christmas, but the desert never saw snow, and I remember the shudder running through me as I stood there in shorts and a T-shirt.

I wish cold was all I felt that night.

Lying in front of the door in a pool of blood was my mother. I froze, unable to step toward her, knowing she had already ascended back to her home in heaven. There’s no doubt in my mind they would have welcomed her with open arms.

“Mama!” Martina shouted from behind me, and I widened my stance, attempting to block her view. It was no use; she had always been slightly taller than me until we hit our teen years, and I was graciously granted a much-needed growth spurt.

“Don’t look. You shouldn’t see this.”

Unsurprisingly, Martina didn’t listen to me and rushed to our mother. When she stepped back, bloody footprints stained the wooden floors.

“Where were the guards?” she shouted between sobs.

I stepped around the body, knowing it no longer held the woman who raised me, and embraced the frigidity of the night. A half dozen of my father’s best men were scattered across the lawn in similar positions as my mother. When I looked up from the carnage, my father and brothers were pulling into the driveway.

“What the fuck happened?” my father growled as they all three jumped out of the armored vehicle.

Martina stepped outside at that point, no doubt wanting to see for herself what had happened to the men hired to protect us. “Mama,” her voice quivered. “She’s dead.”

I watched as Luca dropped to his knees. Gio’s face hardened. Papa ran to the scene I had actively been trying to forget.

Tears fell down my face as he roared from inside the house. Heavy footsteps sounded from behind me, and the next thing I knew, I was off my feet as my father was dangling me from the fabric of my shirt. “What the fuck happened? Why didn’t you protect her?”

“It’s not Dario’s fault, Papa,” Martina whimpered behind me, but the man had lost all of his senses and wasn’t listening.

I sniffed back the tears that were falling more rapidly. “We were upstairs and heard the gunshots. I went as soon as I heard, Papa.”

He dropped me to the ground with such gusto, I collapsed on my back. “Were you playing your stupid fucking games?”

“We both were, Papa,” Martina spoke. She always tried to protect me from him, but where I could never escape the hardened gaze of my father, Martina could never be seen by him, no matter how hard she tried.

“You were playing while your mother took her last breath. You’re a fucking joke. Her death is on you.”

“Dario?” Jasmine’s voice is concerned as she stares at me. I take a moment to process where we are and note that she’s inside her condo while I’m still standing on the other side of the threshold. “Do you want to come inside?”