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“Which of your lackeys get to kill me, I mean? Because it’ll be one of them, right? I know a gentlemanlike you would never risk getting blood on his pretty little suit.”
He gives me nothing but a polite smile, and the darkness in his eyes suggests his mind is elsewhere. Medical machines beep through white walls and somewhere down the hall, a coffee machine bursts and sputters.
Eventually, he leans forward into the path of the sunbeam and the quiet calmness in his green eyes glitters under the light. “Rumor has it you’re looking for a job in Devil’s Dip.”
My gaze narrows. What a left-field response. There’s only two people who could have told him that: Rory or Nico. I discount Matt immediately, because I doubt he could hold a conversation with Raphael Visconti long enough to tell him this without jizzing in his pants.
“Yeah, but not with you or your family.”
Dark amusement pulls at his lips. “Impossible.”
My eyes itch as I force myself not to roll them. As much as his smugness grates down my spine, I know he’s right. Even if the Viscontis don’t own the business directly, they sure as hell will have their sticky mafia fingers in the pie one way or another.
“You offering me a job, or something?”
“Or something.”
What? The change of tune is enough to give me whiplash. I squint at him, trying to figure out what he’s playing at. Maybe it’s because my brain is damaged from the blow, but I can’t tell if he’s joking or not.
“Why do I feel like I’m about to get sex trafficked?”
Raphael lets out a short sigh. “I’m offended. All of my businesses are perfectly legitimate; thank you.”
I open my mouth and close it again, trapping my insult behind my lips. I’m pretty hard up right now, so I’m not going to ruin my chance of finding employment if—and it’s a bigif—this isn’t a joke.
“What’s the catch?”
Now, something in Raphael’s gaze flickers to life. “I thought you’d never ask.” He run two fingers over his bottom lip, but it does little to conceal his soft smirk. “Play a game with me.”
Despite my aching bones and jaded heart, the simple command stokes the embers in the pit of my stomach. A game?
Before I can ask about rules and wagers, he stands and closes the gap between us in two long strides.
My heartbeat skids to a halt. He’s so close I’m entirely engulfed in his cold shadow. So close the soft fabric of his slacks nearly brushes against my bare knees, reminding me of how thin this stupid hospital gown is, and that I have almost nothing underneath it.
Instinctively, I grip the wheels of my chair, but when I jerk them backward, I don’t move. What? I look south and find the toe of a shiny Oxford shoe pressing against the base of the tire.
I look up just in time to see Raphael slip his hand in his pocket and produce a deck of cards. He holds them just above my eye-line in a large, tanned fist with a thawp of his thumb snapping against the base of the deck, and I catch a flash of color up his sleeve.
Is that—
“Choose a card.”
The demand knocks all suspicion of hidden ink out of my brain. “What?”
He fans the deck. “Choose a card.”
“Well, what card?” I huff out. “What game are we playing?”
“You won’t like it if I have to ask again.”
His voice is butter-like, but by now, I know better than to be fooled by it. My front teeth capture my bottom lip, and I glare at the cards like they’ve done something to piss me off.
Think, Penny.
Right, well. There’s a one-in-fifty-two chance that I choose the card he wants me to choose. And if I choose that card, I have no idea if it’s a good or a bad thing. That’s if there even is a card he has in mind.
Fuck it.
