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Rory pretends to lock her lips with an imaginary key. “Oops, I forgot. Gabe says you’re a snitch.”
Mild amusement tugs on my lips; I throw my arm over the back of her chair and settle into the conversation. “Did he now?”
“Uh-huh.” She gulps her wine. “Says you’ll squeal to my husband like a little pig.”
“Is that right?”
“Yup. And we don’t talk to snitches.”
Gabe nods in approval, tosses the Jack of Diamonds on the table, then holds his fist out for Rory to bump. She does so, but immediately winces and tucks her balled hand into her lap when she thinks nobody’s looking.
I sip my whiskey and set it down with a dark chuckle. It soon evaporates into thin air, however, because a loud laugh shoots through the casino and sucker-punches my jaw. Gritting my teeth, I cut a reluctant look to the bar and find its owner.
Another thing to add to my list of dislikes: The fact that her laugh is the loudest thing in the room. What’s so funny, anyway? She’s only talking to Nico. He barely says three words in the same breath, and he couldn’t tell a joke even if he read it on the back of a Laffy Taffy wrapper.
I regard her through a lens of mild contempt. Strands of her red ponytail fall off her shoulders as she tosses her head back to laugh again. If I hadn’t hired her to satisfy my superstition, the girl would be out on her ass before the end of the night, and not just because I bet her fifty bucks she would be.
I’ll let it slide, but only until I’ve confirmed she’s not my doom card. Then she can crawl back into whatever hole she escaped from. For the sake of keeping the peace for the short time she’ll work here, I brought her into my office in an attempt to extend an olive branch, but the moment she sauntered in and scowled at me—in that uniform—I practically snapped that branch in half.
She’s irritating, but I’d be lying if I said she didn’t pique my interest. Aside from her penchant for outdated bar tricks and her egotistical belief she’s lucky, I know barely anything about her. Nico only told me her parents worked at the Visconti Grand when he and Penny were both kids, and she left town when she was eighteen.
I run a thumb over my bottom lip and give a small shake of my head. Eighteen, Christ—that was only three years ago. She’s still a kid, so fuck knows why I’m even looking at the length of her skirt, let alone wondering what’s underneath it.
I shift my brain to a topic less X-rated. No one turns up in Cove in a stolen dress with a suitcase on a Wednesday night. She’s running from something, and my blood is itching to know what. I slipped a Sinners Anonymous card in her coat pocket, and another between the pages of the Bible in her hospital room in the off-chance she’s a God-fearing Catholic girl, which I highly doubt. I’m hoping when I check the voicemail on Sunday, I’ll find a naughty secret in the inbox.
As if suddenly aware I’m glaring at her, Penelope’s laugh comes to an abrupt stop. The doe-eyed darling pretense melts away, and she meets my eyes with annoyance.
I’m not the type of man who averts his gaze, even if he doesn’t like what he sees.
She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t back down, either. I’m not usually one for insolence, but Jesus, it’s kind of hot. Nico is leaning over the bar and talking shit in her ear, but she doesn’t take her eyes off mine. We glare at each other for what seems like minutes—but surely can only be seconds—before she slowly lifts her hands to her high ponytail, splits it in half, and pulls.
A little huff of air escapes my lips. Fuck. It’s an innocent enough move. I’ve seen lots of girls adjust the tightness of their ponytail like that, but for some reason, when she does it, I feel it like a white-hot bolt of lightning in my groin.
She might as well have tugged on the end of my dick.
I grind my molars and glance at the liquor wall behind her head for a split-second’s respite. When I look back, she’s still staring at me, a smug smirk dancing on her lips, and irritation, itchy and hot, creeps down the back of my collar.
It was a short, silent game, and she just played dirty to win it.
Irritation is chased by a dark, electric thrill.
Silly girl. If only she knew I don’t just play games; I create them. I can’t wait until she finally picks up the phone and plays my most exciting game of all. I make a mental note to slip another Sinners Anonymous card into her locker, then turn back to my sister-in-law while a server tops off my glass.
Back to being a gentleman.
“I’m sorry you’re not in Fiji right now, Rory.”
“Eh,” she says with a shrug. “I’d rather stay on the Coast and watch Dante get his head blown off.”
My glass halfway to my lips, I still. Benny flashes me an I-told-you-so look. I know what he’s thinking: the Hollow brothers have a theory that Vicious’s new wife is a secret psychopath. Said theory only strengthened a few nights ago at a private game over in Whiskey Under the Rocks, when Castiel told us that he and his Russian girl went over to dinner at their house just before the wedding. Cas had made a comment about them needing a new chef, because the lasagna was dry, and it turned out Rory had cooked it herself.
She’d smiled sweetly and told him there was no need to apologize, but after dessert, Cas went out to his Lambo to find all but one tired slashed and a little angry face scratched into the rear window. When he mentioned it to Angelo, he brushed it off with a hard flick of his finger and an ice-cold threat. Told Cas his darling wife would never do such a thing, and if he mentioned it again, they were going to have a problem.
Rory’s all right in my books. She brought my brother back to the Coast, hates Dante as much as I do, and if she did slash Cas’s tires, then that’s pretty funny. It’s a well-known fact that, although made men are attracted to trouble, they marry meek. It’s refreshing to sit next to a Cosa Nostra wife who doesn’t stare at the napkin in her lap and speak only when spoken to.
“Did Penny pee in your Cheerios?”
Only when Rory’s question grazes my right ear do I realize I’m staring at Penelope again. Half the room is staring at her, because she’s going at it with a cocktail shaker with such vigor, her tits are threatening to pop out of that low-cut dress.
