Luck of the Dragon (Entangled Covet) (6 page)

Anger fired through Alec at the callous way Lucy’s brother treated her. This must be her problem, the reason she’d stolen his keycard.

“Lucy, this is the last time,” Joey said.

“You say that
every
time.” Lucy picked up a mug from the counter and blew over it. Peppermint and chamomile wafted through the window screen and filled his nostrils.

Jer’ol—
Leo broke through Alec’s reverie with mindspeak.
Can you return to the casino?

I’m busy,
Alec telegraphed back across the desert.

Your enemy has resurfaced,
Leo said cryptically.

You know where he is?
Excitement raced through Alec at the news.

For the moment, but he is on the move.

Finally, he would corner Ambrogino. Alec focused on Lucy, torn between his need to keep her near him and the instinct to finally settle things with his enemy and former friend. He stared hard at her profile, willing her to feel his presence, willing her to know that she wasn’t alone anymore. She didn’t have to carry her burdens by herself. He could help her.

Lucy remained unaware of him, lost in her distraught tea-blowing. He would have to leave her for now. Ambrogino might prove dangerous to her, too, if he learned that she was his mate. Tomorrow, he would ask Lucy about her brother and try to fix whatever mess she was involved in.

Tonight, he had an enemy to quash.

I’ll be right there,
he said to Leo before jumping into the sky.

…

“Did you make the drop?” Joey leaned his forearms on the bar counter and looked at her.

Lucy nodded and kept blowing on her tea.

“Did you put it in the toilet like he said?”

Again, Lucy nodded.

“Yes!” Joey fist pumped the air and rounded the bar, his arms wide to hug her. She was still mad at him. Lucy pushed her hot mug between them, an effective moat to his affection.

Joey stepped back behind the dining area and started to pace. Lucy recognized his movement—she did it herself when she was thinking something through.

“This is great. I’ll be in the clear now.” Joey circled around her table and breakfast bar.

“In the clear to do
what
exactly?” Lucy narrowed her eyes. “Just two minutes ago you said you were done.”

“Done with the ponies.” Joey stopped pacing, but his eyes careened off hers like smacked billiard balls. “I’ve got a money thing going with the cards. Don’t give me that look. It’s paying out better than your suit job.”

Lucy shook her head. “Gambling is not a job. It’s an addiction.”

“It will be fine, little sis.” Joey had been born forty-five minutes before Lucy, and he liked to refer to it when he was being patronizing.

“It will never be fine, as long as you keep taking these chances.” Lucy took a determined swallow of her tea. It was bitter.

“Remember when ‘Number Three’ moved us to Bonanza Street?” Joey gave her a level look, waiting for her to join him in the memories of their desolate childhood.

Lucy’s stomach clenched. “Number Three” was her mother’s third live-in boyfriend, a drinker, but he had a steady job as a mechanic. She inhaled the peppermint aroma from her tea to displace the remembered scent of diesel grease, and frowned when she couldn’t recall the man’s face.

“I remember the apartment on the bad side of Bonanza,” Lucy swallowed the sudden dryness in her mouth. “The bathroom had pink tile.”

She had been delighted with the working air-conditioning and hopeful for about a week, until Number Three had started getting handsy with her in the apartment’s narrow hallway. She and Joey had only been thirteen, but Joey, all one hundred scrawny pounds of him, had gone after the guy with a kitchen knife and told him to keep his hands to himself.

Number Three had kicked them out the next day, and their mother had gone on a six-month bender.

“It’s you and me first.” Joey recited their familiar mantra, causing a flood of emotions to swell in Lucy’s chest. “No one messes with us. The bastards can all fuck off.”

“Right.” The problem was they weren’t kids anymore, and most adults didn’t respond with youthful theatrics. She had run away from anything with the whiff of underbelly to it, but Joey seemed to relish the under-ness of the belly. Lucy tried for the millionth time to find a way out for
both
of them.

“I thought maybe we could leave Vegas,” she said. “Start over somewhere fresh. Maybe San Francisco?”

“San Fran ain’t got no flash.” Joey gave her a cocky smile but then narrowed his eyes at her somber expression. “You’re serious?”

“Yes.”

“What about your house, and your career, and your yadda, yadda?” He raised his arms to the ceiling.

“I can start over. So can you.”

“I like it here. So do you.”

“I just…I’ve got a bad feeling about this casino thing. Alec Gerald is expecting me in the morning to appraise his exhibit.”

“So do it.” Joey shrugged. “The guy is in a big hurry to get it open. Betcha you can get some good juice off him.”

Juice
, as in extra-money juice, not the juicy, tingly things Alec Gerald made her feel. “I just gotta bad feeling.”

“I’m really sorry that I had to bring you into this one.” Joey’s apology was sincere.

“I know.”

Joey’s phone rang out the
Flight of the Valkyries
. He looked at the phone. “It’s Gino. He must have gotten the keycard from the drop.”

He walked to her dining room window and answered. “Hello…Yes, sir…I know, she is just that damn good…What?” The single word question was a sucking black hole for Lucy’s apprehension. “I can’t speak for her, but I can arrange a meet…tonight? Okay.” Joey disconnected and walked back into the kitchen.

“What?” Lucy clutched her mug like a shield. “What now?”

“There’s a small glitch.”

“What?”

“The keycard only opens the exterior door. Alec Gerald’s thumb opens the jewel cases.”

Lucy nodded.

“You knew?” Joey looked incredulous. “How could you not tell me? I could have called him
first
with the information. Then he would’ve owed me.”

“I did what you asked. I don’t care about getting in the black with the mob.”

“Well that’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever said.” Joey marched toward her side of the bar. “You think with our Dad, sly Joe-the-Cheat, that we were ever going to get out of the bed with these guys? This is our bed. Our house. Our everything.”

“We. Are. Not. Crooks.”

“I’m not a crook.” Joey smiled and stepped back. “I’m a…what do you call it…an adventure capitalist.”

“Venture capitalist,” she corrected. “Big difference.”

“Whatever, you with all your high-falutin’ degrees. You’re still my sister, but you’re a big stick in the ass sometimes.”

“It’s stick in the mud, Joey.” Lucy rolled her eyes. “You know the right phrase, you just like to pretend you’re dumb. Either that or you’re just too damn lazy to get the words right.”

Joey smiled, not at all offended. “Hey, if I can get something with no effort, that does not make me lazy. That makes me smart. Smarter than you, college girl. How many years did it take for you to get a piece of paper anyway? I could have gotten one forged for you in two weeks.”

“Eight years. And it’s more than a piece of paper.” Lucy shook her head and set aside her tea unfinished and cold. “It’s the knowledge. No one can take that away from me.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Joey smiled, all charming, central-casting,
adventure capitalist.
“You know you love me.”

“I do, but…” Lucy’s internal alarm chimed at Joey’s use of the “L” word. Bad. Bad. Bad. “I heard you say ‘I can’t speak for her.’ I’m guessing the
her
is me?”

“He wants you to go back in. Get the thumbprint from Gerald.”

“No.” Lucy shook her head. “I’m on a plane out of here in the morning—with you.”

“I’m not leaving,” Joey said with his real-Joey voice. “Get it through your over-educated head.”

Lucy chewed on her trembling lower lip. She was used to the abrupt changes in Joey’s personality when he was up to something, but his real-Joey voice meant he was serious.

“Gino’s spies said you spent a little
alone time
with Alec Gerald?” Joey asked, lifting a questioning brow.

“I didn’t do anything. We just talked about appraising the exhibit.”

“Gino said he would cut us in for 10% each—”

“I’m not going back to that casino. Ever.”

“When a guy like Gino offers to cut you in on his juice, you can’t say no.”

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t take the easy deal, he moves on to the hard deal.”

“Quit talking gangster and just spit it out.”

“He can make you help him.”

“How?”

Joey smiled. “Because he knows you love me too much to let me swim with the fishes.”

Again with the “L” word. Lucy gripped the edge of the counter behind her. It was ice cold and as unbending as Joey’s heart.

She was in trouble.

…

Lucy followed her brother through the dimly lit Crazy Stallion bingo parlor. Although they were only a little north of the Strip, it felt like they had stepped back in time to their childhood: Sunday bingo games, interchangeable trailer parks, and apartments with occasional electricity.

She was cold down to her bones, but her hand sweated on a plastic bag holding the expensive loaner red dress and designer shoes she had worn to Alec’s casino. She tightened her wrap sweater over her white tank top and stepped across the entrance, being careful where she placed her flip-flops. The shoes were a deliberate message; she was dressed for laundry, not larceny.

Inside, cigarette smoke billowed like a ghost around crowded banquet tables. People hunched over bingo cards, and at thirty-second intervals they lifted expectant eyes to hear the next number. The metronome of misery had not changed in fifteen years.

“Be nice, Luce.” Joey peered at her, a spring of excitement in his step. “Just hear what he has to say. He may have a regular gig for me.”

“You want your own racket?” This surprised her.

“Yeah, why not?” He gave her a wink. “No 401K but it’ll sure pay out better than your crummy stock market.”

Lucy was not happy he wanted to get in deeper with Gino.

On the customer side of a worn velvet rope, they stopped near a brass sign that read Manager. “We’re here to see Mr. Narcisco,” Joey said to the burly looking dude with arms the size of Lucy’s legs.

The dude leered at Lucy. “Strippers audition next door.”

“I. Am. Not. A. Stripper.” Lucy glared at him.

“Tell Mr. Narcisco that Joey and his sister are here to see him, as requested.”

The man took his time about entering the office.

“Joey.” Lucy stepped forward, trying to catch her brother’s shifty gaze. “I’m not doing anything else illegal.”

“I know. I know.” Joey pulled her closer. “We just gotta be polite.”

The burly man returned and motioned them around the rope.

The enforcer’s inner sanctum was gold and red velvet. A tacky life-size picture of Sinatra hung behind his desk.

“Joey.” Gino Narcisco, aka the Chicago-based Maceonelli family’s enforcer, greeted him brusquely. “Glad you could help me out with this.” Gino ambled around his desk, displaying a physique that looked like he could bench press 300 pounds. He stopped in front of them and swayed side to side, making Lucy feel like an involuntary snake charmer.

She stepped back and tightened her ponytail.

“Ah,
Bellissima
.” Gino reached for her hand and kissed her cold knuckles with old-world courtesy. “This must be the beauty who managed to get a private meeting with Alec Gerald.” Gino eyed her up and down from behind his dark glasses. Lucy sensed he was more than your average wise guy, a constrictor with the bite of the death adder. “Those are beautiful gems on your ears.”

“Thank you—”

“What are those? Emeralds? Peridots?”

“They’re green sapphires.”

“Sapphires, no kidding?” Gino leered again at her ears.

“Look, Mr. Narcisco, we had a deal.” Lucy set the plastic bag with the expensive outfit on his desk. “I got the card for you. Joey’s debt is paid in full. We’re square.”

The enforcer spread his hands wide like her words shocked the gold rings off his fingers. “Lucy, Lucy.” He shook his head. “We aren’t doing business yet. I’m hungry. I can’t do business on an empty stomach, it makes me cranky.”

Gino gestured a thick knuckled hand toward the office door. “I bet you’ve never had a Crazy Stallion steak.” He pinched his fingers to his lips and made a
much-ma
kissy sound. “Ex-cell-ente.” He tromped from the room, shaking the pictures on the wall with his heavy steps.

“Geeze, Luce.” Joey grabbed her arm and pulled her through the smoke-filled bingo hall toward the restaurant. “Don’t piss the guy off. We’ll both wind up in an unmarked grave.”

Lucy tried to yank free. “You’re hurting me.”

Joey stumbled and fell to one knee, so that Lucy stood looking down at him on the stained red carpet. She wanted to kick him while he was down, in the ribs, like she would have as a kid. Except Joey always grabbed her ankle and pulled her down, too. A life lesson she should have already learned.

Joey scrambled to his feet. “Did you trip me?” His face was blotched red.

“No.” She shook her head. “I want to leave. I’m not eating a steak with that man.”

“Leave, then.” Joey straightened his clothes. “But I wasn’t kidding about the graves. We’re in this now. There is no way out except to do what he wants.”

“You never intended to say no to him at all, did you?” Hurt spread through her chest at Joey’s manipulation. “You’re turning into Dad.” Her voice broke over the words. “How can you…you know where this is headed.”

Joey pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut, as if he could block out her words. “Luce, I need this.”

Dizziness swirled through Lucy’s head, and she gripped her elbows tight, determined not to reach to him for stability.

“Can we talk about it later?” Joey gave her a raw look. He understood it was wrong, what he’d done, dragging her into the mess. The silent acknowledgement would’ve been comforting, if she didn’t know there would be a next time. There always was a next time with Joey. The certainty of it made her chest tighten and her vision blur. The smoky air pulled down the back of her throat like stale, expired poison.