Valentine’s Code (Sinister Legacy Duet #1)

Chapter 1

Mario

The contract on my head was worth seven million dollars as of two minutes ago.

Like any Vegas odds sheet, that number went up with each unsuccessful hit.

I’d eluded at least two in the last twenty-four hours.

My need for an ally, or a dozen of them, lured me to the City of Sin, home to various organized crime figures, and my last resort to evade my executioners.

On the tarmac of McCarran International, a private jet was being prepped. It was one of the family’s seven business fleet aircraft ranging from the luxurious to the ridiculous. A certain internet celebrity bought our biggest one four years ago. We’d replaced it with an even larger one.

How else were we supposed to keep up with the global demands of organized crime?

I sipped my cognac and pondered the logistics. That’s what I did best. Logistics. From meetings to murder, I was the most glorified administrative assistant to the oldest of monied mobsters in Europe and beyond. They relied upon me. So, it was absurd I’d be fingered for a hit, right?

I sighed and took another sip of my drink. Even paper pushers had their enemies. The devil was always in the details often overlooked by the incautious.

“You’re hiding in plain sight.”

Speaking of his royal darkness … “Ringo. I’d ask what you’re doing here, but .

.. I take it you’re working?” Ringo Devlin was one of the best hitmen in the business.

I should know; I helped arrange almost every one of his kills.

They went flawlessly thanks to his ruthless cunning and my expert planning.

“I’ve got five minutes before I start.” My best friend since boarding school signaled to the bartender for a drink. The Macallan 18 bottle looked dusty despite the glittering lights and neon distractions surrounding us.

“You took the contract, didn’t you?”

Ringo snorted into his drink. “Of course.”

“If you need money—”

He held a finger up. “I’d’ve asked. But I’m not doing it for the money. Although, seven million…”

It would finally pay off his debt on a folly.

And with me gone, he’d have that post-modern Italian ocean-view monstrosity to himself.

But knowing him, that would last all of one day before he found a woman to splash naked in the little atrium fountain located in the foyer leading to the terrace overlook.

His roving eye trailed a prospective conquest in a practically see-through gown as she rushed through the lobby. The bottom hem of the flesh-pink gauze trailed along the carpet like a cloud.

“… the money would be enough of an incentive for most.” He continued on, still tracking the woman.

“How are you going to do it?”

He snapped his attention to me. “Who do you think I am? If I tell you that, you’ll figure out ten different ways to stop me.”

“It would make the job far more interesting.” I dangled my words like bait.

He sipped his drink, pondering my statement. “I think it would.”

“It’s not like you’re going to really kill me.”

“Oh, now there’s where you are wrong, my friend. I can and will kill you. The way I figure it, it better be me rather than some idiot trying to make a name for themselves.”

True. “Make it quick.” I glanced up at the security camera embedded into the mirrored surface of the ceiling. Ringo wouldn’t do it here. He’d had to have spotted it.

He scoffed. “I’m not an amateur.”

That he wasn’t.

He turned back to crowd watching. “You know, you’re lucky.”

I was? He ignored my scowl and kept talking.

“Anyone else would have made this messy.”

“Like it’s not?”

His head tip was not reassuring. I knew Ringo well enough that he’d just dismissed my warnings and started down his own unique brand of mayhem. “You know your problem, Valentine?”

It was Valentini, but he’d been calling me by the bastardized version of my patronymic since we were eight, so I dismissed the slight and focused my attention to whatever bullshit was going to spout from his mouth next. “I suppose you’re going to tell me.”

“Damn straight. You live like you’re dying.”

That didn’t make sense. “Everyone dies.”

He grunted as if to acknowledge the truth, but carried on. “But if you live like that, it isn’t really living, is it? Take that for an incentive.”

That being the woman in the sheer dress.

She’d joined a strikingly similar woman in an almost equally sheer wedding dress.

Both women were blonde, tall, model-thin, yet refreshingly wholesome.

The one who wore the nude pink gown wore little to no makeup.

Her lean face had intriguing angles and possessed a bold nose.

Her eyes were a shade of medium color I’d guess as green or hazel but it was hard to tell from this distance.

The other was in profile, addressing her wren-like twin with grand gestures and a sway that indicated she was drunk.

Very drunk. Not the first bride to indulge before or after her nuptials. This was Vegas, after all. Perhaps she’d been jilted at the altar? And perhaps her bridesmaid twin was consoling her? Or at least, appeasing her.

Yes, that was what was happening. The more beautiful twin had that stance. She leaned in as if to catch the woman should her sway turn into a slump. Both of her hands were poised to catch. I knew that position well. Ringo was a double handful. And if he were drunk, a whole airbus of hands full.

“The women?” I clarified. Ringo could be talking about something else.

“Twins, man. Do you know what you could do with twins?” He tapped the bar surface emphasizing his words, then sucked in his bottom lip and bit it theatrically.

“We,” I corrected. One was all I wanted to explore at a time, and seeing as they were sisters and likely to talk, one would be all I’d explore if I were even inclined to do so. Two would be… Ringo’s style, not mine.

The side-eye he shot me was filled with disgust. “I swear you were born with that stick up your ass.”

“It’s a code, not a stick.” Honor was a rare thing meant to be upheld with the utmost sobriety and gravity it deserved.

“Your code is going to get you killed. I knew you’d be here doing things by the book. That damn code…”

The women were arguing. One tugging the other toward the slot machines, and the other fighting her and pointing the way toward the exit. Who would win?

“The code has kept me alive.” Not an easy feat when your family was as notorious as mine.

“Well, this time it screwed you.”

Appeasing my father screwed me. Faking interest in that she-devil was an insult. But one I’d now have to swallow to keep the peace. “I’ll fix it.”

Ringo was silent. I’d expected him to laugh.

“You don’t believe me?”

He took a deep breath. “Listen, I’ve known you for… Jesus, twenty-five years. And you can be a real martyr sometimes, but I’ve never known you to be stupid. Dianora Conti? Jesus.”

“It’s not stupid, it’s politics.”

Ringo squared off with me. “Marrying the black widow of Tuscany is not politics, it’s suicide.”

That it was. But it was the only way I’d survive to see next year. And surviving was rule number one of the code. Second was honoring your family. I’d manage both if I could lie well enough.

Lying to family was against the code. I hadn’t done that, yet.

Marrying someone I didn’t love was accepted in the circles I ran in. It didn’t matter that it was against my personal code.

Protecting my grandfather from disgrace? Absolutely in the code.

“If I don’t accept her offer, you’ll have to go through with your contract. Or someone will. And if you fail, they’ll kill you.”

“I don’t fucking care, Val. If someone else gets to you first, I should be dead. And, honestly? I’d want to die anyway. You’re the best, and I’m not just talking logistically. The best friend, the best criminal mastermind, and a much better man than I am.”

“Then why did you take the hit? You could have saved yourself a lot of trouble.”

He stared at me.

“What?”

“I could give you a bunch of reasons, but I guess the biggest one is this: I want to do it because you’re the best. When I do this? I’ll never have to work again. They’ll never ask me to do anything harder. I guarantee that.”

The alcohol I’d sipped churned in my gut. He was serious.

And if he failed, and if I managed to convince Dianora Conti to marry me for my family’s power, and by doing so, force her father to remove the price on my head, Ringo would be the next one with a hit on his head.

Because she earned her nickname of Black Widow.

Ringo wouldn’t be the only victim. She’d get bored of me eventually.

Perhaps I’d live long enough to sire an heir on her, but life as I knew it was over.

And anyone who called me friend would be dead, or wish they were.

I’d sign Ringo’s death warrant by wiggling out of the hit.

I glanced at my watch. It had been five minutes. The sober sister won the argument, dragging the drunken bride to the door. And the world was righting itself. “For what it’s worth? I didn’t kill Adelmo Conti.” I stood up and opened my arms wide so Ringo would have a clean shot.

He glared at me. “I’m not doing you here. You have one minute to walk out that door and prove to me you’re the best in the business.”

I stood still, the countdown automatically ticking down in my head. “How are you going to do it?”

Ringo slammed his drink and licked his lips. Then returned to staring me down. His lips pressed into a silent line of focus.

On twenty I took a step away. Then another step.

By ten I was halfway to the exit and Ringo still stood next to the bar. He pulled out his wallet and laid a bill on the surface for the bartender, as if this were just a normal day.

It was anything but.

On zero, I stepped out of the doors into the night air and beelined for the strip. Vegas in all its glory glittered around me. Traffic bustled, street hawkers littered the constant stream of tourists and gawkers like the little pamphlets they dropped.

Cabs and black limos waited near the hotel’s circle. I stepped forward to take the next one in line, but I was shoved to the side by a wide man in a polyester suit. “That’s my ride, and I’m late for my flight.”

If I were carrying, I’d knife the bastard for that.

Ringo emerged from the entrance. His slow saunter, sure-footed and direct. I slipped into the crowds moving toward the fountains, staying agile and slightly outpacing the flow. I took the stairs to the walkway, crossed north, and kept moving.

I entered another casino and cut through their maze of slot machines, hoping to catch a ride at their cab stand before Ringo or another hitman beat me to it. Once there, I would direct the driver to the company’s private airport and then—

A man peeled off the casino’s column. He approached me with all the subtly of a wallowing hippo. The bulge of his concealed gun was obvious. I stopped, waiting for him in a little alcove where the security cameras couldn’t watch.

Ringo approached from the side, barely a shadow.

How had he outflanked me?

He brushed past, elbowing me out of the way and knocking the man into the alcove. Ringo’s victim collapsed into a lump and didn’t move.

I stepped out of arm’s reach. My friend winked at me and mouthed, “That’s one.”

Bastard. Instead of lingering there like a sitting duck, I hopped the escalator up one floor, then crossed to the pedestrian walkway that dumped me on the opposite side of the strip.

I dipped into a hotel, moving toward the shops.

There was a ride share loop just off the strip.

Perhaps I could steal one of the rides as easily as I’d been thwarted earlier.

I was halfway down the escalator when Ringo ran up from the street.

I hopped over the rail to the stairs and ran back up.

Ringo ran up the escalator, almost beating me to the top.

I pointed at the security camera mounted in its little black bubble on the ceiling and cut left.

Instead of turning toward the shops, I took the escalator up to the monorail.

At the top, I took a quick right into the parking garage hallway.

Ringo was hot on my tail. No matter how much I zigged and zagged, he stuck close. I was almost to the stairs when he caught me and pulled me between two large SUVs.

I had nowhere left to run. There I stood, hands in the air, puffing hard, staring at my best friend since before either of us could shave, knowing he was going to kill me.

There was nothing left but to barter for my life. “You’re going to hate yourself when you figure out who murdered Dianora’s brother, because it wasn’t me.”

Ringo pocketed his gun. “Who did it?”

I rushed him, knocking him hard and climbing over top of his falling body. As I cleared him, I turned to tell him, “I don’t know. But I didn’t do it.”

His hand shot out.

A flare of hot pain sliced through my abdomen, sending me in a staggering rush backward. I almost fell on my ass but managed to keep my feet under me.

Then I ran.

My best friend, practically my only friend, stabbed me.

Game on.