Chapter 27 - Lorenzo
Lorenzo
“Put this on.”
Isabella looked up from her book—borrowed from Amalia this time, I was sure—and stared at the hanger that I was holding aloft.
The dress on it was red, and I knew that it would cling to all of her delectable curves.
It was one of my favorites from Sienna’s wardrobe.
I wanted to see it on Isabella more than anything.
“It’s beautiful,” she said, although her tone was cautious. “Why am I putting it on?”
“I need to go to the casino tonight. I haven’t put in as much face-time there as I need to.”
She raised her eyebrow. “What does that have to do with me?”
“You’re coming with me.” Ever since I made the decision to make an appearance at the casino, I had been thinking about taking Isabella with me.
I had never seen her dressed up, and the lizard part of my brain wanted to see her luscious hips hugged in red.
“Go change. We’ll leave in an hour.” Isabella took the hanger from me and trailed out of the room, glancing back over her shoulder at me as if I was going to change my mind.
Just under an hour later, I was standing in the foyer, dressed in one of my nicer suits, when Isabella started down the stairs.
Damn, I should have suggested this before.
The dress looked even better than I had imagined it would.
Its neckline plunged just a little, and the red fabric clung to her, emphasizing her shape.
I expected her to ask if she looked all right—Sienna liked to be told—but Isabella simply held up her hand in a ta-da! gesture. “Are we waiting for Elio or Damian?”
I shook my head. “It’ll be just us.”
Isabella blinked, obviously surprised, but she kept whatever thought she had to herself. A part of me wanted to pry, to demand that she say whatever came to her mind, but I also appreciated her lack of chatter. When she wasn’t being an absolute menace, Isabella could be very introspective.
The ride into the city was a quiet one, but as we got closer to the warehouse district that housed the Vitali casino, she glanced at me. “Is this a date?”
I nearly said no. I hadn’t been on a date in years.
I hadn’t wanted to. There had been women after Sienna passed, but they were fleeting things to satisfy my urges.
But I couldn’t deny that this was different.
“I’m going into the casino for work,” I finally settled on.
“I figured that you would appreciate getting out of the house. If that’s not the case, I can take you back. ”
Isabella’s shoulders drooped slightly. Was she disappointed? “I do appreciate it,” she said. “I guess I thought…” She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I’m glad to get some fresh air.”
She wanted this to be a date, that was clear. I didn’t want to begin trying to unpack that, so I let the subject drop and ignored the near-tangible tension that grew between us. Instead, I focused on getting us to the casino.
For a Wednesday night, the parking garage was already packed.
I wound around the parking spots, going higher and higher, until I saw my personal spot and pulled in.
I got out, intent on going around to let Isabella out, but she opened her own door and was standing on the pavement by the time I came around.
I ground my teeth together. Sienna would have waited for me.
It felt wrong not to open her door, like I wasn’t doing my job.
We walked to the private elevator, and I stood too close on purpose.
I put my hand on the small of her back and watched her throat bob when she swallowed hard.
What was I doing? Torturing her? Foreplay?
I couldn’t decide. With my free hand, I pulled a plastic card from my pocket and held it up.
“You can play any game you like with this,” I told her. “No charge.”
Isabella pursed her lips into a line, and then she shook her head. “No,” she said. “Thank you.”
It clicked a second too late. Goddamnit.
I brought her to the place where her father essentially ruined her life.
When the elevator door opened, my stomach lurched.
Gustavo Castillo and his eldest son, Angel, were at a blackjack table.
Gustavo was visibly swaying. Absolutely fucking fantastic.
I was going to murder whoever “forgot” to tell me that they were here.
This was a mistake; I shouldn’t have brought her here. I turned and steered her to the bar that stretched along the far wall. “Here.” I helped her onto a stool on the side. “Order whatever you like. I have a few things I need to deal with.”
Isabella blinked a few times, like she was actively working to not say something bratty, and then she nodded. “Okay. I’ll just…be here when you’re done, I guess.”
I hummed and made eye contact with the bartender. He was young, Elio’s age at the very most, and he looked terrified. Good. “Keep an eye on her,” I said.
“I will, boss.”
“If either Castillo puts a hand on her at all—”
The bartender nearly choked on his tongue and I didn’t have to finish my threat. “I’ll keep her safe, boss.”
I did a preliminary check-in with my pit bosses and managers, and they all said the same thing.
There had been more fights and disruptive behavior in the last week, and it seemed to be steadily getting worse.
But they couldn’t explain why. “It’s never the same type of people,” Guiseppe, the lead pit boss, said.
“Never the same age group or situation. It’s like everyone has just gone crazy. ”
I didn’t believe in coincidences. Violence happened at times; it was inevitable in a place like this. Tension coupled with alcohol and drugs, fights could break out in an instant. But I had put reliable men in place to keep things running smoothly. If they were having problems, then it was serious.
“We’ll figure it out,” I promised them. “Can someone get me the security vids for the last week? I’ll review them in my office.”
I looked toward the bar where Isabella was sipping at something obnoxiously colorful, then to where Gustavo was slamming cards down with a triumphant smirk stretched across his insipid face.
I was reminded of the saying: “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” The Castillos weren’t my friends.
Looking through the footage in my office, I agreed with Giuseppe.
There was no rhyme or reason to the disruptions.
But I did see one thing that each incident had in common.
They were all started by someone who didn’t stick around for the fight.
This confirmed my assumption that the increase in violence was deliberate.
I was reaching for my phone to call Damian when the office door swung open. I could hear the commotion even before the security guard yelled for me to come. I took the 9mm from the desk drawer and clicked off the safety.
The casino had devolved into chaos. Angel Castillo was beating a man’s head on the blackjack table.
The man’s friends were drunkenly screaming about lawsuits, and one had a barstool in his hands, though he was struggling to heave it up over his head to use it like a bat.
Angel’s eyes landed on me. “What the fuck kind of place are you running, Vitali?”
I aimed the gun in my hand upward and fired twice.
A few of the cocktail waitresses screamed, but the noise effectively put an end to the fighting.
More heads turned toward me, and a few people, red-faced and angry, blanched when they saw who had fired the gun.
Besides the unconscious man that Angel was still holding onto, there were two men on the ground.
“If you can walk without assistance, it’s time to leave,” I announced, pitching my voice loud enough that it carried through the room. “Now.”
There was a slight surge as people went for the exits.
Security slowed a few up so that there wasn’t a rush, and I let them handle getting everyone out.
Gustavo stepped over one of the men on the ground.
“Come now, Lorenzo,” he said. “I came all this way to do a little gambling, and you’re letting some chits spoil the night. ”
But my focus shifted to the bar. To where Isabella was standing, eyes wide and round. “It’ll have to be another night, Gustavo.”
The older man did not like being told no. “I come all the way from Miami to—”
“Padre,” Angel interrupted dropping the man he’d been holding as if he were trash. His hands were tacky with blood, and his suit, though black, looked wet from the spatter. “I need to go change.”
Gustavo’s lip curled. He barely glanced at his son. “Were you as an impertinent to your father as this one?”
The older man didn’t see the flash of rage on Angel’s face, but I did. There was tension between the two that I’d never witnessed before. Interesting, I thought, very interesting.
But now wasn’t a good time for any of this. “You owe me a new blackjack table.”
“Hijo de puta codicioso,” Gustavo spat at my shoes and went for the door. I would remember that insult. Angel followed after, glaring back at me. Another headache for another day, for sure.
I walked to Isabella, putting the Castillos from my mind. “Are you okay?”
Her eyes drifted to me, and although she was shaking, she nodded. In the time it took me to deal with Gustavo and his son, she’d gathered her wits. “Those men are hurt,” she said.
“I’m not worried about—”
“Is there some kind of med kit?” she asked. “I’m assuming you can’t just call 911.”
I looked at the bartender. “Get her the first aid kit.” The young man went running, and, very quickly, he came back with the white box. Isabella took it from him, and I went with her to where the two men were on the ground, groaning in pain.
Isabella checked on both of them with quiet efficiency. The first man had a clearly broken nose that she packed with gauze from the kit. “I think you have a few broken ribs, but I can’t be totally sure. You’ll need to get checked out at a hospital.”
The second man had a gash over his eyebrow and a split lip. Isabella dug out liquid stitches, and holding the edges of the gashes together, she glued his head back together. Once he had stopped bleeding, she declared him good to go, more or less.
A security guard helped the men out of the casino. I watched her put the first aid kit back together. “You’ll need to replace what I used,” she said. “Honestly, you could use a better medical set up.”
I put a hand on her shoulder. “Tell me what we need, and I’ll make sure that we have it.”
“At home too.”
“Of course.”
Isabella let out a breath. “Okay,” she said. “Okay.” She was trembling again, and I helped her off the ground.
“Come with me, dolcezza.” I got her a bottle of water from the bar and took her to my office.
I clicked the lock shut behind us. “Drink some of this for me.” I opened the water bottle and handed it to her.
She brought it to her lips and drank, almost absently, and I touched her cheek with the pad of my thumb. “Good girl.”
She whimpered and leaned into my touch. “Lorenzo,” she said plaintively.
I took the water from her lax fingers and set it down on the nearest table. “You did well tonight,” I told her and pulled her into my arms. “I hadn’t planned on needing your medical expertise, but I’m glad that you were here.”
Isabella hummed softly. “They would have been fine without me.”
“But they might not have been, and you couldn’t have known that until you looked them over.” I dipped down and kissed her. Just a peck on her sweet mouth.
“Kind of a lousy first date, though,” she said.
I kissed her again, less softly now. “It wasn’t a date.”
She put her hands flat on my chest and pushed me back, frowning when I didn’t budge. “Whatever you want to tell yourself,” she said. “Can we go home now?”
Isabella had done that several times now: referred to the estate as “home.” I didn’t care for the way warmth seeped into my chest whenever she did. “Yes,” I said. “Let’s head back to the estate.”
Her mouth twisted downward; she’d noticed what I’d said. The warmth banked and melted away again, leaving the familiar numbness that I had grown accustomed to before she’d come into my life.