16. Zeno
CHAPTER 16
ZENO
A blaring ringtone shatters my eardrums at some ungodly hour of the morning. For a second, I have no idea where I am or why I’m there. Then Lily shifts next to me on the bed, her soft hair tickling my bare chest and a smile tugs at my lips.
It all rushes back, our sweaty, naked bodies writhing against each other, my hands roaming every inch of her body, her voice screaming my name…
Hands down, the hottest sex ever.
My cock jerks when I think about my hand slapping her ass, how she loved it, and how I made her pussy quiver and quake at the pure shock of it all.
And then my phone rings again.
I reach out for it, trying hard not to disturb Lily. My fingers dance around on the table and I lunge a little too far, falling off the bed with a loud oof !
Lily giggles from up on the bed. “Did you just fall out of the bed?” she asks in a sleepy voice.
“Yeah,” I snicker, rubbing my ass. Good thing it cushioned the fall for me. “Glad I didn’t scare you or anything. And I’m okay, by the way. Not that you asked, but just wanted you to know.”
“Good,” she mumbles. “So long as you’re in good shape to fuck me again.”
It would take a hell of a lot more than a little tumble to incapacitate me if her body is the incentive.
I grab the phone and stab the Accept button. “Yeah?” I mutter, running a hand through my hair.
“Zeno, it’s me,” Aldo says. “We’ve got a problem. Sergio is still MIA and so is Bruno.”
And just like that, the avalanche crushes me.
Sergio. Salesi. Messina’s son. The hit I did for Lily.
All of my occupational toxins consume me and my salacious highlight reel. I connected all the dots last night and I didn’t like the picture at all. I needed Lily’s body plastered against mine to keep the truth from swallowing me whole.
Sergio is gonna hit the roof when he finds out about everything…the hackers, the shooters, me finding my way back to Lily…
That is, when I can find him.
And now Bruno’s pulled a disappearing act, too?
What the hell is going on over there?
I scroll through my messages and I see nothing from Sergio or Bruno.
“Dammit,” I mutter. “When was the last time you spoke to Bruno?”
“We went out for a few drinks once we got back. I left him at the club with a few women hanging on him so I assumed he went to his place with them. But he hasn’t been answering his phone or the door, and I don’t have a key to get into his apartment. And since I wasn’t sure what kind of kinky shit he had going on, I didn’t think he’d appreciate security barging in, ya know?”
I scrub a hand down the front of my face. Bruno is probably still passed out and will eventually surface. But Sergio has no idea what kind of hell fire is about to rain down on all of us or why. I mean, he assumes it’s because of me and for that, he’s right. But he needs to hear the why.
Fuck, I’d really like to wring Salesi’s neck right now for shoving me into this rabbit hole. Like I needed any help getting sucked deeper into the murk.
Salesi’s got a son. Why the hell didn’t he make the hit? I do a good enough job of screwing things up without anyone else’s help.
“We need to find them both. Lemme make a call, okay? Hang tight.” I take a deep breath before dialing the number of the one person who might actually have a clue where Sergio is.
I hate like hell to have to ask, but we’re running low on time.
And much as I don’t want to admit it, I need my cousin right now.
Maybe if he hears we were duped, he won’t be as pissed off at me.
That’ll be a nice change.
I stab a number into my phone and after a few rings, a sultry voice answers. “Zeno,” Rayleigh says. She must have programmed it into her phone with the hope that one day I’d actually call to tell her what she wants to hear. “Did you change your mind? Because you’re a little too late, sweetie. And I got tired of waiting for you to come around.”
I furrow my brow. “Listen, Rayleigh. I’m calling about Sergio. Have you seen him? He hasn’t been answering his phone and I just want to know if?—”
“According to his calendar, Sergio has been very occupied over the past few hours in meetings,” she purrs. “But I’d think you might be more interested in where your friend Bruno is right now. You should have kept a tighter leash on him last night,” she says with a breathless giggle.
A loud crash in the background makes me jump. “Rayleigh, where the hell are you?”
She lets out a throaty laugh and I strain my ears. There is muffled yelling coming from wherever she is, and I press my hand to my forehead.
What in the fuck is going on?
“Tell me where you are,” I say again, this time in a more threatening voice.
It only makes her laugh harder.
“I’m having too much fun to end our little game, Zeno. Tsk-tsk, if you’d have played your cards right, it could have been your dick in my mouth.”
“Rayleigh!” I shout. “Where the fuck?—?”
“Bye-bye,” she sing-songs and the line goes dead.
Jesus good Christ.
Not only do I have to duck a slew of vengeful killers, but now I have to deal with a sociopathic concierge to boot.
I have to say though, score one for me not nailing that sicko bitch.
At this point, I’ll take any wins I can get.
I tiptoe out of the bedroom since Lily has dozed off again and I dial Aldo’s number.
He answers almost immediately. “Did you get any information? Who’d you call?”
“Listen, you know Rayleigh, the head concierge?”
“Yeah…”
“Well, I just called her and she said Sergio has been in meetings.”
“Okay. What should we do about Bruno?”
“That’s the thing.” I grit my teeth. “I think she’s got Bruno shacked up somewhere.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“She made a comment about how I should be more focused on where Bruno is, that I should have kept watch over him last night, and then I heard a loud crash when we were on the phone. Sounded like he might be trying to fight against something,” I say, lightly pounding on the wall with my fist. “She wouldn’t tell me where they are. I know she’s probably pissed off at me for last night, but?—”
“What’d you do last night?”
“I may have said some not-so-nice stuff to her…” My voice trails off. “But that doesn’t matter now. Dammit, Aldo, we need to find him. I don’t know what the hell she’s got up her sleeve but it can’t be good. I’m going to get in touch with hotel security to see if they have any camera footage that can lead us to him.”
I end the call and dial one more number.
Mike DeLuca, our head of security surveillance.
If anyone can get eyes on Sergio, it’s him.
“Mike,” I say when his deep voice comes on the line. “Bruno is MIA right now and I need you to tell me where he was last seen.” I pull my phone away from my ear to check the time since I didn’t bother when Aldo called the first time.
“Okay,” he responds. “Let me pull up the feeds. Did you hear from him last night? Did he say anything to you about where he was going?”
I rub the back of my neck. “He hit one of the clubs with Aldo. They left separately, though.”
I can hear Mike’s keyboard clacking in the background. “I have him coming out of the club to the casino floor around one o’clock.” He pauses. “He’s heading over to the lobby bar, talking to one of the bouncers.” A short pause follows. “He walks around for about an hour, stops into the restaurant for a little while. I lose him for about twenty minutes until he comes back out.”
“Wait, why did you lose him?” The hairs on the back of my neck prickle.
“No surveillance in the restaurant.”
I furrow my brow. “Really?”
“Yeah, those feeds are all off-line. Never connected to the main system.”
Maybe the Marcone family made sure that Tommy’s restaurant was off limits because of the kind of business conducted there. I’d ask Bruno that very question if I could fucking find him!
“Here we go,” Mike murmurs. “He’s back, headed toward the lobby again.”
I shift my weight, leaning back against the wall. “Anything look off, Mike?”
“No,” he says slowly. “Wait, someone’s coming toward him.”
“Who?” My spine stiffens.
“It looks like…Rayleigh from concierge.”
Bingo.
“Okay, good work, Mike. Now tell me where they went.”
“Give me a second and I’ll give you the play by play.” He taps the keys and lets out a low whistle.
I scrub a hand down the front of my face, the knot in my stomach tightening.
“She’s getting in close, whispering something to him.” Mike says. “He pulls away from her, but she tries again.” He lets out a low whistle. “I don’t know what she said to him, but he’s pulling her toward the elevator leading up to the residences.”
“The elevator?” I say. “So they never left the hotel?”
“Lemme check the rest of the feeds.” I hear another rapid clacking and it feels like the seconds stretch into years.
“Nope, they never left. In fact, Bruno never showed up on the floor after that.”
“What about Rayleigh?” My voice rises in alarm.
“Looks like she’s leaving the hotel right now.”
“Okay, do me a favor and get me an address on her. I’ll call you back.”
Click.
I dial Aldo. “I need you to get upstairs to Bruno’s apartment. According to the security footage, that’s where he is right now.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m on my way to pick you up.”
I let out a frustrated sigh. I can’t ask anyone else to go up there. I’m the only one with a master key besides Mike, and if shit really did get crazy with Rayleigh last night, Bruno’s not gonna be happy about hotel security knocking down his door.
Just like Aldo said earlier.
“I’ll be there in about ten minutes. Then we can swing by Bang for Bruno’s car. I’ll get the hotel car later,” he says.
“Okay,” I grunt. “I’ll be downstairs waiting.” I click to end the call, resisting the urge to scream and hurl the phone at the opposite wall.
My brain hurts from trying to process all of the events of the past twelve hours.
It only wants to replay a few of them, the ones that do make my head explode.
Just not the head on my shoulders.
“What’s downstairs?” a female voice asks.
I jump and twist around to see Chloe standing a few feet away from me. Her eyes are wide, her face pale and free of makeup. “I remember what happened last night,” she says, wringing her hands together. “Is everything okay?”
I hesitate for a split second and then nod. Psycho hackers, longtime enemies looking for revenge, a club shootout, and a raging bitch desperate to sink her claws into the family jewels.
Yeah, sounds pretty typical to me.
Cue the sarcasm.
“It will be,” I finally say with absolutely no conviction. “How are you feeling?”
She manages a weak smile. “Well, if you’d have asked me that a couple of hours ago, my response would be very different. But now that last night is officially out of my system, I’m…better.” Chloe bites down on her lower lip. “But what about you guys? I know I was out of it, but I still heard everything. Those shooters at the club, who were they? Who were they after? Are they still after…whoever?”
I let out a deep sigh. “Still trying to figure that out.”
She nods. “I overheard you on the phone. Are you leaving?”
“Yeah,” I mutter. “Gotta get back to my hotel.”
“Wait, you’re leaving?” Lily asks from behind me.
I twist around to see her stricken face. “I have to find Bruno. He might be in trouble.”
“But what about…” she hesitates. “I mean, we still have things to do, right? Together?”
“Things?” Chloe echoes. “Can one of you please tell me what the hell is happening here? I mean, I’m too panicked to even step out of my apartment right now!”
“You can’t leave us,” Lily says, folding her arms over her chest.
“It’s safer for you here. I can get a team together to?—”
“No.”
I blink fast. “No?”
A tight smile stretches her lips. “That’s right. You might like to be in control inside of the bedroom, but out here, you’ve got nothing,” she hisses.
My jaw drops.
“If you leave, we all leave.” She lifts an eyebrow, her gaze never moving from mine. “Chloe, get dressed.”
I hear retreating footsteps as Chloe darts into her room for a wardrobe change.
“Do you really think it’s smart for you to be running around Vegas right now? If your theory is right, you could be in the line of fire just by being with me.”
“For the record, it’s a risk I’m willing to take in order to end all of this.” She pauses. “Besides, if I’m right, wouldn’t it be smarter to lure those assholes out of their hiding spots so we can take them out before they can do worse to us?”
I press my fingertips to my temples. Her vigilantism is sexy as hell, but even more dangerous. “The fact that you’re asking me that question proves you have no idea what you’re up against. These aren’t the type of people you can overtake with a knee to the balls, Lil. These are the kind of people who will overtake you with a knife to the back of the skull.”
Her eyes cloud over, storms rolling into the depths. “Don’t you understand, Zeno?” she asks. “If what I said last night is true, if this really has something to do with me, then I can’t cower and hide. I won’t let them win!”
“Listen, you have to be smart about this,” I say, running a finger down the side of her arm. “If you walk into a trap, it’s over. And I can’t let that happen. Because then I lose, too.”
She takes in a sharp breath. My lips curl upward as I pull her close, breathing in the faded perfumed scent of her skin. I skim her lips with my tongue and she melts into me.
“No,” she moans. “You can’t get me to change my mind with your sex-god powers.”
“Sex god, huh?” I waggle my eyebrows at her. “That’s nice to hear.”
”It was nice to experience, too,” she quips.
We snicker and I pull her into my arms, leaning my head on top of hers. “So we’re agreed. You guys are gonna sit tight while I figure out what the hell is going on.”
Lily tightens her arms around me, letting out a contented sigh. “Nope. But nice try.”
I back away. “Lil, come on?—”
She shakes her head. “Sorry, Zeno. If you play, I play. And I’m not in this to lose.”
“You’re too stubborn for your own good.”
“And yet I let you spank me…” Her eyes twinkle with a mischievous glint. “Think of it this way. The sooner we take care of these bastards, the faster you can put me over your knee again for being insolent. You can punish me all you want.”
I rub the back of my neck. The knot at the base of my skull is so damn tight, I can barely move my head, but my cock jumps at the thought of my hand on her ass.
“I’m ready!” Chloe calls out. “And I packed some bleach, a butcher knife, and my tennis racket.” She tosses Lily some clothes. “So you don’t have to run around Vegas looking like you’re doing the walk of shame.”
I shake my head and let out a deep sigh. “Okay, I get almost everything in your little survival bag, but I’m drawing a blank on the bleach. Are we gonna disinfect them to death?”
Chloe’s shrugs. “It’s a spray bottle and I use it to kill big bugs. I figured if anyone gets too close, I could spray them in the eye or mouth. That would fuck them up, right?”
I throw my hands in the air. “Why the hell not?” I mutter.
Lily darts back into the bedroom and reappears a minute later wearing a Victoria’s Secret Pink sweatsuit and flip flops.
My phone buzzes and I stare at the screen, hoping Sergio is out of his meetings and is texting me with some choice expletives about my vigilante quest last night.
It’s not.
It’s Aldo letting me know he’s downstairs.
I look at Lily and then at Chloe. “Are you ready?”
They exchange a look and nod.
This is a bad idea, but I don’t have a better one. I’m not one for religion, but I say a quick prayer that we make it back to the hotel without having to break out Chloe’s bleach spray bottle.
Because if we do, that would mean everything has gone to hell, and to be clear, we’re definitely on the threshold right now.