Chapter 17
there’s nothing left
brOOKLYN
Five hours.
Ten Delucas.
A waist that was now about three inches deeper.
And one grueling headache later, and we were finally in Las Vegas. More specifically, the resort that EJ Gray put the family up in.
Flying Air Deluca had been a dream, and I wasn’t ungrateful for the experience, but there were only so many loud Italian Americans a girl could take in one confined space for a lengthy period of time.
And it hadn’t even been all of them. Vito and Lisa Marie had taken Elio on Vito’s private jet—Air Vito.
They had already flown out, choosing to leave the day before.
Just to get away from it all, I had locked myself in the bathroom for as long as possible, taking my overnight bag with me so I could measure my waist on the plane.
I had officially popped and had a small, but noticeable, baby bump.
To think it took me a little over the first trimester to show was surprising to me, even though my doctor had basically warned me that’d be the case given my height.
That had been the only good thing to come out of that flight.
Marco had slept the entire time we were in the air, and since we had disembarked, he had been involved in some intense conversation with Carmine and Lorenzo.
Honestly, I was grateful because it gave me a chance to escape while they all headed to the penthouse. I happened to know that EJ’s meeting with Santo wasn’t until later in the day, which was why I had every intention of paying him a visit first.
There was almost no way EJ wasn’t still living here with the long-term extended stay the resort allowed for.
The only caveat was that he had to vacate the premises for a brief period of time for some legal reason about permanent residency.
It had been what he happily did when I had spent time with him, and it was probably something he would continue to do.
If I gave it any thought, I would have said it likely had to do with the idea that he didn’t like to feel tethered to any one place or person.
I knocked on the door and, out of habit, went to fix the purse on my shoulder that wasn’t there. I had come with nothing more than my phone in my pocket. Honestly, it made me feel a bit strange.
Loud noise echoed from behind the doors before one swung open, the potent smell of rich tobacco permeating my nose.
I could almost feel the intoxication hitting my lungs and filling them.
I was no stranger to secondhand smoking, especially having been in EJ’s company.
Plus, there was that brief stint when my father had an annual VIP pass to a cigar lounge.
It had become habitual, French cigars being his preference.
It was only after my mother had insisted the smell was an atrocity she would not allow that he had invested in patches.
“Oh, hello. I was looking for EJ Gray. I assumed he would be here, but apparently, I was wrong.” I tried to peek my head around the stranger’s broad shoulders and muscular body to see if I could find EJ lurking in the background. Unfortunately, I came up empty-handed.
Holding his cigar out to the side and the door open with his other hand, he gave me a clever smirk. One that might have worked on some women, but it merely made my skin crawl. “EJ, this one’s for you,” he finally responded, not fully acknowledging me. It figured he was one of EJ’s friends.
“Who is it?” EJ’s smooth voice filled the air, his question about one of the only smart things I’d ever heard come from him.
He tilted his head, like he was trying to figure me out but wasn’t sure what I was doing here without boxes of cookies in my hand if I was part of a scout troop.
“A prostitute. A pregnant one, actually. I didn’t know that was a thing.
” Wow, okay, that wasn’t what I had expected.
Also, rude. And here I thought my baby bump was barely noticeable.
Honestly, I was going to attribute it to a small brain.
He seemed to have been burning cells up there just trying to figure it out when he could have just asked me.
Although that would’ve been too hard, seeing as it wouldn’t have given him the opportunity to feel like he was superior to me.
“What are you babbling on about, Stone?” EJ asked, looking directly at…
Stone, apparently, as he walked over, probably to see for himself.
His eyes made a hard landing on me. “What sin did I commit for you to be darkening my doorstep like this?” He nudged his chin for Stone to get lost while we talked and grabbed the top of his door, his arm extending as he rested his hand there.
His other hand was busy tapping out the stub of his cigar.
Fantastic, so it appeared I didn’t interrupt anything important.
What was it with men sitting around smoking cigars in broad daylight on a workday?
I wondered how EJ made any money at all, never mind the fact that he was a millionaire multiple times over again.
His bank account had more zeros than I would have ever known what to do with.
Truthfully, it still was lacking when compared to the Delucas’ money, but it was better than the Briggs’, which was pathetic.
“Not sure. You’ve committed a lot of them, but I’m here because we need to talk. ”
He smirked. “I thought we already did that.”
“Can I come in?” I asked but only to be polite. I planned on encroaching on his time and place regardless of his answer.
“No.”
Figured as much. Twirling the bottom edge of my hair around my fingers, I shut my eyes briefly. When I opened them again, I mustered a phony smile. “Put that thing out. I’m pregnant.” Inconsiderate.
His aloof eyes found mine over the cigar as he inhaled more smoke only to turn his head to peer over his shoulder and exhale.
“If you don’t like it, feel free to leave the same way you came in.
” Wisps of smoke fell from his mouth before he blew all of it out at once toward the floor.
Tensing his jaw, he returned his attention toward me.
“Interesting to me how you can be so cruel to someone who holds your father’s fate in their hands.” By the end of my subtle threat, I placed a hand on my hip.
“After this, we’re done, and you can’t use that ever again. Do you understand me?” A chill ran through the air at his demanding tone.
Narrowing my eyes, I shrugged. “What I’m hearing is that I can come in.”
“Do whatever you want. You always did.”
“Thank you.” He inched the cigar closer to his mouth. “I’ll be taking this.” I snagged it from him, knowing I would find an ashtray inside the penthouse I would use to put it out.
As I walked, I took the space in. It was just as I remembered it. The carpet wasn’t plush, but it was striped. The walls decorated mostly with framed professional photographs or paintings of the resort and casino, along with the occasional 3D wall art, usually made from metal.
Stone was playing pool by himself, but stopped when we walked in, and just as I had suspected, there was an ashtray on the side of the table. “Prostitute?”
His word came from his mouth as a question, but my answer was strictly a statement. Factual, if I did say so myself. “Asshole.” For good measure, I added a sweet, disingenuous smile. Then I switched tactics, giving him a placid expression as I motioned for him to put out his cigar.
While he turned to EJ because he undoubtedly had a small dick to match his small brain, I meandered over to the pool table to discard EJ’s cigar.
“Just get the hell out of here.” I didn’t need to turn around to know that he was certainly talking to Stone, not me. He was more intelligent than that. At least, I hoped he was. For his sake.
“We were discussing business,” Stone retorted, a distinct annoyance in his tone.
Nonplussed, EJ waved a hand in the air, dismissing him. “I have other business to tend to at the moment, so get the fuck out.”
With my hands free, I turned around, watching Stone narrow his eyes and point the cigar at EJ’s mug as he slowly walked backward to the door. “You’re a bastard, EJ.”
Shaking his head, EJ waited until the door closed to open the floor to me. “Make it quick. I have a meeting with your father-in-law soon, but you already know that.” He leaned against the pool table.
“I want to make sure the plan was clear over the phone.” Finding a red leather barstool, I sat. I’d stood enough and, lately, was losing the stamina to do it for longer.
He crossed his arms, his brown leather jacket wrinkling in parts. “If I say no?” he pushed, always trying to keep the top position. In this case, it wasn’t possible, though.
I heaved a sigh. “Don’t make me be the evil one.”
A cocky grin spread across his lips. “You’re doing that all by yourself.”
Arching a brow, I searched his eyes. I wasn’t sure what he wasn’t understanding, but he didn’t have a say in the matter.
“I will rain a storm down on you that you don’t know what to do with.
” I knew I had leverage with that thumb drive, but how much?
EJ wasn’t completely trustworthy. In fact, I wouldn’t have put it past him to try to slither his way out of this one like the poisonous snake he was.
“Are we done here?” He leaned back, and his hand came down on a ball sitting on the table. He swiveled his upper body and shot it in the nearby pocket with his finger. Even a slight nuisance like that he felt the need to discard.
“Not by a long shot.” I got up and pursed my lips, closing the gap between us slightly as I tried to make my position clear.
Averting my gaze, he exhaled. “What more could you possibly want?” He sounded just as he looked—bored.
The truth was, I had a feeling, unless I was a cigar or prostitute like his moronic buddy had assumed, he wouldn’t have been enthralled.
“Your word that his money isn’t good here.
That you don’t need him to invest, after all.
” It was one thing to force him into agreeing over the phone, and an entirely different thing to do it in person.
I knew it would give me more peace of mind.
However much I could have when dealing with someone who played dirty on a daily basis.
“Whatever you say.”
I clapped my hands together like I was brushing them off. What I was doing was washing my hands of this actually. “Then I suppose there’s nothing left.” I nodded, pleased with the way this went for the most part.
He turned his attention forward, his dark, soulless eyes meeting mine. “Well, let’s not make a habit of this. If I never see your face again, it’ll be too soon.”
I rolled my eyes. “The feeling is mutual,” I responded, turning on my heel and making moves to leave. I had said everything I needed to say, so I saw no reason to stay any longer.
“Although—”
I stopped dead in my tracks.
“—I did have one more thing to tell you.”
I could hear the confidence in his tone, the zippers on his jacket as he got closer.
Swallowing, I slowly turned around to him, my expression stoic. “What?”
A sly grin played at the corner of his mouth. “Congratulations on the bun in the oven.” His eyes never moved from mine, though. Never shifted lower.
“Thanks,” I said cautiously, daring him to blink, which he hadn’t done in an alarmingly lengthy period of time.
He tsked, and a shiver ran down my spine, tingles forming at my fingertips. “It’s odd how news of your relationship with Marco only came out recently. I brushed up on a few things before this little impromptu visit from you. It turns out the two of you have been mighty good at dodging the press.”
I understood what he was getting at, but I wasn’t going to let him frighten me.
He had no assurance as to what he was talking about.
Without confirmation, he really had nothing.
If he thought he was getting any from me, he was acting imprudently.
I wasn’t giving him shit. “What can I say? We got lucky.”
“I doubt that.”
His icy voice landed in my chest, and I feared hypothermia if I continued listening to him and his threats that held no weight.
“Yes, well, that’s a personal problem. After this, we’re done, EJ.
You have my word.” I didn’t need to give him any more of a reason to poke around in my business and cause trouble for me.
“I can assure you the same. We’re done.” He gave me his back as he left me standing there, probably assuming I would show myself out.
Which I did. Happily. There was no other way to feel. I was getting exactly what I had asked for, and soon, Santo would be getting exactly what he deserved.