The Hook: The End Game Series (Book 4) Read online

  THE HOOK © 2018 by Piper Westbrook

  THE FORGIVEN © 2018 by Piper Westbrook (excerpt)

  Cover Design: Jay Aheer

  Interior Formatting: Erik Gevers

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews and certain other noncommercial uses as permitted by copyright law. Pirating intellectual property makes angels cry.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  About This Book

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Preview THE HOOK

  Author’s Note

  Books by Piper Westbrook

  About The Author

  ABOUT THIS BOOK

  The only emotion more dangerous than her hatred is his love.

  Milo Tarantino’s heart beats with the hunger for revenge. Ripped from the elite fame of professional football when a dirty play cost him everything, he’s on a savage hunt for the man who orchestrated it all: his father. The only way to satisfy his vengeance is through Izzie Phillips, his father’s sexy gold-digging ex…and his enemy.

  A pawn between two powerful men, Izzie tries to deny them both. But resisting Milo is a dream that shatters the moment he touches her. Caught in a dangerous game, used as bait to lure criminals out of hiding, she puts her life in jeopardy for a man who betrayed her and another who’s claimed her. In the end, the blood that’s spilled might be hers.

  * * *

  The Hook is the fourth book in the End Game series. The game begins in The Penalty.

  Due to subject matter, the End Game series is recommended for readers 18 and older.

  Chapter One

  “Got some info about your father’s ex-fiancée. Izzie Phillips. A sexy little piece of ass. Keep in contact with her?”

  Emerging from the crystal tower that housed the award-winning, advanced-technology Las Vegas sports physical therapy clinic that had for the past two years served as his haven, Milo Tarantino had detected someone following him.

  A male in heavy-soled footwear. Combat boots, maybe. Carried the odor of car freshener—generic “new car” scent.

  Photographer? Reporter? A genuine threat? Prepared to defend himself against all three, Milo had kept walking.

  Tonight’s rehabilitation evaluation and endurance-centered training session had reset his limits, but the violent adrenaline rush had only sharpened his awareness. Pace slow, senses alert, he’d crossed casually to the parking lot with his duffel bag hooked over one shoulder and his fists hungry for permission to act.

  But the name Izzie Phillips had caught him off guard, forced him to engage. Press preyed on him to feed their questions about his father, Luca Tarantino, a prominent member of the one percent who’d fallen from grace and was as of two weeks ago MIA, but this was the first time anyone had used Luca’s ex-fiancée as a tactic. “There’re two ways we can end this game,” he advised when his tracker remained camouflaged in the shadows offered by the lazy February sunset. “You back off, or I make you back off.”

  “Wouldn’t mind the challenge, ’cept the .38 wound in my shoulder burns like a motherfucker.” A man stepped into the beam of a floodlight.

  Shady. No question about it. But instinct told Milo to tread on—carefully. “You a fed? Military?”

  “A jack of a few decent trades. A problem-solver, really. I don’t have a badge or nice, neat paperwork. But I’m as legit as they come. Name’s Remy.”

  “Want to find Izzie? Try looking behind a few whiskey sours or at the end of any geriatric millionaire’s cock.” Venomous words, but they didn’t spare him the images of Izzie that sexy little piece evoked.

  ’Cause, fuck, she was sexy. The fact tortured him every second of every day he’d shared space with her in the Tarantinos’ Lake Las Vegas mansion. She had a secretive smirk, a midnight-radio voice, and tits that could distract even a man whose life now consisted of used-to-be’s and could’ve-been’s.

  Struggling with the aftereffects of an injury that had cost him his NFL career—professionals called it post-traumatic stress, he called it hell—he’d used animosity and hostility to fight all the ways she enticed him. And he’d fixated on protecting his family’s interests from her, a serial gold-digger who’d worn deceit like a favorite dress, who’d used herself as a commodity, who’d held every intention of becoming his father’s fourth wife.

  “About Izzie.” Remy’s accent and features suggested Middle Eastern descent. He unzipped his jacket to drag a thick envelope from an interior pocket. Pain distorted his expression. Nestled in a holster was a Glock. “She’s not in Las Vegas.”

  “She’s gone?”

  Just like his father. Luca Tarantino had been missing for fifteen days, escaping federal charges and an NFL investigation of misconduct during his reign as owner of the city’s professional football franchise, the Las Vegas Villains. He’d vanished as though he were a ribbon of smoke uncurling into the air of a crowded club.

  What did it mean that Izzie, who’d lost access to certain connections and protections when his father had ended their engagement months ago, was now missing?

  “Concerned about her?”

  “A woman disappearing in this city’s a damn good cause for concern, don’t you think?”

  Remy remained silent, reactionless.

  “She’s an ex-congressman’s kid. Why isn’t her family all over national news?”

  “Let’s say Mommy and Daddy are ‘no comment’ when it comes to their only offspring. The elite Phillipses of Illinois don’t invite that one home for Sunday dinners. Besides, I know where she is.”

  “Where?”

  “She booked a flight out of McCarran International last week. If she’s downing whiskey or searching for a new sugar daddy, she’s doing it on the Seychelles.”

  “She left the country?”

  “She got scoped, same as everybody else the feds singled out for a closer look. They figure her hands are clean enough for her to travel. But I’m getting this feeling that when Luca comes up for air, he’ll go straight to her.”

  “He treated her like shit. Dumped her.”

  “Money can make even the angriest pussy forgiving. With Tarantino money, Izzie might be very forgiving.”

  She deserves better than that.

  Not that Milo could identify better or had any right to decide what his father’s ex did or didn’t deserve, but when it came to being used and dropped, he and Izzie Phillips shared a few scars.

  There was a vulnerability about her that common sense warned him to resist. Still, the grand Tarantino mansion had made for close quarters, and yeah, there’d been moments when common sense had left him hanging.

  A moment when he’d walke
d in on her fixing gourmet s’mores in the middle of the night, and she’d offered him a timid smile and a s’more before running off to her quarters. A moment when he’d caught her daydreaming at a gala and for a split second figured it hadn’t mattered to him whether she was bored or designing her next scheme—she was so goddamn beautiful. A moment when he’d found her shuddering with tears in her eyes and he’d wanted to break his father’s fucking jaw for wrecking her.

  He’d tasted her once, in a moment of rage, dominating her in ways no other man could.

  She’d tempted him to cross lines that shouldn’t be crossed. She was out of his reach now, and he couldn’t let himself miss her temptation enough to change that.

  “How’d you get her whereabouts?”

  “Intel,” Remy replied, tucking the envelope under an arm and awkwardly lighting a cigarette. “My contacts can report back to me anything from the VIN number of the convertible she rented on Cora Island to what she packed in her fancy purple luggage.”

  “Convertible? Purple luggage?”

  “Collecting details is just part of my job.” Remy exhaled a stream of smoke from the shadows before pitching the cigarette to the ground and snuffing it under a boot. “Quitting. It’s a process.”

  “So that’s all you have? Izzie’s on the Seychelles?”

  “Those are the highlights. There’s more—a hell of a lot more—in this file. But first, why don’t you tell me how she got herself set up on some island, in a villa that has a six-month reservation waitlist?”

  Six months ago, it’d been August. Luca had broken up with Izzie in August. Chances were he hadn’t given her some island getaway as a parting gift, so the villa must’ve been booked while things were still good between them, when he might’ve given a shit about impressing her.

  Realization dawned. It was February. Almost Valentine’s Day, one of many holidays that hadn’t mattered to him since his girlfriend had traded him for a rookie New England Patriot.

  Vaguely he recalled Izzie bragging to the sugarbaby socialites she’d run with in Las Vegas that her fiancé had given her carte blanche to plan a Valentine’s vacation.

  He’d assumed everything between them had ended with their engagement.

  “I remember her planning a trip,” he told Remy. “My father ate the cost.”

  “A honeymoon?”

  “Naw—she had ideas about taking a cruise around the world. The island could’ve been for a number of reasons. Could’ve been something my father threw out there to distract her.”

  “Damn expensive distraction. Is that why Luca dropped her? Upkeep not worth it?”

  “Might be part of it.” A bigger part probably had more to do with his father’s compulsion to screw over the people he said he cared about.

  But Milo hadn’t wanted to dwell on that negativity. Tonight he thought he could concentrate on rehab, on his quiet mission to regain control of the career he’d lost when an illegal hard tackle had knocked him off the Arizona Cardinals’ roster and had forced him into early retirement. Chasing a comeback that the more pessimistic of his doctors and athletic trainers insisted would be a miracle that’d defy the laws of science or would be the false hope that might get him onto the field but would likely lead to paralysis, he thought he’d get a reprieve from federal investigators, blood-lusting media, his own urge to hunt Luca and drag him home to justice that’d be neither clean nor forgiving.

  For the umpteenth time since he’d been introduced to the phrase incomplete spinal cord injury, he cursed the tackle that had turned him into a walking dead man.

  A Las Vegas Villains defensive lineman had targeted him two seasons ago, taking him out of the game with an illegal hit—a hit ordered by the man who’d owned the team then.

  Luca Tarantino.

  It had been a bounty, a call his father had made to fix the game and manipulate a gambling ring.

  While Luca was running from the repercussions of his crimes, Milo was left to pick up every microscopic piece of his shattered life.

  He’d lost more than his place on the Cardinals’ roster and in the NFL. He’d become a prisoner to rehab and revenge, and fear sometimes suggested he was so psychologically jarred that he’d never recover.

  “Izzie Phillips is the means,” Remy said rationally, “but finding Luca Tarantino is the end.”

  “Alive. I want him found alive.”

  “Of course.” A flash of white teeth shone in the shadows. “I’d rather see a mouse crawl in its cage than crush its neck in a trap.”

  Milo frowned. “No results, no cash.”

  “Consider this a good deed. Pro bono.”

  “What’s your stake in it?”

  “Bringing Luca in will look nice on my record. My record needs, uh, redemption, you could say.”

  “Remy—what’s your full name?”

  “Just Remy is all you need to know.”

  “Yeah? I don’t trust you.”

  “Trust is more hassle than it’s worth. Who can anyone trust? Family? Your father sold you out for some sports bets—can you trust him?”

  Milo would always love his father. It was a deathbed promise he’d made to his mother. He still honored him, because the “dutiful son” part of him wouldn’t die. But he’d never trust the man again. It stung like a bitch that this was reality.

  “Or your godfather, Antony Grimaldi?” Remy persisted. “Can you trust him?”

  Antony ran one of the most exclusive casinos in the country, was Luca’s oldest friend, and was facing convictions for his alleged facilitation of the gambling ring. “What do you know about Antony?”

  “The security at his casino is lax. Grimaldi’s cameras have blind spots, his boys have slow reflexes, and the system’s firewalls are laughable.”

  “You’ve been getting acquainted with his security systems?”

  “Research.”

  “How do I know you’re not one of Grimaldi’s boys?”

  “Huh—guess you don’t. But think about this. Antony Grimaldi’s playing with a trick deck. He’s got the brains and the balls to rig his casino with shitty security. That’s strategy. He’s smart. He’s a liar. And I can guaran-damn-tee his next step is recommending a PI to find Luca. Just to prove he’s one of the good guys.”

  Antony was a skilled betrayer. That wasn’t news to Milo. But he didn’t trust Remy any more than he trusted his godfather.

  Remy shrugged a shoulder. “Let’s talk about your brother. More specifically, his blonde bedmate, Waverly Greer. She’s more involved in your troubles than you probably think.”

  Wasn’t it friggin’ funny how the name Greer kept resurfacing as his world splintered to pieces?

  When Luca had invented claims that Waverly’s father, J.T. Greer, had coerced Luca to sell the Las Vegas Villains franchise to him over a year ago, Milo had reacted with vengeance. He’d been the heir-apparent, next in line to own the team. The Greers were building a dynasty from his legacy. And he’d single-mindedly wanted to destroy it.

  That was before the truth had come down cold and sharp as a guillotine’s blade.

  “Waverly’s got a friend in DEA. Meg Reyes,” Remy said. “She followed a few breadcrumbs, found out your father had made some suspect moves. Which led to the dirt she’s got on your godfather. Did you know that?”

  “No.” He’d known that the feds were hunting. He hadn’t known that the woman his brother was currently fucking had a friend leading the hunt.

  “Antony Grimaldi knows.” Remy turned the envelope in his hands. “Want to get to Izzie Phillips? Want this file to make it easier? Agree to do what’s necessary to draw out Luca, then deliver him to me. I’ll turn him over to the feds—alive and unharmed.”

  Milo gestured for the envelope, but Remy hesitated with, “How do I know you’re not going to renege, Tarantino?”

  “Guess you don’t. Give me the file.”

  ***

  On nights like tonight, when he could
n’t shake off the shadows, Milo stayed awake straight through, idly praying for the kind of exhaustion that’d force him to surrender to sleep.

  With a file dedicated to Izzie Phillips along with a contact number for Remy in his possession, and a mood blacker than the paint on his truck, he got behind the wheel and figured if he couldn’t escape the shadows, he’d confront them.

  Not yet through with the city, Milo rejected the impulse to storm his father’s Lake Las Vegas estate. Eventually he might. For a while the place had been home, even if crowded with household staff and Luca’s trophy fiancée. But with most of the staff, the trophy, and the Tarantinos gone, no one occupied the multimillion-dollar mansion besides the head housekeeper whose unbending loyalty to a betrayer of a man wouldn’t set her free.

  Night traffic slowed his speed, kept him on the road longer than he liked. More tourists, he figured, and it for damn certain had to do with the city being high on back-to-back sports victories, Its homegrown pro boxer had recently beaten a Czech Republic challenger to retire undefeated, and its scandal-drenched Villains were now Super Bowl champs.

  Stress coated his nerves so thickly and tautened his muscles so violently that he was glad to hand off the truck to a Grimaldi Casino valet and start walking again before the pain could start.

  The cash in his gold clip he wouldn’t miss, and he had access to more. His mind needed peace, his body needed satisfaction. But he hadn’t come to his godfather’s top tier casino, with its Art Deco influence and its whores who were expertly skilled in tempting the clientele past their inhibitions and gambling limits, to play.

  No high-stakes games. No high-class hookups.

  So he declined tossing back imported hard liquor in the Grimaldi’s Mahogany Lounge, passed up a complimentary hotel suite, said no to the dining indulgences and other anything-for-you favors the woman who’d appointed herself his private concierge had suggested to make tonight an unforgettable experience. Unfortunately, he didn’t think he’d ever experience pleasure the way he had with Tabitha.

  With Tabitha, he’d been whole. He might get back into his jersey and celebrate a miraculous comeback, but he’d never be whole again.