The Hook Page 9

  He didn’t always go for warm beer, but Milo couldn’t refuse the sweet gesture. She did that a lot—shared. She was self-serving, had an on-again/off-again relationship with honesty, but she shared what she had. Her generosity was as hot as anything about her.

  Passing the beer back, he said, “Let’s give that no-lying thing another try. Tell me…why do you have nothing on underneath this sweater?”

  Izzie’s gaze landed on him like an openhanded slap. “I—”

  “Okay, let’s clear up something. Before you get the urge to say you’ve got on a bra or whatever.” With both hands free, and his decent judgment running on empty, he tucked them under the bottom of the sweater and slid them up her sweat-dampened abdomen to cup her tits. “I wasn’t asking if you were naked under this,” he said, scraping his thumbs across her stiff nipples. “I was asking why.”

  “I—I—” She made an ineffective one-handed attempt to slow him down. “I was going to work on a tan. An all-over tan.”

  Get to it, he almost said. Show me.

  “Milo, what’d you think was going to happen when you found me here?”

  “You’d hear me out, pack up your purple luggage, and go back to Vegas with me.”

  She stumbled backward, yanking down her sweater. “Who said I have purple luggage?”

  Shit, he wasn’t going to admit to hanging on to a file devoted to her secrets. “It’s a guess. Your Frisbee’s purple.”

  Izzie nodded slightly. “Okay. Good luck with the whole Luca situation.”

  She was distancing herself. He didn’t like it but had to let it happen. “Call me if—”

  “Definitely. And you have my number?”

  “Memorized.”

  “Better be.” Her smile seemed forced. “Go. I have a workout to finish, a possible concussion, and who knows what else?”

  “Concussion? Without a possible concussion you forgot to activate the security system on this place. What are you going to do with your bell rung?”

  “Wait. I activated the system last night. I told you I disabled it for the terrace entry only, for your benefit.”

  “I left through the front door.”

  Izzie frowned again, glanced toward the villa. “Then I must’ve forgotten after all. So my secret’s out—I’m human and capable of errors.”

  “I’m not leaving you alone with a possible concussion.”

  “First, my head’s fine. It was just a little lighthearted sarcasm. Second, I won’t be alone.”

  “Are you going to get your chance with that man from the party? The one with the piercings?”

  “I might,” she said, and he knew she wasn’t lying. “I could get with him if the stars lined up just right. You and I aren’t exclusive. We’re not…anything.”

  He nodded because she was right, not because he agreed. He nodded even though he probably would’ve crushed the fucking Guinness bottle in his hand if he’d still been holding it.

  “Take care, Tarantino.” Izzie yanked off her sweater, untied her bikini bottoms, and jogged away naked with her oversize Frisbee and the bottle of beer they’d shared.

  ***

  Izzie stayed outside—her heart beating too fast, the sun too hot on her skin—and counted Mississippis until she heard Milo’s truck drive away from her villa. When it did, at 316 Mississippi, she dropped her disc, grabbed her clothes, and ran inside.

  Getting rid of the beer bottle, she ran faster, clumsier, to the front of the house. Hidden behind one of the black-and-white prints beside the door was the security system’s control panel. She moved the decoy, studied the panel.

  Inactive.

  She’d set the system to active as surely as she locked all seven locks on her Vegas apartment door and made sure her Louisville slugger was where it should be.

  Someone had deactivated it.

  Chilled, as though a feather had been scraped down her spine, Izzie rushed to put on her sweater.

  She bolted upstairs to the master suite, grabbing the closet key she’d hidden from prying guests. Opening the door with shaking hands, she stared at her Louis Vuitton suitcases. Milo had said with a lot of freaking certainty that her luggage was purple.

  She’d kept it hidden, so how had he known? He hadn’t unlocked her closet as easily as he’d unlocked her.

  “You’re having me tailed, Tarantino.”

  Rage kissed her quietly, caressed her comfortingly, coaxed her to embrace it. Because she wasn’t just angry—she was hurt that he would lie to her and deceive her even as he volunteered to “look out” for her.

  Izzie sat on her bed because hot tears blinded her, but then she scrambled up, scorched by the memory of being on this bed open and vulnerable to a man who’d tracked her and lied about it.

  This was why she withheld. This was why she was smart to stop trusting a man’s word.

  She blotted her eyes and grabbed her phone. In Las Vegas, the newspaper editor-in-chief who was sexual harassment defined and had rejected Izzie for a reporter gig because she’d refused to blow him off, was probably in the middle of a Valentine’s Day dinner with his wife, but she knew he’d take her call.

  “Rick Smoltz. Go,” he greeted.

  Izzie cringed. She despised every smarmy thing about Rick-the-Dick, but despised even more that she was backsliding into sleaze. Perhaps things truly did have to get worse before they could get better. “This is Izzie Phillips.”

  “We don’t have business,” he said, hostile.

  “I want a job.”

  “I think you’re aware of the dedication I need you to show first,” Rick said, in a way that tempted her to fling her phone out the window.

  “I’m aware. And I won’t do that.”

  “Then don’t contact me—”

  “You’re going to want to hire me when I give you exclusive updates on Luca Tarantino.”

  “Luca Tarantino cashed out and left town.”

  “His son wants me to help him find Luca. I just decided I’m going to do it.” It was too unfair for Milo to screw her literally and figuratively. She wanted to use, instead of be used yet again. “It’s only a matter of which media outlet gets the details as they happen.”

  “Milo Tarantino shut out the media.”

  “Not me. Give me a job, Smoltz. Salaried, with benefits.”

  “Jumping the gun, aren’t we? Get me something substantial on the papa and the godpapa. Antony Grimaldi’s in the vortex, too.”

  Antony Grimaldi triggered fear she never could describe, like an itch that was too deep to scratch. Mostly, she’d stayed out of his way. But when she couldn’t avoid him, she’d laughed at his jokes, let him leer a little when Luca wasn’t paying too much attention, and reminded him often that her fidelity was to the man who’d put the ring on her finger.

  “I’ll get what I get,” she said, stressing that she controlled the terms, trying to downplay the desperation she tasted on her own lips. “Tarantino, Grimaldi, the Las Vegas Villains, gambling, and football. You want in on that action, Smoltz.”

  “Izzie, I want in you.”

  Anger rippled down her spine like a shiver. Comments like this went unchecked far too often. She’d tried reporting him but had been reminded of her own blemished reputation, that she had more to lose by speaking out than by opening her legs. “Please, can we keep this professional?”

  “Come to my office.”

  “No, a public place, and I’ll decide when. To be clear, you’ll never come on to me again. A salaried position at the paper and some respect are all I want.”

  An hour later, she was composed and dressed up, on Mahé, and flat broke. A visit to the bank that held her allowance account confirmed that close to half a million euros remained available even after the efforts she’d made to mindlessly spend it all. So she drained the account, taking none for herself but anonymously donating the funds to a Seychelles conservation society.

  Milo’s questions about the money for
her “extras” had made her rethink why Luca had given her so much money to play with when she was booking the vacation. They hadn’t set a wedding date, for hell’s sake, yet he’d had her starry-eyed about a Valentine’s Day trip.

  It was strange, and since she had no intention of taking the funds to the US, she spent absolutely everything here.

  Now, as she stopped in front of an internet café, she wished she’d brought along enough for a cup of coffee. She’d skipped coffee at Cora Island’s gorgeous hotel, hadn’t even sampled what Milo had fixed hours ago.

  But she had an idea.

  Milo didn’t answer her call with a regular “Hello” or “Hi.” He said her name, and his voice was as boldly intimate as his hands had been on her body earlier.

  “I realized, since I didn’t drink the coffee you brewed this morning, you still owe me,” she said, into the phone, half wondering if anyone on the busy street was there to stalk her.

  “Where are you?”

  “Mahé. In front of a café.”

  “Izzie… You changed your mind about coming with me?”

  “Yes. But I could change it again, if you don’t get me that coffee quickly enough.”

  “You didn’t give up your second week in paradise for a damn cup of coffee. You know you’re doing the right thing.”

  Betraying him to suit her purposes because he’d betrayed her to satisfy his agenda was the right thing? It didn’t feel right. It felt dirty, but then again, what part of her life wasn’t dirty?

  “Milo…” She wanted to backpedal, right here on the street. She wanted to scream into the phone that she did hate him, because he’d hurt her when she thought she couldn’t be hurt again.

  “I knew you’d come through for me,” he said.

  “You won’t always be able to predict me,” she warned, because she felt compelled to warn him that the landscape of their game had changed.

  “I’m not always going to want to predict you.” He said it like a promise. Promises were usually preludes to lies. But when he added, “I’m going to protect you, Izzie,” she closed her eyes.

  Because he said it as though he meant it, as though he knew how much she wanted to believe it and how much it stung to know she couldn’t take that risk.

  ***

  Luca didn’t recognize himself. In a square, musty bathroom above his nemesis’s ceramics market, as good as hidden in a fishing village in Sicily, he could peer through the thick, cracked mirror and see a sixty-four-year-old defying his age with an at-home dyeing kit that darkened his hair and whiskers to “natural black” when not so long ago he’d been smooth-jawed with his silver-gray hair expensively trimmed.

  He couldn’t see the ghosts of him, though. A gap-toothed runt of a child, an Italian immigrant, playing barefoot and scrape-kneed and innocent in a relative’s lemon orchard. A gawky teenager with odds stacked in his favor and aces up his sleeves, eager to make America his permanent home and guard with his life the Tarantinos’ prosperous eyewear company’s Nevada arm. A young man, slick with success, already hardened by corporate logistics, constructing alliances with giants among men and climbing to his success on the backs of others. A husband, a prisoner in love’s bondage, figuring out that growing his fortune like corn in a field with his family’s wealth and his ownership of Las Vegas’s professional football franchise wasn’t as essential as his Anne.

  A father. Fatherhood was a privilege, and he’d spat on it. The boys were his first wife’s most treasured legacy. He’d destroyed each of his strong, warriorlike sons. His eldest son had grown up to share Luca’s love for football, had been a star in the NFL. But Luca had pulled Milo, his star, from the sky and throw him into the depths. His other son had betrayed him, as many sons betrayed their fathers: for the sake of a woman.

  Bella Waverly Greer. Luca appreciated the look of the woman who’d won Jeremiah’s loyalty. A stunning luscious-mouthed blonde, she reminded him of Anne.

  “Cazzo.”

  Luca shut his bloodshot, rheumy eyes, skated a hand over the whiskers that didn’t do much to camouflage his hollowed-out cheeks and the jagged angles of his bony face.

  He had been handsome once. When Anne had died, he’d worn her death, reflected it. The details about her—the color she liked on her nails, the habits that had annoyed him, who she included in her nightly Christian prayers—he’d started to forget soon after he’d lost her. But her essence and aura stayed with him, even when he’d remarried twice and set out to marry again.

  Marrying Daisy, a fashion-magazine somebody, and Penelope, a teacher who’d been so confident that she’d hit the jackpot that she’d retired the week of their wedding, he had felt Anne’s anger. Proposing to Izzie, a young woman with the kind of wisdom you didn’t get living a safe, protected life, he’d felt Anne’s grief. There was nothing he could do for Izzie except hurt her—he’d known that when he’d promised to take care of her.

  Her beauty was so addictive, her spirit purer than even she recognized. Izzie had denied him her body, and when he’d finally lost his sons’ respect, his reputation, and maybe even his mind, too, he thought he had lost his chances of making her his. But he would get her back.

  Antony Grimaldi, his comrade, his only prayer of living as a free man, had helped him slip out of America and travel unseen to Italy. Friends took care of each other, so Luca knew he could trust Antony’s promises. After all, without Luca’s assistance, Antony wouldn’t have been able to make over a billion dollars of side cash through illegal gambling and game manipulation. Luca had come through for the man. Now it was Antony’s turn to come through for him.

  Luca touched his damp hair, trying to get used to the new look. When was the last time he’d had a head full of purely dark hair? Decades ago, it had to be. He’d started graying in his thirties. His son Milo, a good-looking boy, was beginning to gray with a few silvery strands at the sides.

  “My son. My boy.” Luca sighed, stepped back from the mirror. He’d never see either of his children again, but that was something he’d accepted when Antony had come to him with a way out. At least he’d have a woman to make the days a little more bearable.

  Tonio, whose ancestors had been mortal enemies to Luca’s ancestors, whose father had long ago fallen out of favor with Luca’s father when a business investment had turned out to be as valueless as week-old cannoli, had come to him a few days ago with word that Izzie Phillips had made her way to the Seychelles.

  Not even Izzie could piss away over two million dollars, so he had not a worry that she’d spend the money he needed to survive. Tonio, who was ten years out of prison, had given up narcotics and had said upfront that he could hold Luca only so many days—as a favor to Antony. So the sooner Luca could get to the Seychelles and coerce his gorgeous ex-fiancée to open the treasures that belonged to him—first the bank account that held his funds, next that beautiful body of hers—the sooner he could begin again.

  This time, he thought as he took the soft, creaky steps of a narrow stairwell down to the kitchenette of Tonio’s market, he’d live a humble life. Perhaps he’d run a market of his own, or buy a lemon orchard. As an afterthought, he considered Izzie. She could adapt, if she wanted his money desperately enough. Or, if need be, he’d take the money from her and they’d part ways. She was intelligent, crafty, and would take care not to cause trouble for him or Antony or anyone else who needed Luca to make a calm, clean escape.

  Potent scents of breads and sauce and spices, combined with the raucous clatter of violence, blessed the kitchenette. Luca lingered on the final step, assessing the brawl in front of him.

  Despite his potbelly, Tonio had his fists wedged into the back of another man—kidney shots. On closer inspection, Luca found the dull, dingy floor streaked not with sauce, but with blood.

  Grunting, Tonio’s victim scrambled for a broom.

  To earn his keep, Luca had to interfere. He crossed the room fast, skidding on a puddle of blood, and kicked the broom o
ut of the man’s reach.

  Tonio landed a few final battering strikes, then kicked the man and gave a labored laugh as the man slid and hit a stool. “Figlio di puttana!”

  The man coughed, struggled to his feet.

  “He stole from me,” Tonio said to Luca, pulling a dented package of smokes from a pocket. Offering one, he nodded his thanks. “Nobody steals from me. Eh, I’m a teddy bear of a guy, right? I let him walk. He’s walking away.”

  Luca said nothing but watched as the man slumped over a counter and struggled to lift his dark head.

  “Be back here in an hour to work,” Tonio shouted to the man as he limped out the scratched wooden door. “They don’t make good help these days, do they?” Another labored laugh, this one whistling with congestion and Luca wasn’t surprised. Tonio was in advanced stages of congestive heart failure.

  “Tarantino, I got through the channels some information you’re going to need.”

  Luca searched Tonio’s faded brown eyes. “Go on.”

  “That bella donna you’re going out to the Seychelles for? She ain’t there.”

  “Izzie Phillips. It’s a two-week vacation. Of course she’s still there.”

  “She ain’t there,” Tonio repeated coldly. “She left.”

  Why would Izzie leave in the middle of an all-expenses-paid vacation? Had Antony relocated her? Had someone warned her that Luca was coming for her?

  “Antony will be connecting. Give him time. But Tarantino, this ain’t a permanent arrangement. Track down the bella donna and do it fast.” Tonio tsked, went to grab a dish cloth. “Look at this. Cut knuckle. But a man fights with his God-given weapons.”

  Luca’s mind felt light, fragmented. Izzie…that vile little bitch. If she was gone, how would he access the money stored in her account? How would he begin again without the woman he needed? “There’s no shame in fighting with manmade weapons,” he said to Tonio, thinking of guns and blades and their unique glory.

  “No,” Tonio agreed after a hollow moment. “But there’s no pride in it, either.”

  Chapter Six

  Izzie took a moment to center herself—the way she’d been taught in the Acting 101 course she’d signed up for freshman year when she’d had bright ideas about finding herself and veering off her parents’ journalism- and law-focused paths in a pursuit of happiness—before she strutted into the only establishment in Las Vegas she considered a true-blue friend.