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“Got a problem,” Vespa said before the door closed.
Montrell never assumed things would run smoothly. Killing his father had been planned down to each tiny detail, but it had turned into a shitshow anyway. He’d accomplished the feat, but it had been a close thing.
He’d kill the Albanians too. No one hurt those he cared about. His father had learned that lesson. The Albanians deserved to learn it too.
Despite the passing years and his foolhardy conviction that she’d betrayed him, he cared deeply for Beatrice Lucchese. If the past had gone to plan, they would have been married long ago. But plans never worked. Not in Montrell’s experience.
Beatrice had been living in hell because of his misjudgment. He’d only realized that in the last few months. He owed the Di Salvos for bringing it to his attention.
“What problem?” he asked Vespa. He already knew the Albanians had brought more men than they’d anticipated. That suited him just fine. More blood to spill.
Vespa hesitated, which wasn’t like her at all.
“Just spit it out,” Montrell said.
“She killed him.” There was satisfaction in Vespa’s voice. His friend had a taste for vengeance.
Montrell was proud of Beatrice as well, but concern rose above it. “Is she alive?”
“So far.” One-handed, Vespa grabbed the spare duffel, which she’d packed with guns. “She ran. It’s all about who gets to her first.”
“Let’s go.” Montrell was already striding toward the hotel door and its peeling paint. They’d picked this place because the Albanians were known for showing off their wealth and wouldn’t book rooms in such a dump, but that also meant they were as far away from Beatrice’s hotel as possible without leaving the Strip.
Vespa tossed him the keys to their rental. “You drive,” she said, using her good arm to heft the brimming duffel as she chased after him. “And try not to let your savior complex make you careless.”
Montrell’s lips thinned as he forced his thoughts not to drift to his mother, a person he’d never been able to save.
Things would be different this time. He’d make sure of that.
Chapter 2
Beatrice should have ditched the fancy clothes. They’d fit in near the ritzy hotel and the glittering lights, though the gun she’d clutched hadn’t. As dawn drew nearer, though she was glad to have survived for so many hours, the crowds had drifted to nothing. A weeknight in Sin City was for gamblers and tourists, and even they had now found their beds.
The casino’s underground shops had closed. It was a strange thing to look up at a blue and white painted sky and know she was inside. During high-traffic times, she had seen the gondolas floating by on the manmade canals. Hiding in the brightness had worked, but now that she was the only one around, blending in became a little harder.
And there was nowhere to tuck the handgun in her dress. The dark brown waves of her long hair helped to hide it from view under her crossed arms.
She huddled against a vending machine down a side aisle of shops. In Vegas, you could get almost anything in a vending machine. This one held shoes—flat, cloth shoes that looked much more comfortable than what she wore. They were available in bright swirls of color. Too bad she had no way to buy them.
She considered breaking the glass as she rested her head against the hum of the machine, but glass could be loud. She’d once had her face shoved into a mirror. There was a scar on the edge of her forehead from that time. Her body was decorated with multiple scars.
She felt like she had in those dark moments long ago, huddled on the bathroom floor with a razor in her hand. The choice should have been easy, but there was something inside her that didn’t want to give up.
The heavy clank of a door made her lift her head. Of course there was a back way into the underground area—one for employees or fucking Albanians who had a connection in the city worth the cost of that connection.
It didn’t surprise her to see her husband’s cousin among the men now trickling into the underground shopping center. He’d been younger and had once seemed a little shy. She’d made the mistake of smiling at him when they were first introduced, and he’d cornered her in the downstairs hallway of her husband’s estate. When she’d tried to warn her husband about what his cousin had said, about how her husband was dickless and he’d show her a real man, she’d learned another truth. Family stuck together despite what they said. At least, the one she’d married into did.
The smile he flashed at her, one trimmed in sculpted, black facial hair, promised that he wouldn’t kill her quickly.
Beatrice shifted the gun from under her arms, gripping it in two hands before pulling the trigger.
The cousin used one of the other Albanians as a shield.
She scrambled for the other side of the vending machine as they returned fire. The glass broke. If she survived, she doubted any of the cloth shoes would still be usable. Her hands covered her head as she curled up as small as she could and gunfire ripped into the metal of the machine.
It would probably be easier if she was shot, but the thought made her only angrier. Beatrice tightened her grip on the gun as she listened to Albanian curses among the shots. They were drawing closer.
“Beatrice!”
