Page 81 of Jackpot Joker

I don’t care.

“You would have known that if you didn’t toss me aside after giving me the best fuck of my life.”

Mark gasps, looking hurt, and not from the two bullets I’ve lodged inside him.

“Oh shut up, Mark. You could barely get it up when I was sucking you off earlier. You think you’re a fucking king because you own some damn mattress stores and snort cocaine with a few B-list celebrities?”

Mark’s hanging out with celebrities? Which ones? Do they like to gamble?

“I thought you loved me,” he says, looking genuinely upset.

Pamela laughs. Angela. Shit, I don’t know. The woman I fucked one night in a hotel room laughs. “Loved you? Please. I was using you, baby. He’s who I want.”

“A free candy bar and Coke from the minibar seemed to have you over me quick enough.”

“I got champagne, thank you very much. And I had two candy bars and a bag of peanuts. I hope that hurt your pocket.” She flips her hair as though her raid bankrupted me, but the motion has her eyes fixating on the discarded weapon on the ground. I watch as the woman walks over and picks it up. “You hurt me, Dario Caruso. And now, I’m going to hurt you.”

She aims the gun at me, and I brace myself for the impact of a bullet. I have a vest on, but it still hurts like hell to get shot. When the gun fires, I wince, but no pain comes. My eyes open as the gun drops from her hands, before she falls to her knees and her red hair splays across the concrete floor.

Behind her, Mark holds a gun and is pointing it at my face. If I wasn’t in immediate danger, I’d take a minute to be thoroughly impressed. Shooting someone with two gunshot wounds can’t be the easiest thing to do, no matter what Hollywood magic would lead you to believe.

Another gunshot rings out, but once again I feel no pain. The other redhead holds a gun in Mark’s direction, and a bullet goes through the forehead of Mark, officially killing off the Matarazzo family’s heirs. How is everyone else so fucking good at that?

I look at the dead man, my nose crinkling up before I look back at the woman. “Well, sure, it was easy once I wounded him for you.”

She drops to her knees, crawling over to her deceased sister, and begins to cry. I stare after her, knowing I’d feel the same way if it were either of my brothers.

“Dario!” Jasmine cries from behind me, and I turn in time to catch her in my arms.

I cling to her as though I never want her to escape my grasp again, and I may just believe that. She peppers kisses all over my face before she reaches my lips, where she descends upon them with the deepest passion I’ve ever felt.

Fire coils through me, and I realize I want nothing more than this woman for the rest of my days. When her lips part from mine, I rest my forehead against hers.

“I was so scared,” she confesses, and I hold her tighter. “I knew you were going to come, but I was so scared you wouldn’t get here in time.”

I press my lips to her forehead. “There is no world in which I wouldn’t get to you in time, Jasmine. Nothing could stop me from saving you.”

She captures my lips again, and I hold on to her, never wanting to part. Unfortunately, my eldest brother decides this is the moment he needs to interrupt.

“We need your help loading Tank into the vehicle. Luca is going to drive him to the hospital. I have the doctors on standby.”

I nod, reluctantly releasing Jasmine from my arms. My brothers and I lift the large man into our arms as Jasmine minds his head, making sure we don’t accidentally hit it against one of the mattress displays in the showroom.

When we get Tank loaded, Luca fits himself behind the steering wheel, and I see the sorrow on his face. I give his shoulder a squeeze.

“He’ll be okay, Luc.”

“He has to be,” my brother says, his eyes glistening with unshed tears.

As he speeds out of the parking lot, Jasmine comes and rests her head on my shoulder. “Gio said he had to make some calls to get all this cleaned up.” She releases a slow exhale. “That’s an awful lot of bodies.”

I chuckle. “Five isn’t too much for our crew.”

Jasmine pulls back and looks up at me. “You mean six, right?”

My mind goes back to the storage space we were in. “No. There were the three members of the Mattress Mafia and their two girls. That’s five.”

“And Todd,” Jasmine says.