Page 100 of Tainted Love

“This is what I’ve been fighting for, Dante! Who are you to tell me I’m wrong?”

“I don’t want this life for you. I never have — and I can’t believe you would sell us out after everything we’ve done for you!”

“I didn’t sell you out!”

“Sure as hell sounded like it!”

“Oh, come on.” I gesture at Marty’s stunned, confused face. “I was never going to tell him anything. I was playing him.”

“Playing him?”

“Yes!”

“How?!”

I inhale fast to reply but Marty’s weasel-like tone interrupts me. “This is quite the lover’s quarrel you two are having but I feel like I should point out where you are right now.”

Dante and I glance around the casino, noticing the half-dozen guns pointed at our table.

Dammit, Dante. I had this under control. Now, we’ll both die.

The crowd parts and Mr. Zappia himself walks through with his hands in his pockets and a sour look on his face. I follow Dante’s eyes upward and I catch sight of Elijah on the balcony just outside of the office, standing there with his gun lying against Enzo’s throat. Lilah must be nearby, too.

“Everybody leave,” Zappia shouts, waving his arms at the nervous customers scattered about.

They bolt for the exit, leaving the armed men behind at the tables around us. The entire room falls so silent I can hear my heart pounding in my ears.

“Young lady…” Zappia says, stopping a few paces away from us. “You are quite the handful, but I admire your… tenacity.”

I clear my throat. “Thank you?”

Dante squeezes my arm to reel my tongue in, but he still can’t get rid of that amused spark in his eyes.

Marty cracks his knuckles and smirks with delight. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this moment, Hart—”

“Sit down, Marty,” Zappia says.

Marty blinks. “Dad, I—”

“I said, sit down.”

Marty falls in line and lowers himself back into his chair.

Zappia turns to me again. “You, too, Ms. Vaughn.”

A quiver of fear stabs me as I look up into Dante’s eyes. He nods slowly, urging me to do as I’m told, and I take my seat. His hand never leaves my body and settles on the back of my neck.

Zappia takes the dealer’s place at the head of the table and the harsh lights above cast wicked shadows down his old, lumpy face. “If I recall correctly, I promised you a game. Isn’t that right, Ms. Vaughn?”

“Yes, sir,” I say.

He gathers the playing cards from the table and shuffles them with quick, precise fingers. “Unfortunately, your father’s problem is no longer an issue — a fact that we can all comfortably attribute to my son. Correct?”

I stare across the table at Marty’s mangled face and he glares back at me with a lazy, impatient eye.

“Yes, sir,” I reply.

“Just shoot them, Dad,” Marty spits.

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