Page 7 of Convenient Mafia Vows

Deep breath. “Sorry, Denise, but I need a favor.”

Denise’s expression doesn’t alter. “Let me guess, Mason.”

Tears well in my eyes, and I blink them away furiously. “It’s an emergency. You know I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t desperate. I just need a gig to hold me over until I sort something long-term.”

Her mouth twists, and I already know what the answer is going to be.

“Please, Denise, I’ll take whatever you’ve got.”

“I don’t have any server positions at any of the Murray venues right now.” She furrows her brow. “I’m sifting through applications to fill the Exec Concierge position though. If you want to temp it, I can?—”

“I’ll take it.” Jeez, I hate sounding so desperate and try to hide it behind a smile.

“It’s a tough gig, Vic.”

“I don’t care. What do I have to do?”

Denise sighs loudly as if already regretting this. “Whatever Mr. Murray wants, you make sure he gets it. You’ll liaise with his personal assistant, Lauren. Call her Miss Ingram, please. She’s a power-hungry queen who likes to think that the Wraith is her ship, but she’s got her finger on every button, and when she tells Mr. Murray she doesn’t like something, it’s goodnight before you can blink.”

“Got it.” My pulse is racing, and it isn’t with gratitude that Denise has bailed me out. Again.

“You’ll be taking a big job off my hands while I run the restaurant.” Denise looks at me from beneath lowered brows like she hasn’t quite stressed how important this is.

I nod. “When do I start?”

“Meet me here at one-thirty. I can get you fitted with a uniform and show you around before the shift starts.”

One-thirty. I imprint the time on my brain as I thank Denise and step back out into the real world where smoke pours out of the drains and people don’t apologize for barging into you while they’re too busy talking on their phones to see what’s right in front of them.

Mr. Murray. I’m going to be working for Caleb Murray, albeit temporarily, and I can’t help remembering the touch of his hands on my arms when he stopped me from getting hurt outside the diner.

2

CALEB

I eatat my desk as usual. I barely taste the food most evenings. The chef knows what I like, and I leave it to him to prepare whatever he wants. I could be a diva about it, but I’ve got bigger things to worry about.

Like my brother Cash’s nightclub getting raided again. Third time since the holidays, and no fucker can tell me it’s a coincidence.

My phone vibrates. Another message from Olivia Dragonetti.

Tonight’s the night, Caleb.

“Fuck!”

Olivia and I dated for a while back when the Wraith was first built, and I believed that a connection with her family would get me up the ladder without climbing the rungs in the middle.

It was fine for the first few months. Olivia Dragonetti has the kind of looks that got Elizabeth Taylor where she wanted to be. Raven-black hair, dark eyes, high cheekbones, she even has atiny beauty spot on her upper lip that people mimicked centuries ago with silk patches.

But she’s a girl who’s used to getting what she wants, no matter how she gets it.

Her unannounced visits to the Wraith started happening more frequently, at all times of the day and night. Olivia would barge into my office, her eyes roaming the room while Lauren glared at her from the doorway, mouthing an apology for not warning me in advance. One morning, she was waiting for me to come down from the penthouse suite, completely naked in my leather chair, legs spread wide and feet on my desk.

“Surprise.”

My brother Kyle had already warned me that she’d earned a bit of a bunny-boiler reputation when she followed her ex to his new girlfriend’s apartment, waited for him to leave, and then broke in and shredded every item of clothing the woman possessed including the bathrobe she was wearing at the time, and wrote on her butt cheeks with black marker pen: NEXT TIME I WON’T BE SO NICE.

Olivia was seventeen at the time. And Daddy made the situation go away.

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