Page 42 of Deception & Desire

Not that I am, technically, short of cash these days. Although the black credit card still sits unused in my purse.

There’s also been no contact from Carmen beyond the thank you text she sent twenty minutes after I dropped her off at her place after the party. She’s said at the door that she’d reach out when she needed me again.

Which also means I can’t take on any more mercenary jobs, because I might be needed by the Cartel debutant at the drop of a hat.

NoCandelabra.No mercenary work. No Guild.

No Leon Natali.

I’m close to plucking out my own eyelashes on the evening of the eighth consecutive night alone in my tiny little studio apartment.

Which is why, I suppose, I call him.

“Are you all right?” He picks up on the second ring, sounding somewhat breathless.

“No.”

“Where are you?”

I want to roll my eyes. “I’m dying of boredom.”

There is a pause where I can hear the great Leon Natali let out a sigh of frustration. “How did you get this number?”

“How did you know it was me calling?” I counter.

“What do you want, Mia?” His voice is sharp, impatient. I wonder, vaguely, how much progress he’s made on the Cartel since I collected the intel from the party.

“Something to stop me from crawling up the walls.”

There’s a beat of silence. “I don’t see how this is my problem.”

“It’s your fault I don’t have a job anymore,”I argue back. “I used to have career prospects, you know, before you went and decided that you wanted me to pump out a bunch of?—”

“YES, all right. I get it. Fuck.”

“Just give me something,” I hesitate before adding a softer word. “Please.”

“There might be something.”

“Whatever it is, yes.”

Leon ignores me. “Teo said he once asked you to oversee a casino in Brooklyn. Is that something you might still be interested in?”

“You want me to work for the Prince’s Hand?” I say, a little taken aback. I hadn’t considered the Prince’s Hand casinos as a potential career path, but they were the main source of income for my new mafioso.

“Yes and no, it’s an, er…collaboration project to showcase unity between the two Italian factions. His idea. Brooklyn location, Prince’s Hand branding.”

I bite my lip slightly. It would be a lie to say I hadn’t thought about it since Teo originally proposed the idea. Managing an entertainment establishment was one of the few (legal) things for which I was actually qualified.

“Don’t you think it’s a risk? Someone might start paying attention to me,” I mumble. “I don’t want to blow my cover with Carmen.”

“It’s still under construction, so you wouldn’t need to go to the site. Plus, you were Teo’s entertainment manager. I don’t think many would think twice about you being a part of the process.”

Good enough for me. “I’ll do it.”

“Can you be at a meeting in an hour?”

The address isa tall office building, the bottom floors comprising vast open-plan rent-a-desk spaces. The text Leon sends, however, guides me to a private meeting room several stories up.

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