Page 14 of Sin City Obsession

Lambert let out another startled yelp as the exaggerated moaning finally stopped.

Rocco laid a hand flat on the desk and leaned into the gaping man’s personal space. “I go wherever the fuck I want. Now, answer the question. Are. You. Lambert?”

Slowly, the man nodded. “I-I am,” he said. He pulled at his shirt collar. “D-did you n-need a loan?”

Rocco shot out a hand and latched it onto Lambert’s throat in a firm grip. The smaller male made an immediate choking noise, eyes bugging wide in his head. Rocco took a step back, hauling Lambert out of his chair and up until Rocco’s unyielding grip was all that held him off the floor. “I would tell you that you should treat women better,” he said through clenched teeth, “but that would imply you have a chance of walking this off.”

Lambert attempted to claw at his arm, gurgling weakly.

“You wanna spit on me, too?” Rocco asked, taunting the bastard for the hell of it. He watched Lambert’s fading eyes light again, as if with recognition, and promptly dropped the fucker. “Too bad.”

A single backward step gave him the room he needed, and a practiced sweep of his leg was more than enough to crack Lambert’s limp, coughing body against the corner of the metal desk. Lambert’s spine connected first, and Rocco took hold of his shirt in order to slam his head more satisfyingly against the rim. Once. Twice. A third time for good measure.

He let go and watched Lambert drop when he was sure the job was done.

Blood covered his hands, his clothes, and a good portion of the office. It was a fucking mess. Definitely not his cleanest work.

Em let out a whistle. “Who’d he spit on, exactly? Just so I know to be extra nice to that person.”

Rocco exhaled and accepted the handkerchief his guard handed over, for what good it would do. “You already know. Just call this in and let’s go.”

Chapter five

What the Hell?

Rocco: Wait for me.

That was all histext said, and he hadn’t responded to Alessa’s confounded follow-up. She didn’t know how she felt about either detail. Or the whisper of her mother’s words still playing in her mind.

She hadn’t lied. Shewascontent with her work. It was just that ‘content’ was the keyword, and at some point, it was impossible not to think about other things. Hermother hadn’t been wrong about her lack of lasting romantic relationships. Alessa simply hadn’t given that a whole lot of conscious thought before. She always brushed it off with an excuse—she was busy, he was weak, he wanted to change her, he didn’t stack up to the other men in her life and she couldn’t overlook that.

Alessa closed out of her laptop with a sigh. Her lack of concentration wasn’t helping her get any research done on the apparently shady area of Las Vegas she planned to venture into. All she’d gleaned were some statistics with obscene, but generic, crime rates. Hardly the most off-putting thing for a woman in the mafia.

She’d certainly been through her share of shit with her choice of career path. Women weren’t exactly known for being the ones who hunted down the rats, oversaw tradeoffs, or did absolutely any of the bloody work. But she’d done all of it. She’d put in her time on the cleanup crew, she’d trained, sweat, and bled probably more than half the guys the Dragon had on the streets keeping his people in line. And that was why they trusted her. That was why she’d been chosen for the Vegas job.

Well, it was one of the reasons.

But all of those reasons—every single one—was to blame for why she’d never had a lover or a boyfriend longer than two months.

Alessa picked up her phone as exasperation surged through her. Her mother’s call had rattled something inside, but she was being dumb. Over-emotional. She just needed to get moving, get back to work. She’d feel better with another successful job behind her. Rocco still hadn’t texted back, so he was justgoing to have to learn to communicate if he wanted things done a certain way.

She had her phone unlocked and thumb descending on the text app in order to tell Ignazio she would be heading down when someone knocked on the door.

Alessa went still for a second, unprepared for the intrusion, and her gaze alighted on Rocco’s name. No new message had come in from him, but he’d said to wait for her…. She crossed quietly to the door, keeping the phone low at her side, and leaned toward the peephole.

Of course, Rocco stood outside her door, one hand in his pants pocket as though he were in no hurry at all. From her limited vantage, Alessa saw no sign of Emanuele or any other guard.

She released the security lock and pulled the door open. “You couldn’t just text?”

His lips lifted in a grin that warmed his eyes. “May I come in?”

Alessa shrugged and stepped aside, sweeping her arm out in invitation. “By all means.” She paused, shut the door behind him, and adjusted to face him on the cusp of the living room. “But what’s the big deal? Why couldn’t you text or call about whatever you need to say?” She was assuming he had some kind of message or important information to relay. Because why the hell else would he have insisted she not go back out before they talked?

Rocco looked her over slowly, his expression unreadable. “Where is it?” he finally asked.

Alessa blinked. “What?”

“The shirt that bastard spit on,” Rocco clarified. “Ignazio said he got your shirt.” Rocco’s gaze dropped toward her chest, just for an instant, and Alessa was pretty sure Ignazio had been more specific than ‘shirt.’ “So where is it?”

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