Page 7 of Her Dark Mafia Protector
I almost can’t believe what I’ve just read. Maybe attending Valentina’s wedding was more than just surveillance—maybe it was the first step toward mending what we lost. I press the note to my chest and smile, a flicker of hope warming me for the first time in years.
But how did it end up in my pocket? That’s what unsettles me. Valentina would never have had the chance to slip it there herself. Which means someone else helped. Which means he helped.
The Ghost. Nico Vitale.
Even from the shadows, he’s pulling the strings of my life, leaving me with breadcrumbs, daring me to follow.
CHAPTER 6
ELLE
Where would a ghost be in a city like Vegas?
If I were trying to track one of the more prominent, visible mafia players, it would be easy. But Nico Vitale isn’t like the others. He doesn’t want to be seen or feared—he wants to beinvisible.
Fortunately for me, I have a knack for finding even those who want to remain hidden.
Men like Nico are watchers. I learned that the night my mother was murdered. He observes, speaks little, and uses silence as a weapon. Strategic. Patient. Deadly. I shouldn’t admire anything about him, but it’s hard not to when I see pieces of myself in the same qualities. After Valentina’s wedding, I remind myself that he’s the villain in my story. Not the hero. Yes, he shot my mother’s killer—but too late. And who’s to say he wasn’t working with him? Two men in an alley, one who fired first, the other who cleaned up the mess. Maybe it was a trap all along. Whatever his role, I’ll uncover it. Regardless of his motives, mine are clear. I study him relentlessly—every movement, every pause, every decision.
It takes me only a day after returning to Las Vegas to find him. If he’s trying to stay hidden, he’s doing a shit job at it. The Ghost is notoriously famous for staying in the shadows so completely that no one can find him unless hewantsto be found. Which raises the question—does hewantme to see him? Does he know that I’m watching him, and is he trying to lead me into something?
For three days straight, I tracked him through the city. I follow Nico, watching where he goes in the city, who he talks to, and even more importantly, who hedoesn’tengage with. Obsession quickly takes over as I document everything he does through detailed notes in the small notebook that I keep with me.
At dawn, he slips into a quiet cafe on the Strip to meet Vincent’s tech analyst for coffee. Ordering a black espresso, he takes the corner seat and lingers to scan the room. He doesn’t look at his phone. He doesn’t read a paper. He just watches. Then, his eyes find mine across the café, and a rush of heat burns through me before I can stop it. In the next heartbeat, he’s already moving—sliding something across the table. By the time I blink, he’s gone. Only a single casino chip sits where he’d been, gleaming under the dull cafe light like an invitation I’m not sure I should accept.
Those eyes. As much as I don’t want to admit it, Nico Vitale isundeniablyhandsome. He’s the kind of handsome that makes me feel all the things that Ishouldn’t, especially considering he’s a stone-cold killer. And all the time I’ve been spending watching him only adds to those feelings. The way his muscular physique moves while he walks through the city streets, darting in and out of the shadows and into the doors of buildings that I never even noticed before. I’ve caught a few quick glimpses of him sweeping his hand through his hair, mussing it up in just the right ways so that the pieces of it look as if he’s just gotten out of bed or gottencaught in a rainstorm. It’s the sort of understatedsexythat can drive a person wild. I’m trying hard not to bethatperson and not to have any sort of reaction to a man that I abhor. But it’s harder to do when I catch sight of his eyes.
So far, I’ve only gotten a few flashing glances at them, enough to see their distinctive coloring that looks like a bluish moon on a clear night. I can’t even imagine staring at them for long. I would likely risk being unable to look away. Professional curiosity makes me want to study those eyes up close, though, strictly to look into the man who saved me in all the worst of ways years ago. The eyes are windows into the soul, or something like that, and convincing myself that this is all strictly professional and not personal is likely a lie that will send me straight to hell.
Later that day, he walks into Vincent Moretti’s casino. Not through the main doors, but through the service entrance. So, I take the chance to talk to the famously well-connected bartender. I almost lose Nico, only to catch a quick glimpse of him crossing a sidewalk,almostconcealed by a small cluster of tourists visiting the city, but not quite. It almost seems like he wants me to know that he’s watching me too, and I’m not sure whether to take that as a threat. I’ve learned over the years thateverymafia-aligned agent is most certainly a threat, and a dangerous one at that. But I still can’t seem to shake off this irrational feeling that Nico isdifferent.
That night, he meets a man in the corner booth of a smoky bar on Fremont Street. I can’t hear their conversation, but I don’t need to. I can read Nico’s body language as clearly as words. Calm. Controlled. The other man fidgets, sweats through his collar, and glances at the door every thirty seconds. Nico barely moves. And when the meeting ends, it’s the other man who rushes out first, leaving Nico behind with an untouched whiskey.
We go on like this for days, he and I, until he must have decided that he’s had enough, because I lose visual on him completely. That makes it a good time to go back to my apartment and compile everything I have and everything that I know about Nico Vitale so that I can create a psychological analysis to work off of.
At night, I sit in my home office with a cup of hot tea and stare at both my notebook and the evidence board on my wall that I’ve made for the Ghost. Everything about him seems deadly and complex. My experience with the mafia, mostly compiling criminal profiles for the police and justice department, and the inside information I received from Valentina when we shared peeks into each other’s lives, shows that these guys are deadly. They’re supposed to kill anyone who sees them doing anything, especially if that“thing”is killing someone in a dark alley.
This is where my analytical profiling skill set comes into play. I’ve noticed a few things already. Nico has a dominant personality; I can tell that by how others react to him, as if he’s someone to be listened to and respected. However, he doesn’t display his dominance in the same way as the other mafia figureheads. Nico seems unwilling to engage or connect with people unless he finds it necessary. He seems to prefer isolation. And he also seems to be morally ambiguous. Just like the night my mom died, he seems to choose his actions with careful intention, and with motives that, although violent and definitely criminal, aren’t necessarilycruel. From what I can tell, he steers clear of dealing with some of the more notoriously wicked mafia bosses, the ones that engage in more than just money laundering or weapons trafficking. Nico doesn’t engage with any of the criminals on the city’s radar who dabble in some of the more horrific crimes. Perhaps the Ghost has a sort of moral code. Hedid, after all, save my life.
I’ve never really come up against anyone like him before, and I wonder if it’s even possible to be a morally ambiguous assassin, or if beinganykind of assassin costs someone their soul. My psychology expertise tells me that the way Nico conducts himself, by being so withdrawn and detached from everyone else around him, might mean that he’s carrying some scars from trauma of his own. I am admittedly fascinated by all of it and byhim.If I were to let myself, it might be even a littleeasyto see some of my own cracks in the Ghost, like the resistance to any sort of connection.
Connection means that you have to allow some level of vulnerability, and that isn’t something that I like to do. It would seem that isn’t something Nico likes to do either. There was a time when I didn’t bottle and hide my emotions, but that time ended when my mom died, and when my dad shipped me off to that private academy. It was then that I saw there are only ever one or two people who truly care about you in the ways that make you feelseen, and mine died that night when my mother was shot.
It’s only after I’ve filled pages of notes that I realize the truth: he isn’t avoiding me. He’s letting me see what he wants me to see.
The proof comes on the fourth day.
I follow him to a quiet side street near Chinatown. He turns a corner, and when I catch up, he’s gone. Vanished. The street is empty except for a single folded piece of paper on the hood of my car.
I scan the rooftops. Shadows. No movement. No sound. My pulse pounds as I open the note.
Five words scrawled in dark ink:
Keep watching. It looks good on you.
Lucky for me, or maybeunluckyfor me, this game of subtle surveillance going on between us is about to come to a head.
I walk the same way home from the coffee shop every time I go. I know I shouldn’t. Hell, I’ve seen into the minds of too many stalkers and attackers to know that they look for patterns before choosing their next victim. Criminals look for women who walk alone, or who take the same route every time they go to the same place, or who follow the same schedule outside of their home. I know all these things, and yet still I can’t be bothered with taking a longer route back. I have too much work to do and too much on my mind to concern myself with the smaller, petty muggers who might try to snatch me on the street at dusk or dawn. Plus, I’ve taken self-defense, and although I’m nottotallyconvinced that I could take down or escape from someone twice my size, I think that I’d stand a pretty good chance just by engaging all the pent-up emotion that I’ve kept inside for years. I know I could at least manage a solid scream for help.
