Page 19 of The Gambler

What? Oh, right. He was still talking himself up.

“Ten reasons why you should marry Luciano Detta,” Tess mocked. She might be bad at sex, but at least she didn’t misread women the way he did. No wonder he’d attracted a gold digger. “I can steal my own money just fine, Detta, thank you very much.”

He nodded. “Fine then. How about the crazy twins? They will kill you if you don’t hold up your part of the deal.”

“Oh, please. Like I didn’t see that was an internal joke between you guys.”

“It was a joke all right, but the joke’s on you. See, you are a possible threat to them now. There’s no way they’ll let this pass. So, either help me catch Grace’s murderer, which will no doubt lead me to the asshole responsible for putting me in jail or after two weeks, marry me. Dealer’s choice.”

“That’s not much of a choice,” she grumbled. “Those odds suck. Please tell me you were just buying time. No way would they actually make me marry you, would they?” She even sounded hesitant to her own ears.

“Look, I already explained this. Asking me twice isn’t going to change the answer. The second you become a real threat, Damon will kill you without giving it another thought. There’s only one guy they answer to, and that ain’t me.”

“Kristoff,” she murmured.

His eyes turned into slits. “You know them.”

“Um...”

“That’s why you tried to leave without them noticing you.”

“I tried. Not that it did me any good. Never again will I open an unknown closet.”

“Tell me how you know them.”

“I don’t actuallyknowthem know them,” she explained. “Thing is, I’m friends with Hector’s wife, Mary. We met a few times at girls’ night. Anyway, when Hector kicked Mary out, I was miffed, to say the least. I kind of threatened Kristoff to get Hector back in line, or else I would make all his money disappear.”

He gave her a “what were you thinking” look.

“You threatened Kristoff fucking Romanov?”

“I needed his help. His brother hurt my friend and their little girl, tiny Zoe,” she defended herself.

“How are you still alive?”

She didn’t deign that with an answer. “Either way, Kristoff and I are just fine. He even tried to recruit me by offering me an astronomical wage. Of course, I declined.”

“And he was okay with that? See, I know the man and he doesn’t easily take no for an answer.”

“Well, he did this time.” When Luca cocked his brow, she added, “Over the past few months, I kind of became friends with Katya as well. She’s his protégé, whatever that means. I found that men, the stronger and tougher they look in public, are still putty in the hands of the women in their life.”

“Smart. It’s what probably keeps him from snatching you from the street.”

She’d figured that out herself as well. You didn’t just poke a bear and get away with it, as her pops would say. And what, other than poking, was threatening to steal the money of a kingpin?

“So, now what? How do I get out of this mess?” Wasn’t that the real question? Worse was, Luca didn’t even know the full truth. He had no idea about the message she’d received. That the playing card was meant as both a present and a deterrent for Tess instead of him. Except, she couldn’t tell him about Onyx without mentioning a few skeletons in her own closet.

“Easy. Help me find the killer. Help me find Cruz.”

“Right. I’m not exactly Sherlock Holmes. And neither are you. I mean, if you had been, no way you would have fallen for the trap that sent your ass to prison.” He gave her an odd look. It took her a second to realize that, once again, she just blabbed the first thing that came to mind.

“You’re just a poster child for diplomacy, aren’t you?”

Again, he didn’t say anything she hadn’t heard before. “Look, diplomatic or not, I’ll help you. We will work together, but first, you have to keep your promise. You have to get rid of this Mick guy. I can’t concentrate on anything else before that.”

Also, she needed to fix her digital watch. If she didn’t take care of it, her pops would get worried. And when Adam Gibson got worried over his granddaughter, he didn’t exactly call the cops or hospitals. Nope, her pops had his own way of dealing with justice. The kind that involved guns and bazookas and Molotov cocktails. After all, such was the life of a Doomsday Prepper.

“I’ll take care of it,” Luca said.

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