Page 3 of The Players

CARMEN

Going to an adult club in a dominatrix outfit wasn’t the way Carmen had planned to spend Halloween. She’d rather be at the Detta mansion, making cupcakes with her honorary niece, Zoe. Instead, she had found an obscure “invitation” on her doormat, summoning her to go to this party tonight, or else…

Thinking back on the crumpled letter she’d stashed into her bodice, once again, a white-hot rage poured down her back like liquid fire. With Franco dead for a year now, she’d thought the days of people trying to blackmail her were over.

Clearly, she’d been wrong. Not only was she trying to keep two rivaling mobster families off her back, now she had to deal with extortion on a more personal level.

Meet me in the Purple Room at Club Obsidian tonight, or I will make the pictures public.

D.

She had an inkling who this “D” was and the mere thought of having to face one of Franco’s sadist friends again was nauseating.

Still, here she was, standing in the entry hall of the kind of club she had sworn never again to set foot in. The kind of place that made her skin crawl and chest ache from the memories it forced upon her.

Club Obsidian catered to people with a less than vanilla lifestyle. Unfortunately, she knew all too well what that meant.

Pain. Humiliation.

Blood. So much blood.

She shook her head, trying to rid her mind of memories that clung to her like ghosts visiting from her past. She continued forward, forcing her feet to move.

The darkened club was already packed with people dressed in all sorts of fetwear. Some wore leather pants, or tight, knit lace slips, combined with corsets. Others were dressed up in chained armor complete with a ball gag, following after their master. She saw a group of women in the corner without shoes, the bare feet marking them as submissives.

Even in her aversion to the place, she couldn’t help but admire the dark, hardwood floors, dark-red satin walls, and the huge chandelier that cascaded pieces of light to every corner.

She bit her lip, trying not to think of the club’s owner.

Vince Detta.

Even though his brother was married to her sister now, it had been over a decade ago she’d last been alone in a space with her secret college crush. A status quo she intended to maintain, which meant she had to avoid him at all cost.

She looked at her friends, Tess and Tommie, who she had basically tricked in accompanying her tonight. Unlike her, they were dressed for the occasion, in costumes that truly represented them. Tommie, as Freddie Mercury in a red royal mantle, and Tess, like the geek she was—a cross between Darth Vader and a princess. They were nothing like her, pretending to be something she wasn’t, all in an attempt to gain strength and courage from a costume.

Pathetic.

Taking a deep breath, she continued inside, ignoring the silver platters filled with champagne flutes that were handed out by scantily dressed submissives. She had to get to the Purple Room, but first, she had to ditch her friends. They couldn’t know why she was truly here.

Tess pulled her toward her guy, Luca Detta. Carmen tried her best to ignore the tall man standing next to him in black slacks and a white shirt. Vince Detta—the man who had stabbed her in the back over a decade ago.

So much for avoiding him.

The moment his eyes landed on her, she felt that familiar pull; part pain and part pleasure. A dull ache when she remembered he hadn’t come through on his promise, and what that had cost her. And then there was an unwanted joy that hit her right in the gut, simply for being in his presence. Once, he had stood for comfort, and hope. For some reason, the remnants of those feelings still lingered. Apparently, her brain hadn’t delivered the memo to her treacherous heart that he was not to be trusted again.

Coming face-to-face with him during her sister’s wedding had been hard. That night, she had passed out on the dance floor only to wake up in his arms. Of all people, it had been him to pick her up from the floor instead of her husband. His arms had held her. Strong arms that had made her feel safe, even when she was terrified that any second Franco would show up and make her pay for letting herself get touched by another man. Little did anyone know that after Franco, Vince was the man she hated the most in this world. Not her dead grandfather, who had sold her to Franco in the first place, or Franco, who was simply a monster, but Vince.

Just ignore him. He’ll do the same.

Really?

Of course.

Her inner voice was wrong. Unfortunately, Vince wasn’t prepared to ignore her. She could see it in the way his broad shoulders tightened and his jaw set. His piercing blue eyes settled on her the second he spotted her. A frown appeared between his dark eyebrows as he looked her up and down and a heat came over her, setting every fiber of her being on alert when he reached her cleavage. Damn him for making her feeling self-conscious over her own body. How was it that he still had this effect on her after all these years?

“Why are you dressed like that?” he snapped. “You’re not a dominatrix.”

Whip. In. His. Face.

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