The Hitman's Dancer: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance (Snake Eyes Book 2) (3 page)

“Then what’s the point of all of this?”

“I won’t lay a finger on you, Ms. Vaughn,” he says. “Not unless you touch me first.”

I raise an eyebrow. “That’s it?”

“Yes.”

“All I have to do is spend the evening with you?”

“That’s right.”

“No sex?”

“Not even first base.”

“And you wipe out my father’s debt?”

“I’ll
transfer
your father’s debt. He’ll be indebted to me but you will have played your part.”

I stare at him, taking in the subtle features of his face. Little dimples on his chin. Thin, barely noticeable lines at the edges of his eyes. A thick shadow of dark, brown hair beneath his shaved cheeks. “I
don’t
have to sleep with you?”

“As long as you keep your hands to yourself. If you touch me at all, your body is forfeit.”

I laugh. What a fucking joke. “Deal.”

He extends his hand and I stare at it with crooked eyes. “This doesn’t count,” he says, his lips curling. “It’s just a courtesy.”

I eye his fingers, thick and rock solid, before reaching out and shaking his hand again. He takes mine in his grip and squeezes hard, completely unlike the dainty one he gave me before. I steal my hand back before I let it linger too long in his but I can’t manage to do the same with our eyes. Even he stares at me, unblinking. Like he knows something I don’t.

Finally, he glides around me and pulls open the door.

“After you, Ms. Vaughn.”

Chapter 3

Dante

I never back down from a challenge.

Especially not one as beautiful or interesting as Lucy Vaughn.

“So, what do you
do
, Mr. Hart?”

I grin. “
Dante.
And why do you ask if you already know?”

She shifts in the passenger’s seat with her arms crossed and her eyes boring into me. “Professional curiosity.”

“What professional curiosity does a ballerina have for a two-bit gangster?”

“You said you weren’t in my father’s office tonight to collect money,” she points out. “You must have been there for some other reason, why?”

“I was sent there tonight to kill him.”

She pauses but only for a soft moment. “Really?”

“Yes.”

“You’re just going to throw that out there?” she says. “No lead up? No
hesitation
?”

I chuckle. “You obviously already knew that, Lucy—”

“Ms. Vaughn.”

“—or else you wouldn’t have agreed to come.”

“Well, yeah, my dad says crap like
he’s gonna kill me
all the time, but I never believe him.”

“Well…” I glance over at her. “There’s a first time for everything.”

“Hm.” She sits back in her seat and stares forward at the crowded, city road.

I let her sit there, silently stewing in her head. She’ll break eventually. Soon, that
professional
curiosity will turn into something a bit more
personal
and I’ll have her in my sights. I just have to sit and let it happen.

Anytime now.

She stays quiet until we reach my brownstone. I hop out with the intention of walking around and opening her door for her but she’s already stepped her foot out by the time I close my own door. We climb the stairs while I reach into my pocket for my keys but she stays a few paces behind me to maintain that personal bubble around herself.

I open the door and step back with my fingers wrapped tight around the handle. “After you, Lucy.”

She glares at me for using her name before stepping forward. I take a look around, scanning the street for any obvious signs of being followed. It’s an old habit but it’s never not come in handy.

I follow her in to find her staring upward in the foyer. Her green eyes dance up and down the staircase in the dark.

“Would you like a drink?” I offer.

“No.”

I smile and walk around her, keeping my distance as I head into the back of the house towards the kitchen. She follows with soft feet, just barely grazing the floor by the sound of it. My training kicks in and I spend the trip down the hall mapping out her feet along the floor behind me. Maybe I should have taken up dancing. I probably would have been better at stealth myself.

I grab two Old Fashioned glasses from the cupboard.

“I said I don’t want a drink.”

I twist the cap off a bottle of whiskey and pour a bit into both glasses.

“Mr. Hart—”

“Dante.”

“I don’t drink alcohol.”

I hold one glass out to her. “You do tonight, Lucy.”

“Ms. Vaughn.”

I smirk as she stares up at me, her eyes growing weaker by the second. “Please, Ms. Vaughn. It’d be a shame to drink alone tonight.” I lay the glass down in front of her before taking a small sip from mine.

“Do you live alone?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“Hm.” She snatches the glass from the counter and looks at it for several moments before bringing it to her lips.

“Why?” I ask, giving in first.

She shrugs and her black blouse opens slightly to expose a little more of the pale skin of her chest. “Place seems pretty big for one person.”

“I like my space.”

She chuckles into her glass. “I bet you do.”

“Come with me.”

Her eyes bounce at the sudden request but she instantly spins on her toes to follow me back out into the foyer and around the corner to the living room. I pause by the fireplace and bend over to grab wood off the pile.

“Oh, so
this
is your plan.” She sits on the arm of the sofa and stares at me.

“My plan?”

“Yeah, your
plan
. Make it all warm and cozy in here. Slink in closer and closer, whispering sweet crap in my ear…”

“It’s
cold
,” I point out.

“How convenient.”

“Ms. Vaughn, I don’t have a master plan. If I did, it would simply include sitting here, with you, getting to know each other over a game of cards.”

“Cards?”

I reach into a box above the fireplace and pull out a deck of blue playing cards. “I assume the daughter of a serial gambler knows a thing or two about poker?”

Her eyebrow twitches. “She does.”

I toss the deck at her and she catches it perfectly with her free hand. “Shuffle up while I get a fire started.” I lower down, listening closely to her movements while I stack the wood. She slides the cards out and sifts through the deck to pull out the jokers before splitting it and shuffling the stacks together. My ears twitch at the tight, swishing sound of cards toppling together in her small hands.

I strike a match and light the ends of several loose papers inside to ignite the wood. It catches quickly and I sit on the floor beside it with my drink. The warmth tingles my fingers as I wait patiently to see what little Lucy Vaughn will do next.

Eventually, her feet shuffle over and she sits across from me at the other side of the fireplace. “Five-card stud,” she says, laying her drink down beside her. “None of that sissy hold-em crap.”

My lips twitch. “Whatever you want, Ms. Vaughn.”

Lucy reaches for her purse and fishes around the bottom for some coins. “Ante’s a quarter,” she says, dropping a silver coin on the floor between us.

I grin a little wider as I riffle through my own pockets for change. She deals our hands while her soft eyes flick up at me between card tosses. My cards settle in a small pile next to me and I wait until she takes her hand before taking mine. Ace of clubs, king of diamonds. The rest is trash.

“How long have you been dancing?” I ask her.

“Since I was six,” she answers, her eyes stuck on her cards.

“Sixteen years. That’s a long time.” I set the three other cards between us. “Three, please.”

Lucy looks over at me as her wrist flicks three new cards into a small pile. “How did you know how old I was?” she asks as she drops the three new cards in front of me.

“I asked your father and he told me,” I explain, taking the cards. Ace of hearts but the rest is worthless. “Have you always wanted to dance?”

“Yes. Dealer takes two.” She discards and takes two new cards for herself. “Did my father tell you anything else about me?”

“No.” I watch her eyes carefully for any tells. She doesn’t glance away from her cards, not even a single look in my direction to check me for tells. Definitely not an amateur. “Only that you were everything he had.” I grab two quarters from my pile and set them between us.

She scoffs and adds three quarters to the pot, raising my bet. “Unfortunately, that’s probably true.”

“Is it?”

“Well, you’re a Zappia,” she says, glancing sly over her cards. “I’m assuming the family knows more about his losses than I do.”

“I’m not a Zappia.”

She pauses. “You’re not?”

I shake my head before laying my hand down, revealing my cards. “Pair of aces.”

Lucy stares at me. “Why do you work for the Zappia family if you’re not family?”

“They pay well.”

She lays down her hand. “Two pair.”

I check her cards. Queens and threes. “Not bad.”

She pushes the cards over to me and I pick them up to shuffle them. “How long have you worked for them?” she asks as she gathers her winnings.

“A few months.”

“And they already trust you enough to go out and kill deadbeat gamblers?”

I split the deck and shuffle it with quick fingers. “I had a good resumé. Ante up.”

She tosses a quarter between us. “Who did you work for before the Zappia family?”

I smile with tight lips while dealing five cards at her. “How did we go from your dancing career to my work history?”

She takes her cards and snaps her fingers at me. “Keep up, Mr. Hart.”

“Dante.”

“I’m not calling you that.”

“Why not?”

“Because first names are informal.”

“You’re sitting on my floor, drinking whiskey, and playing cards. If that’s not informal, I’d love to know what you think this is.”

She flicks three cards into the center. “Three, please.”

I pull three cards from the deck and set them between us, allowing for my fingers to linger above them. She reaches out, but quickly halts before her fingertips graze mine. Her eyes fire back at me, savvy and cold. I slide my hand away and she snatches the cards off the floor.

“
This
,” she says, “is a formal meeting.”

“A meeting?”
I chuckle.

“Yes, a meeting.”

“And just what order of business do we have on the schedule today, Ms. Vaughn?”

“Kicking your punk ass at poker, for starters.”

I laugh, then realize I haven’t pulled my eyes away from hers to look at my cards yet. I check them quickly. Two jacks, two fours, and an eight. My brow twitches. “Dealer takes one.” I trade the card with a new one, feeling her attentions on me the whole time. My eyes fall to my cards. I pulled a third jack. Full house.

Lucy reaches into her pile of money and slides one dollar into the pot. I stare at her and she doesn’t even blink. “You don’t seem to be very good at this,” she notes. “Perhaps
Go Fish
is more your game?”

I flex my jaw and add one dollar and twenty-five cents to the pot.

Her lips curl. “I raise,” she says, her smooth voice charging down my spine as she pushes another dollar-fifty in.

She can’t possibly have a hand better than a full house. “I call.” I meet her bet and lay my cards down.

Her eyes fall to the floor between us and her lips curl to one side. “Not bad.”

I gesture to her cards. “Let’s see ‘em.”

Lucy holds the cards against her chest. “Mr. Hart, why did you arrange this?”

“Arrange what?”

“This
informal gathering
,” she snides.

“Seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”

“Why?”

I hold up my hands. “Why not?”

“Zappia sent you to kill my father. Instead, you let him go and take his daughter home. That doesn’t exactly scream
faithful employee
to me.”

I study her eyes; hard yet expressive. “I saw an opportunity to make some cash on the side, so I took it.”

“Why would you need to if the Zappia family pays as well as you claim they do?”

I pause. “Lucy—”

“
Ms. Vaughn.
What would Zappia do if he found out you were playing good Samaritan to those he means to make an example of?”

I bite my lip. “Is this concern for my well-being I’m sensing?”

“No, just a keen sense for bullshit.”

“Lucy—”

“Ms. V—”

“
Lucy
, I did you and your father a very risky favor tonight. Others would be grateful.”

“Others might be more than happy to bend over for the gangsters of this city, Mr. Hart. I’m not.”

“I’m not a gangster.”

“Then what are you?”

“I’m a
killer
who took the night off to play cards with you.” She twitches at the word. “Show me your hand, Lucy Vaughn.”

She inhales a deep breath while I stare at the cards pressed against her small, rising breast. Finally, she tosses them down and my eyes fall to the floor.