I shook my head. “Just as a client, although, I hadn’t met him before tonight. His wife was the one who handled all the arrangements. She’s a pit bull when it comes to this kind of thing. I was hired to do the party, plus the rehearsal dinner and the wedding reception in a few months.”
“A big contract,” Dane said, his voice sounding impressed.
“Yes. It’s the big break I’ve been after.”
Not only would it give me a big reserve of cash, it was a boon for my client list.
“Mmm,” Dane replied, agreeing. “Do a good job for him and you’ll be set. He and his wife have tons of connections. But working with people like that eventually comes at a price.”
I glanced at Dane, saw the start of dark whiskers on his jaw. His eyes were almost as black as his hair. They held none of the heat from earlier, only a mixture of gentleness and concern.
“A price?” I asked, then took a sip of whiskey.
“O’Sullivan’s a made man,” Leo said.
When I turned to look at him and only stared, not sure what he was getting at, he added, “Mafia.”
“Mafia?” I asked, reaching forward and plunking my glass down on the coffee table. Holy shit. This was bad. “So the body...it was, what, a mob hit?”
Leo shrugged. “Dead is dead. But you can’t go to the police.”
“Why not?” I asked, my voice shrill. “He was obviously murdered. I mean, I’ve never seen someone with a bullet hole in their forehead before, but I’ve seen enough movies.”
“And you’ve seen enough mob flicks to know that if you go to the police and they search the freezer, there won’t be a body to find. O’Sullivan’s men are probably getting rid of the evidence as we speak.”
Leo’s words had me wondering just how they were going to get rid of the body. I shuddered.
Dane wrapped his arm around my shoulders, pulled me into him so I settled in the crook of his arm, my head on his shoulder. He was warm, and I breathed in his clean, spicy scent.
Leo took hold of my calves and lifted them up, tugging off my heels and set to work on rubbing my feet. His thumbs pressing into my arches made me bite a lip to stifle the whimper. It felt so good, especially after being on my feet all day then wearing the too-high heels all night. If I’d known I would have been shorthanded, I would have worn my flats.
“I still feel I should do...something. I mean, isn’t it also a crime not to report it? Obstruction of justice?”
“O’Sullivan doesn’t play by the rules, which means neither can you. If you want the job, you’ll keep quiet. But more important than that, if you want to stay alive, you need to forget everything you saw.”
“I get it.”
“No, sugar. I don’t think you do.”
“But can I let my client get away with murder?”
Dane’s fingers stroked my upper arm, and I felt his lips nuzzle the top of my head. “If you come forward, he’s sure to find out that you’re the witness. Then that dead guy won’t be the last guy he gets rid of. You’ll be next.”
I stiffened in their hold. Dane was right. What had I gotten myself into? It was supposed to be a small, intimate engagement party at a client’s house. That was it. No dead bodies. No mafia. Just finger foods and cocktails, dammit. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
“Shh,” Dane continued. “You’re safe now. Nothing’s going to happen to you. Just relax.”
“Relax? I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon,” I countered. My best client turned out to be a mafia kingpin, and I was a witness, albeit somewhat tangentially, to a murder.
“What do you do besides run your catering business, sugar?” Leo asked, his thumbs still working their magic on my fe
et.
“Please don’t change the subject.”
He smiled, his gaze raking down my body. I didn’t feel all that sexy right now. Not with...dead body cooties. There was no way I was going to get into any kind of sex, not with that image stuck in my head. Those empty eyes. That almost transparent skin. I didn’t care how good these guys were, they weren’t going to erase that image tonight.
“Talking about something else can get your mind off what you saw. And we’re asking because we want to know more about you”—Leo’s hand slid up my leg, to tease just under the hem of my dress, then slid back down. His intention was clear, but he wasn’t doing anything about it. Now—“only a dead body got in the way.”