“Wait,” I say as my brain spins with a million different possibilities. “You don’t have to, I mean, we can just talk. I can explain, I swear.”
Diego approaches and crosses his arms, still smirking. “She’s in deep shit, isn’t she?”
Calvino’s voice is like a melting icicle in my ear. “You’d better pray he wakes up, little thief.” He yanks me by the wrists and shoves me at Diego, who grabs me and locks my arms behind my back. Pain lances up into my shoulders as he jolts me side to side, not bothering to be gentle. I don’t try to struggle—I can feel his iron grip and I know it would only end up with me breaking a bone or dislocating a shoulder and the pain’s bad enough to make my throat tighten and seize.
“Should I get Vince’s guys?” Diego asks casually like this sort of thing happens all the time. “I bet they’ll want to talk to this one.”
“Let me handle them.” Calvino takes off his tie and walks to me. He loops it around my face and tightens it until the world drops to blackness and I can’t see a thing. “Leave her in my room. I’ll talk to her after I’ve cleaned up this mess.”
“Whatever you say.” Diego releases a soft laugh. “Although honestly, Calvino, if you wanted the girl, you could just take her here and now.”
A terrified moan escapes my lips and I can’t see how Calvino reacts, but his voice is like a shotgun blast in my brain.
“If I wanted her, I’d have her already. Now get her the fuck out of here and take her out the back. I don’t need more questions.”
Diego says nothing else, only drags me away and I go stumbling after him.
Chapter 2
Calvino
“Jesus, what the fuck happened?” Vince rubs at his face as I sit on the couch beside him. It took a little coaxing, some light slapping and shaking, but I managed to wake him up with minimal problems.
As far as I can tell, there’s no lasting damage, and I’m not sure if I’m relieved or deeply disappointed.
“You fell asleep.” I hand him a glass of water one of the other drink girls brought over—another attractive redhead named Ginnie, though she’s not pretty like Grace. None of the girls are, they’re much too jaded and exhausted, they all lost that spark a long time ago, but it somehow still lingers inside of little Gracie.
“Last thing I remember, those two fucking strippers were sucking my dick. The pale one and the blonde one, what are their names?”
“Raven and Sunshine.”
“Yeah, that’s it. They were doing good work too, but then—” He stops and shakes his head. “Everything’s fuzzy.”
“You okay, brother?” I lean forward with my elbows on my knees and stare into his bleary eyes. “You on anything right now? You seeing a doctor about something?”
He glares at me and shakes his head. “You know I’m not on a damn thing and I’m as healthy as ever. Don’t look at me with that paternal fucking stare. Don’t forget that I’m the big brother here.”
I smile and shrug, leaning back again. “Whatever you say.”
He stands, staggers a bit, but catches the end table and steadies himself before he walks around the room, pacing back and forth, shaking out his hands and rolling his neck, waking himself up.
“Fuck, I feel like I might pass out again. Where are my guys?”
“Diego’s going to send them back.”
“I think one of those bitches slipped me something.” He pats himself and finds the phone and the wallet I shoved back into his pockets. He counts his money, finds it’s all there, and curses softly as he puts it away again, shaking his head like he has no clue what’s going on. “Didn’t steal anything though.”
“I think you got lucky,” I say, crossing my legs. “You might want to see Dr. Mitchell and find out what he thinks about this little episode though.”
“Might not be a bad idea if I can be discreet about it,” he says, staring into the distance past the stripper pole and into some imagined future that’s playing out in his brain. I smile to myself, wondering what story he’s spinning to make this all okay again—overworked, overtired, too busy and too stressed, that sort of shit.
He’ll rationalize this away and won’t think about it again, so long as I remain calm and don’t make it seem like it’s a big deal.
Even if it’s a massive fucking deal.
“That’s settled. I’ll go find Diego and make sure your guys come get you. Maybe you should take it easy tonight.”
Vince waves me off. “I’ll find them myself.” He shakes his head again and rubs his eyes. “I feel like I just woke up from a goddamn coma.”
“Go get some rest.” I stand up and walk to my brother. He nods to me as I squeeze his shoulder and slap his back. We’re not a hugging-kissing-comforting sort of family, so that’s about as much as he’s going to get.