He handed me the box. "Have a good night."
Without another word, he strolled down the hallway.
I locked the door behind me and put the box on the coffee table. It was black with a red ribbon tied at the center. I tugged on it and flipped open the top. Inside sat a new iPhone box with a notecard with the red and black Luciano logo.
The card read Dial 1.
The Lucianos paid our bills, a perk of being their money launderers. So I wasn't all that shocked to get the latest model of the iPhone. But I wondered why Nico was on campus earlier.
I hit the number one on the speed dial with a shaky hand and raised the phone to my ear. It rang three times before Nico answered.
"I see you received my gift," he said, his voice deep and sexy. "I'm in town for the night. Come with me to a party.”
Nico was dangerous, a Made man, and my father's employer. This was a terrible idea. But I thought about when I was in middle school and had a massive crush on Nico. Well, I had a thing for all the Luciano brothers.
Even Dante.
"You still there, beautiful?" He breathed into the receiver. "The longer you wait, the later it will get. I know a goody-two-shoes like you has a curfew."
I chewed my lip, knowing this was a bad idea. My father would have a stroke if he knew what I was about to do, which was why I wanted to do it so badly.
I snickered at his comment. “I’ll come out with you on one condition."
"Name it."
I walked into my bedroom and rifled through the hangers in my closet. "I have to be home by midnight."
"A deal's a deal. It's time to spread your wings,passerotta. I’ll pick you up in ten."
He hung up before I could tell him where I lived.
ChapterThree
NICO
Iwas the bastard of the family. My mother was the mistress of the great and powerful Salvatore Luciano, the head of the Luciano crime family in Atlantic City.
The king of the boardwalk.
My brothers hated me because of it. So when Dante asked for my help with a family problem, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to get into his good graces.
Ava Vianello.
My new project.
After I hung up the phone with Ava, I called Dante. I was five years old when I moved to Atlantic City to live with Dante, our father, and his late mother, Giulia. He was ten at the time and hated me when I walked through the door. And since then, there had been no love lost between us.
“It’s done,” I told Dante. “We can track everything she says and does on that phone.”
“Good.” He shifted in the chair, which creaked beneath his weight, and breathed into the receiver. “Get whatever you can out of her. She knows her father’s business. Thatpompinarois stealing from us. We have to prove it.”
“I’ll get what we need.”
Ava Vianello wasn’t just another person to use and abuse for information. Unlike her father, she was a good girl. And whenever I followed her around campus, I wanted to smear the gloss on her pretty pink lips. Show her all the dirty things I dreamed about doing to her.
I wanted her.
Over the past month, I’d developed an obsession while tailing her every move. The girl was nothing like her piece of shit father. We had suspected him of skimming from our illegal businesses for a while. But he was too good and covered his tracks.