Although Casino Italia wasn’t on the Strip, it had the same upscale décor to attract the high rollers who wanted a downtown experience without giving up the luxuries they would get at the high-end hotels. Everything was slick, burnished, and gleaming, from the red walls that were meant to evoke a safe, comfortable feeling, to the patterned carpets designed to mesmerize, welcome, and please the eye, and from the low mellow lighting to the soft, easing soundtracks to help gamblers get into a trance to encourage them to spend money. Nico had never run a casino before buying the Lucky Duck, and the psychology behind the redesign had intrigued him.
The woman didn’t speak as he guided her through the maze of slot machines, poker and blackjack tables, past the crowds, around the craps tables and the roulette wheels. He slid his key card into a wood-paneled elevator and moments later they were on the tenth floor.
Nico ushered the woman into his office. Cold, austere, functional, and decorated in the casino colors of red, black, and gray, it had a small meeting table and chairs on one side, and a steel bookcase on the other. A place to do business, nothing more.
After closing the door behind her, he settled in the leather chair behind his chrome-and-glass desk.
“Sit.” He gestured to the chair in front of her.
“I prefer to stand.”
Nico expressed his displeasure with a scowl. As the Toscani family’s highest-ranking capo—captain with a powerful and extensive crew working beneath him—he was unused to be being disobeyed. He answered only to the Toscani family administration: the boss, underboss, and consigliere, and even then he did only enough to maintain the illusion he was towing the party line. His uncle, Santo, now Don Toscani, had become boss after Nico’s father’s death. By rights, Nico, as the first son of the first son, was heir to head the family, but when he had come of age and made his claim, Santo had refused to step down.
“Sit,” he said curtly. “Or I’ll make you sit.”
“By breaking my nose?”
He fought back a bark of amusement. She was all sass, despite her predicament, and when she didn’t move, he was forced to drink in the full beauty of her lush body all over again. She was no ordinary thief if she knew how to find to the control room, what to do when she got there, and how to keep the interest of a man who would ordinarily just have handed her over to the police.
Legitimate businesses like Casino Italia had to be handled in a legitimate way, unlike the businesses in Nico’s underground portfolio that spanned everything from loansharking to real-estate fraud, and from counterfeiting to tax evasion. He greased palms and oiled the wheels of business in Las Vegas and across California to Los Angeles. There was nowhere his influence couldn’t reach—even in the territories carved out by the two rival Mafia families who were vying with the Toscanis for control of the city.
“Your nose is too lovely to break.” He had to stop looking at her. He was engaged to marry a young Sicilian woman in the next few weeks—an agreement made between her father and Nico’s father when Nico was six years old to cement a formidable alliance. He had never met Rosa Scozzari, but she was from a Cosa Nostra family many generations back. The alliance would legitimize Nico’s status as heir to head the family, and give him the power to overthrow his uncle despite the fact that Nico was a bastard—the son of his father’s mistress. A beautiful Italian woman was as much a symbol of status as a large house and a fancy car. Rosa would bear his sons, run his house, and organize social events. Sex and emotional attachment he would get from the mistresses every boss was expected to take as a further show of power.
“Is that meant to be a compliment?” She arched a perfect eyebrow and dropped one hand to the sweet swell of her hip. Bold and beautiful. Cristo. This woman was made to test a man’s restraint to the limit.
“Do you want compliments?” He was more than willing to give them, starting with her magnificent breasts, her long, toned legs, the waist neatly cinched in the tight corset, and the short skirt that barely covered her ass. He made a mental note to give Vito a raise.
“I want to give you this, and get out of here.” She pulled a letter from the bra cups of her corset and offered it to him and he strangled back a groan. His cock, already semi-erect from verbally sparring with the beautiful little minx, became fully hard as he imagined his mouth going where that letter had been.
“What is it?”
“A letter from my company confirming my identity and explaining what I’m doing here.” She placed it on the desk in front of him when he made no move to take it.
Curiosity got the better of him, and he skimmed the short paragraphs. Mia Cordano, owner of HGH Enterprises Inc., had come to Casino Italia at the request of his casino manager, Vito Bottaro, for a pre-arranged security test. Vito’s signature was scrawled at the bottom of the letter, but it was the woman’s name that kept his attention.
Mia Cordano.
Nico spun his silver pen around his thumb as he studied her fidgeting in front of his desk, seeing her dark beauty in another light. An enemy light. “Cordano.” The word was bitter on his tongue. For ten years his family had been involved in a faida—blood feud—with the Cordanos that had started the night Don Cordano killed Nico’s father in cold blood along with a young Toscani associate he had accused of defiling his daughter.
“Yes.” She tilted her head to the side and her brow creased. “Do we know each other? You look familiar.”