“Drunk driver.” He ran us off the road in the Valley of Fire. Our car went down a cliff. I survived without a scratch, but she didn’t make it. He crashed on the next corner so he never paid for his crime.”
“Oh God, Nico. How awful.” She pressed a soft kiss to his neck and he stared out over the city, caught in a memory he had buried long ago. Hushed whispers. Angry voices. His nonna in a rage like he’d never seen before when his father brought Nico to live with her. Even as a child, he knew it would have been seen as a dishonor to his father’s legitimate wife to have the evidence of his affair under her roof.
“You never had justice for your father, either,” she said quietly.
“No.” He realized then what had been bothering her all night, why she had been so wary around him. “You’re worried about the vendetta.”
“Are you going to kill my father?”
If she’d asked him that question before the ceremony, he would have answered yes. But he’d made a commitment in the chapel, an oath to join two families together and to protect this woman who had been joined to him forever. And even though it was before Elvis and not God, and in a tacky Vegas chapel instead of a church, it meant something to him. Something more than vengeance.
“I will withdraw the vendetta if he acknowledges me as head of the family and agrees to an alliance. Ending the feud will save many lives, and it will ensure you are safe.”
“Oh.” She let out a shuddering breath and wrapped her arms around him. “I know how hard that will be, and what it means to you. Thank you.”
Nico held her soft body against him, looked around the stark, characterless room, seeing it through her eyes—the bland colors, neutral decor, soulless and detached from the light and life of the city below. She was right. It wasn’t him, if he even knew who he was anymore. And clearly, it wasn’t Mia either.
“Let’s get out of here,” he murmured against her hair. “It’s our wedding night, and we’re in Vegas. Let’s make it something to remember.”
He waited for her to remind him again that it wasn’t forever. Instead she sat up and smiled. “Where?
“Take me somewhere you love to go.”
*
A dive bar to end all dive bars, Red 27 was heaving when Mia walked in, dragging Nico behind her. If there was a heaven on earth, this was it. Goths with dreadhawks, Daken-fans with lazy hawks, and ravers with shark fins of all shapes and colors, were scattered through the dimly lit bar. Over on the small dance floor, a few punk fairies in frills and corsets strutted their stuff, and in the shadows near the restrooms, a tattered greaser wearing a suspiciously padded vest clocked Nico a wary look. Her favorite watering hole was a cornucopia of eccentric underworld delights with speakers blaring punk music loud enough to make ears bleed.
Mia leaned up to yell in Nico’s ear. “Get ready for a sick night of punk, new wave, goth and rock heaven.”
Nico took one look around and put a possessive arm around her shoulders. “This is where you like to go?”
“Love it,” she yelled over the noise of the rowdy crowd. “It’s raw, it’s unadulterated, and it’s sinful. It’s the real Vegas that the tourists don’t see, the polar opposite of glitz and glam.” She pulled him over to the drinks menu scrawled in black marker on the torn paper wall.
“Punk rock and grime.” Nico lifted a booted foot. Mia had insisted he wear his jeans, T-shirt and leather jacket with his kick-ass biker boots, but even dressed down he looked too tidy for Red 27 and she fought back an urge to reach up and mess his hair. “My feet are stuck to the floor and it looks like a tagger went crazy on the walls.”
She laughed, not because of his words, but because he was clearly drinking it all in, from the psychedelic spray paint graffiti all over the walls, to the bras of all shapes and colors hanging from the pillars, and from the tacky mobiles on the ceilings, to the pennies pasted to the floor. The air was thick with smoke, the lighting barely enough to see, and with each breath, she drew in the scents of hops, dry ice, and the unmistakable peaty odor of pot.
“Let’s go to the bar.” She pulled him through the crowd, and past the worn, raised stage where a toothless longhaired banger was shredding his way through “Jesus of Suburbia.” She skirted the pool table jammed into the far corner, and pulled up at the sticker-clad bar where the bartender, King, an aging hipster in a knit hat, his long beard dyed green, leaned over and gave her a kiss.
“Welcome back, my friend.”
Wham. Nico had him by the throat and halfway over the bar before Mia had a chance to introduce him.
“Let him go.” She tugged on Nico’s wrist, dislodging his hand from King’s throat.
“Sorry.” She reached across the bar to straighten King’s collar. “He doesn’t get out much.”
“Hey, no problem.” King held up his hands, palms forward in the universal sign of surrender. “Just being friendly, man. We got a hands-off policy until five a.m. That’s when the clubs shut down and the strippers come in looking for some fun.”