“Forget about it,” Frankie said, settling in the back seat beside Mikey Muscles. “Just drive.”
Ben’s stomach knotted as Frankie directed him though the city and out to the east side. In a crazy way, he was almost relieved. He’d been waiting for this moment for the last ten years; always looking over his shoulder, always sleeping with a gun under his pillow, always knowing this day would come. If not for little Daisy, and his regret about betraying Nico, a man he liked and admired, he would almost have accepted his fate.
And Kat. Life was so fucking unfair. He’d finally met a girl who swept him off his feet, only to die the next day.
“Pull up here.” Frankie directed him to a bar just off Charleston in the Naked City, one of the worst neighborhoods of Vegas, and the only place cabs or taxis would not go through after dark. It was a place where you could shoot a man in the street and no one would call the cops, because no one in the Naked City saw anything.
Ben parked the car in the gravel lot outside a stand-alone concrete building that had been spray painted black and tagged multiple times. Sweat beaded on his forehead. Could he ask them to do something for Daisy? Frankie was a cold, hard son-of-a-bitch, but Mikey Muscles was a good guy, with a couple of rescue dogs at home …
“Outside.” Frankie waved his seven-inch Fixation Bowie knife in the direction of the door.
Jesus Christ. They weren’t going to give him the mercy of a bullet to the head. It was going to be the fucking necktie like the Wolf. He wasn’t afraid of the pain, but of Daisy one day reading the papers and knowing how her daddy died.
Forcing himself to be calm, he stepped out of the vehicle. He wouldn’t run. He wouldn’t beg. He had known the risks when he accepted the assignment. He would die with honor and pride, and the knowledge he was being punished for his betrayal.
“Here. Take these.” Frankie offered him a pair of leather gloves.
Stunned, Ben just stared
“So you don’t get prints on the gun.”
Ben took the gloves and pulled them on, his mind spinning with possibilities. Was this a joke? A set up? Were they going to make him pull the trigger himself? Make it look like suicide?
Dare he hope?
Frankie handed him a 9mm Beretta. “Loaded. Serial number is gone. Can’t be traced.”
Ben’s heart pounded, and he swallowed hard. “What’s this all about?”
“Nico’s opened his books. You got your contract,” Frankie said. “You pull off this hit and you’ll be allowed to go through the ceremony to become a made man.”
God, no. He couldn’t kill an innocent man. But if he refused to pull the trigger, Frankie would kill him. No questions asked.
“Who?”
Mikey Muscles patted him on the back. “Dante’s bodyguard, Rev.”
“The bartender is a friend of ours.” Frankie sheathed his knife. “He says Rev is sitting at a table in the courtyard out back. We’re gonna go in the front door, make our way through like nothing’s going on. We get out back, you pop Rev, and we’ll jump the fence.”
“Are we whacking Rev to get to Dante? Is Dante inside?”
Frankie shook his head. “Rev’s a threat to Nico. He’s been asking around, trying to find places where Nico hangs out. He’s gonna try and pop Nico before Nico pops Dante, and it’s not gonna happen on my watch. He’s also a drug trafficker who sold some bad shit to friends of mine and put them in an early grave. Bastard is a waste of space and the world will be a better place when he’s gone.”
Rev. Gabe. The man who’d got Ginger hooked on drugs so she couldn’t be a mom to Daisy. The man who Ben was pretty damn sure had touched his little girl in a very bad way. And now Ben had a gun in his hand and it was going to be his life or the life of a piece of shit who deserved what was coming to him.
If he pulled the trigger, Daisy would be safe. He might be able to get Ginger clean. And there would be no threat to Nico. A criminal would have been brought to justice. But Ben would have crossed a line he thought he would never cross. He would become a made man.
“Nico wants this?” Although no stranger to violence, with a well-earned reputation for vicious and ruthless punishment of those who crossed him, Nico did not kill indiscriminately. Nor did he kill out of fear. Even if Rev was threat, this hit just wasn’t Nico’s style.
“Forget about it.” Frankie brushed him off. “Nico’s protection is the responsibility of this crew. You report to me and I’m telling you this isn’t a fucking option. If you didn’t want to be made, what the fuck have you been doing with the Toscanis for the last ten years, or with us for the last three?”
So Nico hadn’t authorized the hit. Maybe that was his way out. Yes, he reported to Frankie because Frankie had recruited him, but he also worked with Nico directly. And if there was something he knew the boss wouldn’t be happy about …
“You in, or are you dead?”