Rachel Dyken - Entice

“Ready.” She threw on a pair of red heels and then wrapped a holster around her thigh, strapping her knife in just in case.

“I’d say you were.” I whistled.

Her eyes narrowed. “I’m still pissed.”

“Good.” I focused in on her eyes. “Use it.”

I could tell she was nervous. She kept pressing her palms against the front of the dress, smoothing it down.

With a curse I walked over to her and grabbed her hands. “It’s going to be fine, I promise.”

“And if it’s not?” Her voice wavered.

“Then at least we had tonight.”

She pushed against my chest, a smile playing at the corner of her lips. “Do you always have to be such an ass?”

“Yes. Especially when you look like you’re about to shit a brick. It’s going to be fine. I’ve got your back, and we’ll have Luca, Frank, Nixon, and Tex watching from the shadows. Or in Tex’s case, distracting the would-be assassins by dropping it like it’s hot on the dance floor.”

“Right.” Mil snorted. “Like that won’t get us killed.”

“It may get him shot.” I shrugged. “But it will be a good distraction.”

Mil checked her phone. “We have a half hour to notify everyone and get down to the club.”

“Alright.” I opened my own phone and began typing a group text. “I’m going to fill everyone in on the details via text. Something about us all meeting at a public place kind of rubs me the wrong way.”

“I thought it didn’t matter which way you were rubbed?” Her eyes teased.

“Aw, there she is. I knew you’d make a comeback.” I winked. “Like I said, use the fear. Think of it this way. The only reason Tex acts like a complete jackass most the time is because he’s scared shitless. He has more to lose than anyone.”

“Yeah.” Mil nodded, her eyebrows drawing together in concern. “Trace kind of told me.”

“Let’s hope this is about you more than it is about him,” I said sourly. “Because if Tanya Campisi recognizes the prodigal son, we may have a full-out war on our hands.”

“How do you figure?” Mil asked, wrapping her hair around her head into a tight bun.

Damn, I liked it loose and wavy, but loose and wavy meant some freak assassin could pull her hair and drag her away. Bun it was. Bun was safe.

I tried to look nonchalant, even though something in me twitched with fear. “Tanya never forgave the Abandonatos for taking away her sweet boy. She felt that we brainwashed him with our American ways.”

“Hmm.” Mil smeared or rubbed or whatever the hell girls called it — lipstick across her luscious lips and pouted in the mirror. Was her entire plan to get me so aroused before we went to the club that I was rendered useless?

“‘Kay, now I’m ready.”

“Me too,” I grumbled.

“Later.” She gave me a shy smile, pink gracing her high cheekbones.

“Promise?”

“Swear.”

“Pinky it.” I held out my pinky.

She stared at my pinky and let out a sigh. I tilted my head, waiting. With an exaggerated eye-roll she latched onto my finger with her own pinky. “I swear, sometimes it’s like I’m married to an adolescent.”

“Amazing how you can make a man lose his arousal with one sly comment. Thanks though. I needed that, like a bucket of cold water thrown on my body.” I chuckled and opened the door, looking down the hallway for anything suspicious. After I ensured the coast was clear, I let Mil walk in front. “After you.”

Nixon

“I don’t like it,” I mumbled to Trace for probably the tenth time as I toyed with my drink at the bar. The dance club was too loud, too dark, too everything. I still couldn’t see Tex, even though he’d promised he wouldn’t dance too far away from the crowd. Frank and Luca were sitting over in the corner looking more uncomfortable by the minute.

“There he is.” Trace nodded in the direction of the door as Chase and Mil made their way through the crowds to the opposite end of the bar.

Damn, Chase was earning points for looking so hopelessly in love. He trailed after Mil with wide eyes and a smile that said he’d just gotten lucky. Then he touched her ass, and she grinned and grabbed the hand and lifted it off of her with a smile and shake of her head.

“They look relaxed,” Trace said loudly in my ear.

“Yeah well, sex has a way of doing that to a person.” I couldn’t decide if I was frustrated that he’d let his guard down or proud that he’d done what it had taken to get answers out of her. It still felt wrong. Every damn thing felt wrong about the club, from the way my clothes were pressed against my body to the music they were playing.

Chase held up his hand and motioned for the bartender and laughed with Mil, every once in a while touching her knee with his hand.

His smile faded when a figure walked up to them. I didn’t recognize him; he was tall, clean-shaven, and had dark hair. His suit was expensive, from what I could tell, and he seemed distant but friendly.

Chase eyed me across the bar, lifted his drink one last time, and grabbed Mil’s hand as they were led to a back door.

“Shit.” I pushed away from the bar then, remembering Trace, doubled back and pointed at her face. “You. Stay.”

“Staying.” She raised an eyebrow.

I glanced up, made eye contact with Frank, and then motioned for Luca to follow me.

Trace froze and I turned back to her. Recognition flared in her wide eyes, but she was looking over my right shoulder. Something hard pressed into the small of my back, and the cold steel of a gun filtered through my shirt. Well shit, didn’t see that coming.

“Let’s go.” the voice said, the gun pushing harder into my back.

Grimly, I nodded and reached for Trace. She held my hand as we all walked out of the club. Nobody noticed — or if they did, nobody cared that there was a gun pointed at me. Just as it seemed nobody noticed my smile was tense or that Trace looked like she’d just swallowed a bug.

I caught Luca and Frank in the corner of my eye and stretched my neck to the left, which was the usual sign for them to follow. They slowly walked toward us but feigned disinterest. I couldn’t look directly at them so I wasn’t sure if they recognized who was escorting us out, or if they were getting ready to put a few bullets in our captor’s chest. Out of the corner of my eye, though, they seemed not to be interested.

Once we were out in the street, I was pushed into Trace’s arms and heard the click of a gun. Shit.

Turning, I guarded her with my body and looked into the eyes of our captor.

“You should have stayed in Chicago,” Sergio said, his voice sad. “Why, Nixon, is it that you can’t just leave things alone?”

“But you’re a ghost…” Trace’s voice wavered. “You help us!”

Not to mention the fact that he was blood. Did he have a death wish?

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I spat.

Sergio laughed and scratched his head with the tip of his gun. “You mean other than saving your pathetic life?”

“What?”

“Ten,” Sergio said in a cold voice. “Ten men. All with guns trained on you and your little mafia princess.” He licked his lips and closed his eyes, cursing into the night sky. “It’s bad, Nixon.”

“Bad?” Trace repeated.

“How bad?” came another male voice I recognized as Frank’s. Luca stood next to him, his expression grim.

“Bad enough,” Luca muttered, “that one of our ghosts had to come out and play, I imagine.”

“The footage. From the night Chase and Mil were attacked at the hotel.” Sergio shook his head. “There were marks on the insides of those men’s wrists.”

My head snapped up as every nerve twitched with awareness. “What kind of marks?” I glared at his hand. “And put your damn gun away.”

“Oh, sorry.” Sergio put the gun back into his jacket. “I needed to make it look like I was capturing you guys before you got your heads blown into what I can only assume is the worst techno music to ever be produced.”

“Thanks,” I said through clenched teeth. “The marks?”

Sergio clicked through his cell phone pictures and finally settled on one of the bodies; he expanded it until the fuzzy mark came into focus. It looked familiar, like a face I couldn’t quite place it.

“Think hard,” Sergio said. “I’m sure it will come to you.”

“Let me see.” Luca snatched the phone and then did something I’d never seen him do in my entire life. He showed fear. He handed the phone back to Sergio and looked at me straight in the eyes. “We’re all going to die.”

Chase

“Hey,” I joked. “These clothes are new. Be careful.” I tried to appear like I didn’t have a clue in hell why we were getting escorted out of the club at gunpoint and into a waiting black Escalade.

“Get in,” the man said gruffly, shoving me against the car before opening the door and pushing both me and Mil inside. I stumbled over her and let out a loud laugh. I figured the more I played the stupid role the easier it would be for me to snap his neck and get Mil the hell away.

“You’ve grown,” came a gravelly feminine voice.

“Tanya?” Mil said surprised. “Was this necessary?”

“Keeping you alive?” Her laugh was evil. It sounded like something out of a horror story, as if someone had crushed her voice box and then played Frankenstein with it, putting it back together but completely tattered. “I believe so.”

I swallowed. Her face was covered in moonlight. She shifted in her seat, and I got a brief glimpse of cold grey eyes and salt-and-pepper hair. The car didn’t move. So clearly we were doing this little meeting on the street as if that was safe.