“Alexa?” I snap.
“No!” she shouts. “But that doesn’t mean I’d turn a date down if offered.”
“Abso-fucking-lutely not!” I growl.
She rolls her beautiful green eyes. “We said this was just sex. That it would be our secret. That way, when it’s over, no one would feel awkward when we hang out.”
I can’t argue that she’s wrong. But we’ve been fucking for what, a month now? She’s more to me than that. “And is that what this is to you?” I question.
She throws her hands out to her side before they hit her bare thighs. “What do you want me to say, Cross? That I like you?” She steps closer to me. “Hmm?” She takes another step closer. “Do you want me to confess my undying love for you so that you’ll feel superior over me …”
I grip her face in my hands and yank her forward, closing what little space is left between us, and kiss her. She opens her lips for me immediately, and I take the opportunity to deepen the kiss—my tongue dancing with hers. Her hands grip my T-shirt, and I press my hips into hers so she can feel how hard I am for her right now.
She pulls away all of a sudden. “Cross …”
“I’ll give you a job, but you have to quit Glass,” I offer before we go back to a yelling match that I know I can’t win. Those two days without her after I kicked her out of my house were miserable. I’m trying not to make that mistake again.
She frowns. “I own a bar. That’s what I know.”
I push some loose blond strands behind her ear. “I know. Grave runs one of the nightclubs here in Kingdom.” Who knows when he’ll come back? And if it’s soon, he’ll still want his nights free to spend time at home with his girl. “While he’s gone, I’ve taken it over. It’s yours.”
“What?” she asks, stepping back, and I let her go to give her the space.
“It’s yours. You can run it.” Kingdom really has whatever you could possibly need—it has three nightclubs, over ten restaurants. Twenty sports bars. Tattoo shop—Tit-for-Tat. A shopping mall that connects all four towers. Golf course, bowling alley, wedding chapel, five pools, and its own theater with ten screens. They play movies twenty-four seven. And not to mention the largest convention center. It sponsors anything from UFC fights to sold-out concerts.
“Cross. No. that’s not …”
“It’s a perfect solution. You can manage it. Your brother can work there too. However many employees you need to hire from Lucky’s, you can. We can always use more help.” I know she keeps a small staff at her bar. We have over sixty-five waitresses and thirty bartenders that are in rotation at Crown. We don’t have requirements on how often they work. Some are three nights a week, and others are five times a month. That’s why we employ so many.
She shakes her head. “Derek quit the bar. And he would never work for anything here at Kingdom. He thinks Bones is in with the Mafia.” She laughs but stops when I don’t and swallows nervously. Lowering her voice, she asks, “Is he?”
“Yes,” I say honestly.
She gasps, her eyes widening.
“We all are.” I don’t feel the need to lie to her. I trust Alexa. Plus, this is something that she could find online if she just did some research. I hate to admit that her lack of knowledge about the Kings and our friends hurts my feelings. I thought she’d have looked me up by now. And honestly, I’m surprised that April hasn’t already filled her in on this. Or Jasmine, for that matter. I know she’s hung out with Haven before. She’s met Luca. Not like he introduces himself as mafia royalty, but still. The information is right there if she wanted it.
She starts to pace. “Cross? This is … He was right.” Her hands fist. “I hate when Derek is right. Now what do I do? You’re friends with the Mafia.”
“Technically, you are too,” I add to her rambling.
“No, I’m not,” she says defensively, coming to a stop.
“Yes …” She shakes her head. “Haven.”
“What about her?” Her voice has a high pitch to it. “Oh my God, is she okay?”
“She’s married to Luca Bianchi, who runs the Italian-America Mafia here in Vegas.”
She just stands there and stares at me, looking surprised and terrified at the same time. So, I step into her once again, placing my hands on her shoulders to keep her in place since she looks like she’s about to bolt any second. “Luca owns Glass.” I’m not going to disclose that Bones owns half of it as well. That’s his secret to tell, not mine. “That’s how Bones was going to get you the job.”
“And Jasmine knows all of this? That’s why she took me to Bones.” Her wide eyes search mine like she’s waiting for me to say gotcha.
“Yeah.” We grew up with Jasmine, Haven, and Emilee—those three women know more about us than any other women ever will.
“I, uh …” She pulls away from me.
“Alexa …?”
“Need a moment.” She spins around and rushes out of my office.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
ALEXA
I CAN’T BELIEVE it! How did I not see it? Was I that blind? Or just stupid? A conversation I once had with my brother and April comes to mind when she first found out that Ethan was hiding something from her.
She sits across the bar from me up at Lucky’s.
“Anything you need me to do?” Derek asks. “Want me to talk to him about something? Is it girls?” he asks referring to Ethan.
She shakes her head. “I found a key card of some sort from Kingdom at the shop today. I think it fell out of his jacket pocket.”
“What?” I ask. “How the hell would he get in there?” Her younger brother isn’t even old enough to gamble.
She shrugs. “I’m not sure what the hell he would be doing with that.”
Derek’s dark eyes look around before he leans forward and whispers to her, “Kingdom is bad fucking news, April.”
She waves him off. “It’s just a casino.”
“No. I hear shit in here. Kingdom is into some bad shit.”
“Like what?” She frowns.
“Yeah? Like what?” I ask Derek. How the hell does he know about what goes on there? I’ve never heard talk in here about Kingdom before.
“I hear that the guy, Bones, is in big with the Mafia. Whatever they want, he gets them. Vice versa. And they bury bodies in the desert.”
“Mafia? Really?” She laughs. “Since when do you believe in that shit? And what could this Bones guy get them?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know exactly. I just know that anything goes there. I guess there’s some sort of black market that the guys run.”
“Illegally?”
He rolls his dark eyes. “That’s what black market stands for.”
“What would Ethan have to do with that?” She wonders, still skeptic.
He shakes his head. “You need to find out. And better hope that it’s not too late to get him out of it.”
Bodies? Isn’t that what Jasmine mentioned to Haven that morning at breakfast? How in the fuck did Derek know about all that? And who did he hear it from? Who is he hanging out with that would have that kind of inside information?