But I also look like I could belong here just like everyone else. Black suit. Dark red tie. White shirt. My gun is wrapped in a gift box because Saturday weddings at the Dezarian are always a safe bet, and no one stops a man carrying a gift box.
The elevator doors slide open and I step inside. But as they begin to whoosh shut, I hear something.
Laughter.
And not just any laughter. I know that laugh. It’s heart-achingly familiar.
In all this time, I still haven’t forgotten it.
Before I can think a single conscious thought, I’m moving forward to find the source of the laugh—just as the elevator doors shut in my face and the car begins to climb.
Guess not.
Could it have been…?
No. Ignore that thought. Don’t go back down that road.
The key card to the room is in my pocket. Gun, silencer, and full clip are in the box. My contact will be ringing my phone when Totti’s lieutenant leaves the bar, headed up to his hotel room, where I’ll be waiting. Then it’s game over. Job done. I don’t have time to be thrown off my game by my fickle imagination.
The elevator climbs slow. I should be replaying the plan over in my mind, but I’m fucked. That fucking laugh is ringing through my head instead. The melody, the chiming bell quality of it…
There’s a woman in the elevator cooing at the dog in her purse, babbling baby talk to her “Pookie.” If it wouldn’t fuck everything up, I’d paint the elevator with her blood and put the dog out of its misery.
But there is a job to do. So instead, I smile and nod at her.
When she finally steps off on her floor, I can breathe again without inhaling the perfume she bathed in—a musk that smells like it was drained straight from a skunk’s ass.
The fourteenth floor is as opulent as the lobby with its crystal chandeliers, plush carpet, and overwrought flower arrangements perched on polished tables between room doors.
I step out. Stride down the hallway. My forged key slides into the lock of Room #1409. A little green light flashes as the latch clicks.
I’m in.
There are rose petals on the floor leading from the door down the steps into a seating area, up another set of steps into the bedroom. About a thousand candles—in globes, in cups, on tables, the three-inch sill that runs along the top and center of the wall, next to the windows, and forming a path from the living room to the bedroom.
Strange. I’m not much of a rule follower, but all these candles seem like a fire hazard.
I pour myself a bourbon, drink from the crystal glass, rinse my DNA away and wipe my prints, then replace the cup on the tray. Not my first time hiding in a hotel room, waiting for my mark to come in. There are plenty of places to wait. Bathroom, balcony, under the bed.
Tonight, I choose the closet that looks out into the suite’s master bedroom. There are two suitcases inside it. One is flowered and feminine; the other is a black Samsonite. I choose the black one first and flip it open.
Holy shit.
Ball gag. Cock rings. Sleeves, vibrators. Lube and a whip. All of it brand new. Also, a couple pairs of pants, some socks, and two shirts, all drab and boring. It’s like someone ordered a My First BDSM Starter Kit.
I chuckle. Oh, Giordano, you poor Italian bastard. If I were a woman, the only I’d want in my body less than that fat old Italian’s shriveled dick is a foot-long dildo with ominous purple spikes on it. I’ll be doing the world a favor by putting a bullet through this son of a bitch.
One of the secrets to what I do is knowing how to fold myself into tight spaces and stay there, teaching my body to respond in the second I need it. It requires hydration. Muscle training. Determination. And a whole lot of mind over matter.
But despite me having all of that in spades, two hours later in this damned closet, I’m cramping up. That’s probably because I went out with Alek, drank until I could convince myself that every stripper looked like her—probably why I’m imagining her laugh today—and I brought one back to the house to fuck my past away.
Stupid.
I hear the bells that the Dezarian is famous for—wedding bells to announce another couple taking the plunge. Always makes my teeth grind. I also can’t help but think that, on May ninth, unless something extremely drastic changes, they’ll be ringing for me.
Fuck. When I thought about getting married, I was young. High school. I thought Mom would be there. Plus, I had the girl of my dreams.
Now, I have only the mob princess my father picked. My stomach is rolling. Mom would’ve never let this happen.
She would’ve made sure I had the life I wanted. Instead, I ended up watching her die. I arrived just in time for her last breath.
Ten Years Earlier
“Mom! Mom!” My whispers feel like screams, straining my throat, making my gut ache. She curls her fingers around mine. “Don’t go, Mom.” I need her. I don’t know how to be without her. I don’t know where I’ll go, how I’ll live. She’s the only family I have left.
Or at least, that’s what I’ve always been told.
“Listen to me, Tomas.” Her voice is weak and my heart is breaking with each labored breath she struggles to take. “You’re not going to be alone.”
I don’t want her watching over me. I want her home, in the house when I come in from school, the smell of her famous chicken tortilla soup filling the air. “Mom…”
“Listen to me. I lied to you, Tomas. I said he died, but he’s alive.”
They told me she would be delirious at the end. It’s tearing my guts out to hear her babbling about some guy who probably doesn’t even exist. My father is dead; I’ve known that my whole life.
“Shh, Mom. Just relax.” I don’t know what else to say. I’m not going to tell her it’s okay to let go. It’s not okay. It will never be okay.
But she’s going anyways, no matter what I do or don’t say. “Tomas, your father is alive. I lied to you.” She grips my fingers hard. “Bogan Dubrovsky. That’s his name.” She swallows and closes her eyes.
“Mom!” She’s not babbling. She means what she’s saying.
I watch the pulse point in her throat as she inhales deep, slow. “I didn’t want you to grow up that way … his way … but go to him now. He knows about you. He’ll take care of you.” She opens her eyes and stares at me. Then it’s finished.
The light in her fades.
And the light in me dies with her.
That’s why it’s easy to do what I do. I lost the last bit of love I ever knew that day. Not just Mom.
I lost her, too.
The hotel room door suddenly opens. I look out the slight opening in the closet.
According to the photograph I was given to study, Douglas Giordano is a fat, late 50s Italian with greased black hair and the face of an English bulldog.
This isn’t him.
This guy is ten years too young, twenty pounds too scrawny, fifteen shades too blond. And he’s bitching in a voice too high to be the Italian mafioso who sounds more like Stallone than Stallone does.
“Wrong fucking room. Can you believe that? For all the fucking money we paid, the least they could do is get it right.” I can’t see the woman’s face, but she gasps when he gives her shoulder a little shove. “I can’t believe you chose such a bullshit venue that it can’t tell a honeymoon suite from a presidential suite.”