Red Handed by Jessa Wilder

Several hours later, someone knocked on the door of my suite. I groaned, rolling over in the amazingly comfortable hotel bed. “Fuck off!”

Whichever one of my new “roommates” was at the door had picked a bad time. I was betting it was Beck. He seemed like the type to lick a cactus just to see what would happen, and I was feeling damn prickly.

“Open up, Rae!” My sister’s voice drifted through the door.

My eyes snapped open. Well, apparently those guys had some self-preservation instincts after all. Either that, or they were still asleep. It was only like 9:00AM, and we didn’t get into bed until 4:30AM.

Wishing there was a way to unlock the door remotely, I pulled myself up with a groan and padded across the room. My guess that the rooms on this floor were huge had been correct. It wasn’t just a room, it was a suite with a capital S. I had a little kitchen, a sitting room, a bedroom, and a bathroom that was the same size as my bedroom at home. The bathroom had both a shower and a tub the size of most commercial hot tubs. I guess if I had to be living in enemy territory, at least the room could have been worse.

I opened the door and Sophie bounced in, the smell of takeout food wafting in with her. “You look awful.”

“Thanks,” I snapped.

She probably wasn’t wrong. Exhaustion filled my bones, and my bruises from the explosion were turning an awful shade of purple. I needed to crawl into bed and die for a few more hours. My stomach growled loudly, and I grabbed the takeout bag from my sister’s hands.

“You are a fucking Godsend,” I said while pulling out a Chinese takeout container. “Who was open this early?”

“Nico’s staff just have a list of restaurants on call, isn’t that cool? I figured you forgot to eat.” Sophie plopped herself down on the couch.

“Mmmhmm.” I often forgot to eat when I came back from jobs, too tired or injured to do much but pass out. Sophie was good about remembering to order takeout.

I frowned down at the noodles. Who had restaurants on call? The Espositos sucked so hard. Did it make me a traitor to eat their special food? Awe fuck it, I’d worry about that later.

“How’s your room?” I asked.

“Fine. It’s basically like this.”

“Yeah, super nice prison cells,” I snarked.

“Come on Rae, it’s not that bad. It’s not like we can’t leave the building, we’re just supposed to be lying low here for a bit.”

“You have to admit that’s weird. Like, why? Why here? Did you even know Dad knew Giovanna?”

She shook her head. “No, but he doesn’t tell me anything. I figured if anyone knew it would be you.”

“Nope.” I frowned bitterly. “This is all fucking batshit if you ask me.”

She gave me a little pat on the back, like I was the only one upset and she was trying to comfort me, which only annoyed me more. I stuffed some noodles in my mouth to prevent myself from snapping at her.

“Sooooo…the guys.”

I looked up from shoveling another forkful into my mouth. “What about them?”

“Don’t play coy with me. They have to be the hottest guys I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

My brow furrowed. “Which one?”

“Any? All?” She laughed.

She wasn’t wrong, but it didn’t matter. I wasn’t about to go sleeping with the enemy. Literally. “Are you planning on making a move on one of them? Cause you know that’s a fucking terrible idea, right?”

She turned on the couch and crossed her arms over the back so she could look at me. “Are you kidding me? Not one of those boys so much as glanced my way.” She laughed, but she didn't know they were watching me to make sure I didn’t steal anything. “The one with the black-and-white tattoos and the different colored eyes practically eye-fucked you in front of our house. I thought Connor was going to explode.”

The back of my neck grew warm. He had not been eye fucking me. I was the one who spaced out for a second and forgot who I was talking to. That wouldn’t happen again. All those guys were Gentlemen first. “Don’t start up about Connor again. We’re friends.” She’d been on my case for years about him. Never going to happen.

“Yeah, a friend who’s planning to marry you.”

“What’s this, the seventeen hundreds? We’re not doing arranged marriages,” I mumbled, my mouth full of noodles.

“Tell him that. You know he took the security job because of you, right? He wants Dad to take him seriously.”

My mouth popped open. I’d never considered that. “What’s your point, Soph?” I went back to my food.

“Nothing…just be careful with him. I know you think you’ve got a handle on him, but Connor looks at you like you're already his.”

“We’ve been friends forever. Don’t look too deep into it.” Shrugging, I tossed the now empty takeout container into the trash. I’d demolished it.

“He just wants to protect you,” she tried again.

I snorted, then felt bad. “Sorry. I mean, Connor’s a big guy and all. I know he works out all the time, but let’s be real. I’m a way better shot. His function as security is really more for intimidation than actual protection.”

“I’m just saying, don’t be surprised if all those boys get into a fight over you.” She grabbed my fork and stole a bite of noodles.

The idea heated my skin, and I ducked my head, embarrassed. That image was kinda hot. “Drop it. Supposed eye-fucking or not, there’s a difference between being technically aware that another person has a body, and wanting to do something about it. No one is friends here.”

“Awe, you’re no fun.” She stood from the couch, straightening her already perfect outfit. “There’s a pool upstairs. I bet at least one guy will be there.”

A quick image of what the guys would look like shirtless flashed through my mind. Fuck, that was tempting, but sleep was already pulling me under. “I’m going to take a rain check on that one.” I gave her a quick hug and walked into my room, collapsing on my bed. Within seconds, I was dead to the world.

* * *

I woke again sometime later, this time to the sound of voices in the hall. I tossed off my bright white comforter and stood, stretching. Still half asleep, I stumbled to the door and poked my head outside. Connor and Sophie stood outside, clearly in the middle of a heated discussion.

“You’re back,” I yawned.

“Sorry.” Sophie shrugged. “You’ve been asleep all day. We wanted to come check on you.”

“She wanted to come check on you. I thought we should leave you alone,” Connor grumbled.

I stifled another yawn. “Come in then.”

Sophie frowned. “Don’t you want to come check out the hotel?”

I raised an eyebrow. “No.”

“Come on, we should at least get a sense of our surroundings.”

I rolled my eyes at her so hard it was a miracle I didn’t injure myself. “Fine. Hang on, I need shoes.”

“Maybe brush your hair?” she suggested.

“Don’t push it.”

An hour and a half later we were still wandering the hotel, and I wasn’t feeling any more enriched for having done it. It was a fucking hotel. There was a gym, a ballroom, and a couple of lounge areas. We found the dining room and the kitchens. Aside from that, it seemed like all the interesting stuff was up on the highest floors where our rooms were, and I was trying to avoid those areas.

“Okay, I’m just saying, it could be worse,” Sophie said.

“How?” Connor and I asked at the same time.

“Jinx,” I muttered, and he rolled his eyes.

“You guys, seriously. We are not twelve.” Sophie crossed her arms over her chest.

“Speak for yourself,” I sighed. “Connor has definitely never matured past twelve. Have you, bud?”

I expected Connor to laugh and throw a joke back at me, but he didn’t. He scowled and said nothing. Sophie shook her head, rolling her eyes.

“I’m just saying, this isn’t the worst place Dad could have stuck us,” Sophie continued.

“No one stuck me anywhere,” I grumbled. “I can leave as soon as I find whatever the hell Esposito lost in that explosion.”

“Sure.” She waved her hand like that was the least of her concerns. “At least it’s comfortable. I feel like we’re pretty safe, and you have to admit, the guys are hot.”

“Oh my God, not this again,” I groaned.

“Agreed,” Connor called down the hall. “Not that shit again. They look like a fucking boy band, not a gang.”

Sophie rolled her eyes but relented—definitely more for Connor’s sake than mine.

I had to admit, she wasn’t wrong. Attractiveness had nothing to do with whether you liked a person, which was honestly too bad. It was just unfair that the most off-limits people had to be the hottest.

“Okay, so I did some research,” Sophie told me as we walked down yet another hallway lined with identical hotel rooms.

“Uh, huh.”

“Do you even know how much this place cost to build?”

“No.” I raised an eyebrow. “Why…do you? That’s weird, Soph.”

“I may have gone down a Wikipedia rabbit hole last night, but it was super interesting. This is just one of the Esposito’s multiple hotels. Plus, they have that apartment building downtown and a couple of charitable foundations.”

I crossed my arms. “And? We know that’s all a front. They’ve been pretending to be legit for years, doesn’t make it true.”

“You know what I think?” Connor turned toward us so he was walking backward down the carpeted hall.

“What?”

“I think there’s something weird about this place.”

“It’s a Mafia hotel, Connor.” I rolled my eyes. “If you haven’t seen someone get shot yet, I’d call that a win.”

I was only half kidding. Okay, not really kidding at all. Whatever Connor thought was “weird” was probably just business as usual. We’d seen a bunch of armed guards walking around and a couple of suspiciously buff maids, but that was about it. As long as they didn’t fuck with me, I wasn’t going to fuck with them. We had a healthy respect thing going on.

“You’re so desensitized, it’s weird.” Connor frowned.

“You’re still so sensitive,” I countered. “That’s what’s weird.”

Connor hadn’t been working for my dad all that long, but his family had been part of Mount Summer for ages. It was fucking baffling to me that he was so soft. Maybe I had high standards, though. My dad was a hardcore teacher, and not everyone had that.

“Really though, have you seen all the girls wandering around this place?” Connor made big mousy brown eyes at me.

Sophie and I glanced at each other. “No.”

“Oh right, of course not, because they have you hidden up in the penthouse,” Connor said, a little bitterly.

I snorted. “It’s not that, you asshole. I’ve been asleep for like twelve hours. When would I have had time to go spying on other guests?”

“You should have seen the shit going on last night. This isn’t a normal luxury hotel. Ninety percent of the rooms are by the hour if you catch my drift. It’s all rich businessmen and high-class looking prostitutes. Mostly girls, but some guys, too. It’s crazy.”

It was a testament to my upbringing that I didn’t even blink, just nodded. In fairness, our family’s main dealings were in drugs and illegal weapons, so who the fuck was I to judge?

“So, okay, that fits with the research I was doing,” Sophie said, speaking over Connor. “We all kind of knew their thing was prostitution, right? So the hotels make sense, but then why do they have legit investors? The value of the Esposito Family Corporation real estate portfolio has been growing at a rate of like two hundred percent a year since 2016. That’s insane.”

I blinked at her. “What’s insane is how you know or understand that.”

She shrugged. “The company is publicly traded. They have to disclose every quarter's revenue to investors and file their taxes with the state. I can read a report, I’m not a total moron.”

“No one ever said you were stupid,” I grumbled.

Sophie acted like she was this total airhead, but she wasn’t dumb. Not at all. She didn’t go to college because that’s just not what you did as the heir to a gang empire. She basically partied a lot and waited around to get married off to the first arms dealer or drug kingpin my dad found to be the most useful. She seemed happy enough, so maybe it wasn’t so bad. At least she hadn’t been constantly shot at her whole life, like me.

“Anyway,” she hurried on, “the point is, why would they take the company public? How are they growing so fast?”

“I don’t know, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me your theory.”

“Okay,” she said conspiratorially. “So, go with me here…2016 is when Nico’s dad died, right? Who the hell took over the company then?”

“Giovanna?”

“Wrong. You would think so because she’s the one who took that meeting with Dad and she was the wife, but all the paperwork is under ‘Nicolai Esposito.’”

“Well, that’s not so crazy right? Did he become the heir when Dante died?”

“Yeah, but I don’t think Alessandro was trying to go legit.”

I did the math. “How old is Nico? He looks young, but his job is intense, so I don’t know. He could be anywhere from twenty-two to thirty-two.”

Sophie laughed. “No, he’s a couple of years older than me. He’s twenty-six. I remember because we were both still in high school when Marcus and his brother died.”

I blinked at her. Just the way Nico carried himself, he seemed like he had never been a normal twenty-something. Then again, I probably didn’t seem as young as I was either. There was something about growing up in organized crime that made you grow up really fast.

“Okay,” I said, trying to change the subject back to what we’d been discussing. “So, Nico would have been like twenty-one in 2016?”

“Roughly, yeah.” She nodded.

“So? What’s the takeaway from that?”

“No idea,” she trilled. “But it’s not nothing.”

“Okay,” I said slowly. I wasn’t about to pretend I was following her train of thought. Yeah, there was definitely a lot of weirdness here, but Nico’s real estate portfolio didn’t necessarily jump out to me as part of it. Maybe I had just been around gang leaders for too long—this shit just didn’t faze me anymore.

Connor was totally right—I was desensitized as fuck.