Going to work as a cocktail waitress out in the open was stupid, but Kylie didn’t have a choice. The other girls had been working their tails off, trying to cover the money that Salvatore expected in his envelope the following week.
It was a substantial number.
But waitressing that Saturday evening was not without risks. The Borgata management had probably found out she worked at the Tropicana because all those guys talked to each other. With one phone call, they’d know her schedule, too. They might send goons to rough her up for the eighty grand.
And after the Borgata did that, the Tropicana would probably fire her. The fake ID she’d submitted for employment eligibility verification was under the Kylie Miller name. She’d told them not to run it through the state employment system when they hired her. Times being what they were after the pandemic when the Boomers retired and a bunch of everyone else became partially disabled, the AC casinos were begging for anyone who could work, and they didn’t look too closely if that’s what it took to hire someone.
Disguising herself with different makeup or a fake nose wouldn’t fool the Borgata goons if they came. The Tropicana management would point her out for them.
But Kylie’s money was dwindling.
The Borgata’s management wasn’t as scary as Salvatore Grande would be if he didn’t get his weekly donation to the cause.
In the end, she duct-taped her boobs together, put on her makeup, and went to work at the Tropicana.
After adding up her few bills in her wallet one more time, Kylie tossed a short scarlet cocktail dress and some high-heeled sandals into a shopping bag. She would just avoid the Borgata like her girls had said. The Ocean Casino Resort would probably have richer targets, anyway.
Her shift was scheduled for three o’clock that afternoon, so she rode a city bus that smelled like sour milk over to the Tropicana and changed in the staff locker room into her cocktail waitress uniform, which had a short froufrou skirt and plunging strapless neckline.
As it was October, the Halloween crap was up.
The Borgata and the Ocean Resort casinos were decorated with tasteful autumn displays, and their restaurants served roasted pumpkin soup.
Not the Tropicana.
The Trop went all-in with the kitsch. An enormous jack-o’-lantern encrusted with flashing lights greeted guests as they walked in, its maw opening and closing like a Macy’s parade float as it slowly turned back and forth on its axis.
Flashing ghosts swooped above the crowds.
Cinnamon stink rolled through the air, drowning out even the cigarette smoke.
An orchestral rendition of “Green-Eyed Purple People Eater” played every hour on the hour, while one of “Puff the Magic Dragon” played at the half-hour mark.
And Kylie was scheduled for six hours straight of that pumpkin spice barrage.
For her six-hour shift, Kylie shimmied between the poker room patrons with her usual plastered-on smile and pretended to like the gamblers while she brought them drinks and collected her tips.
She laughed at their inappropriate remarks and imagined how horrified they’d be if someone had said that to their daughter.
She toted out hundreds of Bud Lights for men who worked manual labor jobs, Seven-and-Sevens for the precious guys who didn’t really like liquor, Long Island Iced Teas and Manhattans for the people who were going to be trashed in a few hours and thrown out by security for starting a fight, vodka tonics with lime for the women, IPAs for college kids who’d just turned twenty-one, and passionfruit martinis for the guys who like their vomit to be neon orange.
But then, a tall man sitting at a blackjack table right in the middle of her section caught her eye.
No way.
Nuh-uh. He did not.
That goddamn blond Italian had some goddamn nerve showing his face anywhere in Atlantic City, let alone in her section of the Tropicana.
Him showing up in her waitressing section was not an accident, not after he’d known the name that she went by even though she’d never told him, gotten a fake ID in that name weeks before she’d ever met him, and had been scoping her out at the steakhouse where she’d pulled the pretend-fight con with Rita the night before.
Kylie couldn’t decide whether she hated the guy or admired him, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to be conned again.
So she stayed far away from his table, only dipping into that area to bring drinks to those patrons when the blond Italian left the table for a few moments.
She watched him out of the corner of her eye, though.
He never looked at her. As far as she could tell, he was oblivious to her presence, but she didn’t believe that for a goddamn second. A con man like that would have feelers. He would know everything that was going on around him all the time. He would surveille every person around him like moving dots on a map.
But Kylie wasn’t going to be a mark again.
Definitely not.
The blond Italian wasn’t going to get a second bite at her apple.
Absolutely not.
Speaking about bites at the apple, even after a week, his teeth marks on the inside of her thigh was still tender every time her legs rubbed together when she walked.
And thinking about his mouth between her legs—tonguing her, biting the inside of her thigh—made her panties damp.
After her shift, Kylie sat on a locker bench in the changing room at the casino and stared at the sparkly red fabric of her con outfit.
Ihsan was getting dressed for her shift, and she eyed Kylie’s red dress. “You doing okay, sugar?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Kylie told her.
“You missed a couple shifts. We were all worried about you. You been sick?”
“Oh, no. I just had some other stuff going on. Sprained ankle, you know.”
Ishan’s expression softened, her dark-lined eyes widening. “Oh, I didn’t know that. Is it better?”
“Oh, yeah. I kept it wrapped up for a few days, and it was fine tonight.”
“‘Kay, good.
Kylie went back to staring at her red scamming dress. Trying her luck in public when she’d recently had a con go so spectacularly wrong was risky.
She wouldn’t go over to the Borgata, of course.
Also, as far as she knew, the blond Italian was still at the poker tables. Going out there dressed to scam would be like waving this sparkly red dress in front of a bull.
But what a bull.
Memories of his musclebound body moving above hers, deep, slow thrusts in a sinuous motion that ground against her clit, drifted through her mind.
Going onto the floor that night was just a spectacularly bad idea. She shouldn’t.
Kylie strode through the casino, her scarlet dress swishing around her thighs, and she pushed through the crowd and took a seat at the blackjack table where the blond Italian was playing cards.
He didn’t glance over at her as she sat down, his blue-flecked eyes staring at his cards and then looking up at the dealer.
She didn’t stare at the blond Italian either. Let him make the first goddamn move. She wasn’t afraid of him.
But she checked his ring finger on his left hand, where it had seemed like he’d slipped off a wedding ring.
His hand was bare, and Kylie was questioning everything she’d thought she’d seen.
Her leg jiggled under the table.
Kylie looked up at the dealer, Zola, who’d been a cocktail waitress with Kylie before she went to dealer school last year. Kylie had met Zola’s three kids at her thirtieth birthday party the year before. “Hit me.”
Kylie and the blond Italian played hand after hand of blackjack, both of them studiously ignoring each other, until Zola went off her shift and the pit boss, Inessa Utkin, closed the table.
Inessa was a statuesque brunette who towered over the table, eyeing the patrons with authority as she dispersed the gamblers to other tables before they got the idea that maybe they’d been in the casino too long. At Inessa’s black belt party last year, Kylie had been the “demonstration dummy” and got the giggles as Inessa had stopped her punches and kicks just inches from Kylie’s face.
The blond Italian swiveled on his high-top chair and turned to Kylie. “Let’s get out of here.”
Con artists don’t make scenes in public unless it’s part of a game. Drawing attention increased the chances of becoming known to the casino management or the police.
Kylie fell in beside him as they walked through the casino. “I’m not going up to your hotel room. I learned that lesson the hard way.”
He raised his eyebrows and continued staring straight ahead. “How about my car in the parking garage?”
“Is it your car, or am I going to get arrested for grand theft auto?” she asked.
He flashed a half-smile at her. “It’s mine.”
“Acceptable.”
They rode an elevator down a few floors, and then Kylie followed the man as he wove between the cars in the huge parking garage.
Overhead fluorescent lights drew glowing lines on the cars’ glossy paint. Late October air chilled her face and arms, stinging her nose with acrid gasoline exhaust and cigarette smoke that never seemed to entirely blow out of the structure.
The blond Italian walked down the line of cars and stopped beside a blue-black BMW. Silver trim spelled out 840i on the trunk. He stuck his hand in his pants pocket, and the BMW beeped.
“Nice ride,” she said.
He shrugged and opened the passenger-side door for her. “It’s a rental.”
“Because you don’t live here?” she asked as she stepped into the car.
He closed her door and walked around the back to get in the driver’s side.
Outside the front windshield and past the cement wall, the lights of Atlantic City were a carpet of glitter in the darkness, and the ocean beyond was unfathomable black until it met the faintly glowing night sky.
After he slammed his door, the door locks thumped down in unison.
Kylie started in on him. “You tried to con me.”
He nodded, his eyes crinkling as he smiled. “And you got out of it. Impressive.”
“It doesn’t matter that I got out of it. What matters is that you tried to take me for eighty thousand dollars.”
He looked over the hood of his car, nodding. “Is that what the total was?”
“You know what it was. You knew exactly how much money you were trying to scam me for.”
That jerk’s faint smile hadn’t changed. “Let’s just call it a test and say you passed.”
“A test,” Kylie huffed. “You think it was a goddamn test? I’ll show you a goddamn test. Try me, asshole.”
He said, “I’d like to offer you a job.”
Kylie crossed her arms over her low-cut dress. “I am not that kind of girl. I am only a cocktail waitress who sweet-talks guys, and they give me presents. I do not sleep with men for money. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, or there shouldn’t be. It’s the world’s oldest profession because it is a profession. But whatever it is, I’m not one of them.”
“I never said you were.”
“You just offered me money to sleep with you.”
He shook his head, his wry smile at odds with his innocently raised eyebrows. “I offered you a job. You projected that the job was sleeping with me. Why did you think that?”
“It isn’t for sleeping with you?” She wasn’t disappointed. Really.
One side of his mouth curled up in a sarcastic grin, and he lowered his chin and looked directly into her eyes. “I’m not going to say no, but that’s not the job.”
Jerk. “Then what’s the job?
“Art.”
“Stealing it? I’m not a thief.”
“Convincing someone that a piece of art is what we say it is, and then getting them to sell it to us. And then selling it to a buyer.”
Just so damn suspicious. “What’s the take?”
“Millions. Probably tens of millions. And we’ll split it fifty-fifty.”
The numbers jolted Kylie like a splash of hot water on her face.
No way. Too good to be true.
Which meant the blond Italian was conning her again.
She unlocked the car door and grabbed the handle. “I’m out.”
The locks thumped down again.
“What the hell? Let me out!”
The guy was still wearing an affable smile. “Hear me out.”
“I should have known last week that you were too good to be true. Game recognizes game, buddy. You are not going to take me again.”
“What do you mean when you say take?” he asked with a devilish twinkle in his shining eyes.
“All the ways,” she snarled at him.
“You’re angry. I understand, and I’m sorry I had to test you like that.”
“Dude, you knew so much about me that it was scary. You’d been planning to con me for weeks.”
He smiled. “Wouldn’t you rather play on my team?”
“And now you’re trying to con me again.”
“I’m not.” He raised his right hand as if he were in court. “I swear.”
“Your word doesn’t mean jack shit,” she told him. “I’ll bet you’ve conned hundreds of people with that angelic face and trustworthy smile.”
He stroked his chin. “Angelic face, huh?”
“You totally took me. I’d have to be an idiot to fall for your lies again.”
“What would convince you that this is an honest offer?”
“Let’s start with your real name and some real identification,” she spat out.
“Fine.” He reached inside his suit jacket.
No way.
The blond Italian handed Kylie his wallet and a blue US passport.
Her hands shook under their scant weight.
Kylie dropped the wallet on her thighs and went for the passport first. She leaned toward her window to see the pages better in the parking garage lights above the car.
She’d never seen a real passport before, but the thick paper pages inside the silver booklet had a faint silvery hologram embossed on the paper.
If it was a counterfeit, it was first-rate.
The guy’s picture was right there on the info page, along with his name.
Micah Ignatius Shine.
Well, he was definitely Catholic with a middle moniker like Ignatius.
And he’d been born in Brooklyn, New York.
She looked over at him. “You don’t sound like you’re from Brooklyn.”
He shrugged and said, “Ya think I should sound like I’m from Brooklyn?” in a perfect Brooklyn accent.
“Damn, you’ve got that down.”
He said in his usual non-accent, “It takes effort to contain it.”
“I’ll bet.”
And yeah, it figured that this guy was a benny. “You still live in New York?”
“Check the other IDs.”
She went through his wallet.
Credit cards, all in the name of Micah Shine.
A California driver’s license listed his home address as San Francisco. That explained the California area code on his phone. “You live out on the Left Coast.”
“I got tired of shoveling my car out.”
Between Micah Shine’s tailored suit and the black American Express in his wallet, she just bet that he had never shoveled his own car out in his life.
One more important question. “You married?”
“Would you care if I were?”
“Yeah, I would. I would care a lot. It looked like you took off your wedding ring last weekend and put it in your pocket.”
He nodded. “You con cheaters, so I made myself look like a cheater. I didn’t have a ring.”
“But are you married?”
He shook his head. “If I were married, I wouldn’t cheat.”
Oh, he was a slippery one, he was. “That is not an answer to my direct question.”
“I’m not married,” he said.
Okay, but that didn’t mean she could trust him. He’d lied to her before. “How do I know you aren’t going to con somebody and leave me holding the bag?”
He nodded. “I’ll open a bank account with your name in it and put ten thousand dollars in there as a deposit.”
Kylie turned her back to him and looked out the BMW’s window over the row of parked cars. “That’s not anywhere nearly enough. I make that on most nights.”
She was exaggerating a lot, like several zeros, but this didn’t sound like a one-night job.
“Fine. A hundred thousand dollars in an offshore account that no one will be able to trace. Not the IRS, not anyone else who might be taking a cut.”
Kylie would still cut her girls in on the action, but not giving Salvatore Grande a chunk of her change meant it was worth a lot more to her.
She turned back. “For a hundred large, I’m listening.”
One side of the blond Italian’s mouth rose a little more, and his eyes narrowed while he was still smiling. “How about three hundred thousand, same arrangements, plus one more stipulation.”
Kylie tried to raise one eyebrow at him but only succeeded in wiggling her forehead. “And what would I have to do for the extra two hundred grand?”
“The job will take about a month, and I own your body for that month.”
Was it really being a prostitute if it was for two hundred thousand dollars? “You would own my body? Oh, I don’t think so, wise guy.”
His light gray eyes practically sparkled in the garage’s overhead fluorescent lights. “You would be mine to use as I want. To do anything I want to.”
“Your boss know you’re spending his petty cash like that?”
“It’s my money.”
“Yeah, and you said it was your hotel room. Six hundred thousand. No damage to my body, and I can nope out and go home at any time.”
“Four hundred,” he said. “Come on. Let’s see if I can scare you.”
So, yes, it was turning pro, and now they were haggling over price.
But with that kind of money, her life would change forever.
Kylie said, “Five.”
“Deal,” he said.
Five hundred thousand frickin’ dollars.
And him, for a month.
The loose fabric of her dress brushed over her nipples, and the folds between her legs plumped. “But you can’t whore me out or anything, and I won’t seduce guys for you as part of the con.”
He moved forward just a little, a move that reminded Kylie of a tiger stalking prey. “I wouldn’t allow anyone else to touch you.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “How do you know I won’t just run off with the money?”
“You won’t. Not when it would be worth so much more for you to stay.”
This was business. Kylie needed to settle down and think. “Really, what are we talking about here? I want to know what my share would be.”
He settled back a little in his seat. “I can guarantee you at least five million dollars, and the job might be worth a hundred times that amount.”
Bullshit.
It was all too good to be true.
He was too good to be true.
And look what had happened last time she hadn’t listened to her warning bells.
She’d better get that five hundred large up front.
Kylie asked, “And what happens if the job goes south? I don’t want to end up in jail.”
He shook his head. “You won’t. As I assume you know, it’s not illegal to convince someone to give you something of their own free will.” He smiled and glanced down at her body before meeting her eyes again. “Even if it’s something you want very, very much.”
“Any decent prosecutor could show a pattern of grift with me, and I assume he could do the same for you. That’s how they make conning illegal, even though conning is just part of the Atlantic City experience. The casinos tell people that they could win a bunch of money, but statistically, they can’t. I mean, look around. Most of these casinos are making profits, except that one chain of casinos that was run so badly that its dumbass owner went bankrupt laundering money for the Russian Mafia. But anyway, the casinos have to pay all their employees and pay rent and pay for the electricity to keep all these lights flashing and pay dividends on their stock, but people think they’re going to be the special one who doesn’t pay for all that. People come here wanting to be conned. Scam artists are part of Atlantic City’s entertainment. We’re just part of the show. But I’m not going to jail for it.”
“I know people. You won’t go to jail.”
“That’s what all the capos say.”
He blinked but said, “This is the offer of a lifetime. With the money I’m offering you, you could invest. You could go to college if that’s what you want, or set up a little store somewhere and sell Atlantic City knickknacks and tee shirts. You might be able to just retire and live your life in Tahiti if that’s what you want. You’d have security. You’d have a life. Any life you want.”
With that kind of cash, Kylie could hire private investigators to find her sister and her mother. She could travel anywhere she needed to look for them.
And yet, she would be a fool to trust the con artist who had scammed her once.
But she’d be an idiot to turn down that kind of money.
Kylie was as hooked as an addicted gambler in front of a broken slot machine, feeding it her retirement savings and yet convinced that the next time she pulled the lever, it would pay out.
“Okay, but I want to see you put the money in the account, and I want it up front, now.”
Micah showed her his phone, which Kylie recognized as the newest version that had just been released a few months before and thus four generations beyond the phone she used. He opened an account in her Kylie Miller name at what appeared to be a European bank, Banque Ammann, Jaggi, & Zug.
He knew everything about her and had a picture of her real but fake Kylie Miller driver’s license, too.
He finished setting up the account. “There. It’s under your name.”
“But I don’t know how to access it,” she said.
He copied the URL, texted it to her, and then told her the username and password for the account.
Kylie had never told him her phone number.
The username was her usual email, which he also somehow knew, and the password was Angeline$80K.
Great, the restaurant where they’d had their first date and how much money he’d tried to con her for at the Borgata.
Damn, this guy was cocky.
“Okay, fine, big shot. Who are we going to con?”
“Our contract starts now,” Micah said.
“Does that mean you’re going to tell me what the job is?”
His voice was a dark rumble. “No, it means your body is mine. Take off your panties.”
Half a million dollars was as good a reason as any to have sex with a guy. Kylie had acquiesced for much lesser reasons.
She reached under the red sparkly fabric of her short skirt, hooked the sides of her panties with her fingers, and wiggled them down her thighs. She kicked the barely-there red lace off her ankles. “Okay.”
“Give them to me.”
“But they’re my underwear. I should wash them or something.”
He was smiling, and his hand was still open and waiting.
Kylie scooped them off the floor of the car. The lace fabric was still warm from the soft skin between her legs. Handing them to him, still warm from her body, seemed obscene.
Micah’s pocket square was folded to be a crisp white line on his suit coat. He plucked it out and shoved it in his trouser pocket, then tucked her panties into his breast pocket with one move.
The red lace fanned out into a fluff like a flower.
But they were still her panties peeking out in his pocket, visible for anyone to see.
Like he’d taken a trophy from her.
Or like she’d branded him as hers.
Kylie shook her head. It meant nothing. It was just a kink thing. “So, what’s the rest of the job? Who’s the target?”
“You don’t need to worry about things like that. That’s a big-picture strategy item. I’ll take care of the big-picture stuff.”
“But I need to know what we’re doing,” she said. “Otherwise, I’ll make mistakes. Sometimes, during a con, you have to be adaptable.” She waggled her hands back and forth like she was switching paper cups around in a shell game. “You’ve got to be nimble. Things change on the fly. I need to know the game so I’ll dodge the right way.”
“Your role will be clearly defined. I’ll tell you exactly what to do. I have a list of priorities—”
“I need to know what the priorities are.”
He frowned at her. “Only one person in any operation needs to know the big picture. That’s why every operation has a command structure. Even in the Mafia, the don is on top. He’s the boss.” He made a chopping motion with his hand near the car’s ceiling and then chopped the air again and again, indicating lower rungs on the Mafia ladder. “And then under the boss is the underboss, and you’ve got the caporegimes. The capos command the soldati, the made men. Below that are the enforcers, and the associates are at the bottom.”
Kylie rolled her eyes at him. “You don’t have to mob-splain the command structure of the Mafia to me.”
“But it’s structured that way because it works. The more people who know the big picture, the more chance there is of an accidental leak or someone betraying you.”
Kylie was watching him. “You think about that a lot, betrayal? Like when you tried to stick me with the bill at the Borgata?”
Micah looked straight at her. “We’re not talking about your trial by fire again. You got out of it and passed the test, and I just deposited over six times that amount in an account for you. If the hotel comes after you legally for the eighty-thou, pay them. At least you got to keep the diamond earrings.”
Kylie looked away from him and out the window at the car next to them. “Uh, right.”
“You kept the earrings, didn’t you?” he asked.
Lying to a partner was the wrong way to start a business venture. “I had bills to pay.”
“What did you do with them?”
Priyanka and Kylie had strategized about figuring out some way to return the earrings and get the money back or else cancel the sale somehow, but nothing had worked on the jewelry store’s computer system without a receipt. “I pawned them.”
“Do you still have the ticket?”
“Grigoris didn’t give me one. It wasn’t a normal pawn. I sold them to him and got the money. Grigoris gives me a little more than most other shops would because he knows I’m not coming back for them. He’s probably already sold them.”
Micah started to get out of the car.
Kylie called after him, “Hey! Where are you going?”
He bent and stuck his head back in the car. “To get your earrings back.”
Kylie got out of the car and rested her bare arms on the freezing top of it to talk to him. “The pawn shop isn’t around here. It’s on the other side of town.”
“Call them. See if they still have your earrings.”
Kylie called Grigoris Katsaros, owner of the pawn shop Value Pawn that had been in business for over thirty years in Atlantic City, and asked about the earrings.
She shook her head. “He sold them this morning. Some benny hit it big on the slots over at the Hard Rock and bought them for his girlfriend.”
“Fine,” he said, his tone brusque. “Come on.”
He strode toward the elevators.
Kylie slammed the car door and trotted after him, bobbling in her flimsy high heels. The sparkly fabric of her dress waved over her bare ass, and her legs rubbed together as she chased him. “Hey! Hey, wait!”
He stopped. “Yes?”
“You’ve got my—” She tapped her chest on the left side, miming where his suit jacket’s breast pocket was. “And that means I’m not wearing any—”
His sly smile was maddening. “I know.”
She stepped closer and ducked her head, looking around to make sure no one was listening to them. “I can’t walk around without panties,” she hissed at him.
Micah grabbed her arm and spun Kylie, and she ended up with her back against a cold cement column. He whispered, “I enjoy knowing your pussy is bare under that skirt, that I could touch you any time I wanted. Now be a good girl and come with me.”
He walked away.
Dizziness assailed Kylie, making her knees wobbly, but she staggered after him. “Where are we going?”
“Tiffany and Company. I got you diamond earrings, and you’re going to have diamond earrings.”
“Micah,” she called after him, trying out his name in her mouth.
He stopped short and stared down at her. “Don’t say my name in public. As a matter of fact, it’s better if you don’t say my name at all.”
“Wow. Paranoid much?”
He started walking again. “You never know who’s listening.”
Kylie trotted to keep up with him. “Yeah. In a casino, you have to assume everyone is listening.”
His expression softened, and he chuckled. “It is refreshing to not be among amateurs.”
When they got to Tiffany and Company, Priyanka was working the counter again, because of course she was.
Because the store was otherwise empty, Micah asked Priyanka as he approached the counter, “Do you have another pair of earrings like the ones we bought last weekend?”
Priyanka looked from Micah to Kylie and back again, her expression wary. “I have a pair that’s similar.”
“We’ll take them.” Micah looked down at Kylie. “Unless you’d like something else.”
The diamonds looked like ice chips floating on water in a crystal glass. If anything, they were bigger than the last pair. “No, no. Those are fine.”
While they were pushing through the Saturday night crowds and walking back to his car in the Tropicana garage, Kylie asked him, “Are you going to want me to keep them on again tonight?”
“We’ll talk in the car,” he growled.
When they’d made it back to his car and the door locks had thumped and locked them inside, Micah twisted in his seat to stare at her and started unbuckling his belt.
“What are you—” she asked.
“I own your body for the next month, and that includes your mouth. Knowing you were standing beside me in that jewelry store with your bare ass under your dress made me want to bend you over that counter and let your friend watch while I took you.” He grabbed her hair on the back of her head and unzipped his fly. “Open your mouth, Kylie.”
The gentle but insistent pressure on the back of her neck guided her head down as he reclined the seat.
It was almost like Kylie didn’t have a choice, like she wasn’t choosing to do this to him in a car in a parking garage because he’d paid her, and so the voices in her head that constantly talked about sin and repentance every time she was with a guy were finally quiet.
She opened her mouth.