I stopped in front of the lobby doors. “Well, it was lovely to meet you. Thanks for all your help.”

I turned to open the door, but he grabbed my wrist.

“Wait a minute. I think you owe me a drink, at least.” He grinned. “Or maybe a line or two. I’d like to know what kind of stuff the Russos are shipping out.”

A line of blow was like a glass of champagne in my world. Unless we were at a family dinner—then you didn’t even know what the stuff was. But I couldn’t stop an eyeroll. He’d have known what my name was if he was familiar with my family.

But I did upend his night, and he was obviously more interested in getting his hands on my family’s drugs than me, so I opened the door and let him in.

“Gianna,” greeted the concierge. The seventyish Irishman had called me Ms. Russo until I’d nipped that in the bud.

“Hello, Niall,” I responded. “This is Charming.” I patted the man’s chest beside me.

Niall sized him up. “Charming,” he murmured, but I couldn’t tell if he was greeting him or mocking him. I loved Niall.

“He’s not very deferential, is he?” Charming asked, an edge of disgust in his voice.

Charming was a total loser.

“He’s Irish,” I responded, like that explained everything.

I let us into my apartment, leaving the door open a few inches so he wouldn’t get any ideas about staying. Heading to my room, I grabbed a baggie off my dresser. When I returned to the living room, it was to find him touching my things. “Here,” I said, tossing the 8-ball to him. “For all your trouble.”

He practically rubbed his hands together. “Let’s find out if it’s as good as I hear.”

“It is.”

I groaned internally when he dumped some powder on the marble counter.

Under the bright lights in the kitchen, it was clear his suit was worn, his shoes scuffed. He didn’t have any money and was hard-up for blow. Ugh, why had I let this idiot into my apartment?

His eyes were bright when he lifted his head.

“Told you,” I said, slipping my heels off. “Now, take it and go. A rerun of my show is on in five.”

“Where’s the rest?”

“You get what you get, and you don’t throw a fit.”

His eyes narrowed, but I wasn’t too worried. If he touched me, he’d be found skinned alive in an alleyway by six a.m. tomorrow. And he knew it.

“Fine.” He tried to scoop every last fleck of powder off the counter, and I grimaced at the unattractive show.

My gaze caught on someone walking down the hall through the crack of the door. Black suit. Broad shoulders. Straight lines. My heart cooled before icing over. His gaze was lowered as his hands twisted a silencer onto the barrel of a gun.

My throat tightened, and panic bit at my veins.

He looked up. His eyes were cold enough to give me frostbite.

“No,” I breathed.

But it was too late.

He pushed the door open, and his lazy, heartless gaze found Charming. A muffled pop hit my ears. Blood splattered across the counter and cupboards. White powder dusted into the air as Charming hit the floor, cloudy blue eyes wide open, a bullet hole in his forehead.

Bile rose in my throat, and I hunched over, covering my mouth.

I looked at the door to see a stare of dark indifference as Allister twisted the silencer off and put it in his pocket.

His apathy filled me with an anger so deep I saw red.

“Figlio di puttana!” I spat. You son of a bitch.

As he turned to the door, cold panic flared in my chest.

“Wait,” I pleaded. “Please don’t leave me with this! Allister!”

He didn’t even look back.

“Ace . . . he’s dead.” My hand shook around the burner phone I was supposed to use for issues like this. “Really dead.”

“Who?”

“Charming,” I mumbled, eyeing the body on the floor. I wasn’t making any sense, but the blood was about to soak into my area rug.

“Where are you?”

“My apartment.”

“Jesus,” he muttered. “What the fuck did you do?”

I paced the living room. “I didn’t do anything! Allister shot him and then just left!”

A long pause. “For fuck’s sake.”

“There’s blood all over my kitchen,” I whined. I heard Nico talking to someone, and while he did, the blood reached my vintage area rug. “I’m going to kill him,” I admitted calmly.

“You’re going to tell him thank you, and then shut your damn mouth.”

“I’d rather throw myself from my balcony.”

“If you fuck my relationship with Allister, Gianna . . .”

I frowned. “What do you mean? I thought he was just one of your men?”

He laughed. “He’s his own man. It took my father a long time to convince him to work with us, and if you’ve fucked it up I’m gonna strangle the shit out of you.”

Oh. No wonder Allister always looked at me like I was simple-minded when I’d talk to him like he was the help. I swallowed. “I’m one measly girl. What could I have done to ruin your relations with the dirty fed?”

He grunted. “You’re only ‘measly’ when it’s convenient to you. Do not go anywhere. Do you understand me?”

“But his eyes are open—”

“Nowhere, Gianna.”

“Fine.”

I hung up and tossed the phone on the couch.

Twenty minutes later, Lorenzo and Luca entered the apartment. Lorenzo whistled, giving Charming’s leg a kick. “He’s dead, all right.”

I grimaced. “Could you not kick a dead man?”

Luca dropped to his haunches beside the body. “Gianna, do I want to know why this douchebag was in your apartment?”

I was trying to win a game . . . and lost so hard.

“No,” I sighed.

Lorenzo rubbed some blow from the kitchen island onto his gums. “I know this guy,” he said. “Knox, I think. Real slimy dude, been visited by our enforcers a couple times for gambling debt. Still owes some money.”

“I don’t think you’re going to get it from him now,” I muttered, heading into my room. I took a shower and then blow-dried my hair and pulled it up. I dressed in Daisy Dukes and an off-the-shoulder top that showed a few inches of my midriff. When I came back out, the body was gone but blood still coated every surface of my kitchen. Anger grabbed me by the throat and squeezed.

Lorenzo and Luca walked through the front door, laughing at some joke.

“Where does Allister live?” I asked, not able to control the venom in my voice.

Luca snorted. “What do you think you’re going to do to him?”

Lorenzo shook his head. “He’s not someone you fuck with, Gianna.”

“Where. Does. He. Live?”

Luca shrugged. “Sometimes, little girls need to learn a lesson or two.” I gritted my teeth at his response but forgot the vendetta as soon as he rattled off the name of an apartment building.

“Call a couple men in. I ain’t cleaning up this shit.” Luca’s voice trailed off as I slammed the front door behind me.