Nico (Ruin & Revenge #1)(7)
“So what was the big boss like?” Jules leaned forward in her chair, her colorfully painted nails a startling contrast to the strategically torn tights she wore beneath a short black skirt. “When I think of casino owners, I imagine slick, slimy, and sleazy. In that order.”
“He was…” Mia sucked her in lips, trying to encapsulate everything that was Nico Toscani in a few words. “Gorgeous. Young. Hot. Confident. Charming—”
“Whoa. Stop right there.” A smile spread across Jules’s face. “You like him.”
“He’s an angry client, a Mafia capo, and a family enemy,” Mia countered. “He’s also a sexist, arrogant, overbearing ass and in typical Mafia fashion believes women are useless and belong in the kitchen. He couldn’t believe his casino manager hired a woman. He seemed to be more annoyed about that than the fact I’m a Cordano.”
“I’m sure you set him straight,” Jules said dryly.
Mia’s lips quivered at the corners. “I threatened to squeeze his balls.”
“Jesus.” Jules burst out laughing. “I almost feel sorry for the guy. He pressed all your buttons at once, and you’re not a forgiving type. What did he do?”
Her cheeks heated and she typed in the first of the five passwords she used to secure her system, remembering how her body tingled when she’d stepped between his legs, the electricity that crackled between them, the way his gaze had dropped to her lips and how she’d imagined what it would be like to kiss him. “He threw me out.”
“So, when are you seeing him again?”
“I’m not.” Mia looked up when she heard the front door open. “He just fired us. And I told you, he’s a family enemy and everything I hate in a man.”
“Am I missing a meeting?” Chris joined them in Mia’s office. She had been a struggling single mom working at the local library when they met, but her interest in computer hacking had led her to enroll her young daughter in Mia’s coding class at the local community center. Mia and seen Chris’s spark of interest, and helped her develop an online presence in the hacker world, eventually asking her to join her team when her business expanded. Toned and tan, and always dressed in sports clothes, she kept her hair in a short, dark bob so it didn’t interfere with her obsessive fitness activities and would never be caught dead drinking coffee or eating chocolate at any time of day. She was the antithesis of every hacker Mia knew, which made her particularly effective for the kind of penetration test Mia had botched on Friday.
She filled in the details while Chris sipped her fluorescent-green protein shake.
“Maybe I should call the telecom company that called last week. They wanted us to hack into their rival’s network to see what they were up to. I explained to them that we’re good guys—white-hat hackers—and that we only hack to help businesses tighten their security. I said if they wanted to get involved in corporate espionage they needed to find themselves some black-hat hackers, or if they thought their rival was up to no good, a gray-hat hacking group would do. They weren’t very happy. I’ll bet if you gave them a call, we could land that contract.”
“We’re not that desperate,” Mia said. “Once we cross that line, there’s no going back.” Chris didn’t know that some of their contracts were for Mafia-run businesses, albeit they were legitimate, but she understood Mia wasn’t interested in taking on any black-hat work. “Plus, we still haven’t heard about that proposal we sent in to the FBI. The RFP they sent out had a one-year time frame for them to consider the offers and that time is almost up. Fingers crossed they choose us.”
“So what are we going to do about Casino Italia?” Jules asked. “That’s a week of work lost.”
Mia tucked the outfit away in her bag. “I went through all their systems, and checked their security. The only thing that wasn’t completed was the final penetration test. I’ll write a report and send the bill.” Her lips quivered when she remembered Nico’s shocked look when she stormed out of his office. She would give anything to be there when that cocky bastard opened the bill.
After all, it was what she had promised she would do. And in their world, honor was everything.
*
“Don Toscani.”
Bile rose in Nico’s throat as he bent to kiss his uncle’s pinkie ring, the symbol of his power as boss of the Toscani crime family. He pressed his lips to the cold cluster of diamonds, and shuddered back the urge to rip the band off Santo’s finger. That ring was Nico’s ring—his father’s legacy, handed down from oldest son to oldest son for generations. Every time he touched it, he felt the knife of his uncle’s betrayal stab deeper in his heart.
Santo was three hundred pounds of ruthless, greedy bastard. He slicked his salt and pepper hair back with fistfuls of gel and only wore tracksuits over wife beater vests, with a heavy gold cross on a chain around his thick neck.
“Frankie.” Santo spared a nod for Nico’s closest friend and the top-ranking member of his crew. Although officially a Toscani family enforcer, who answered to Santo, Frankie De Lucchi had taken on the role of Nico’s bodyguard when Nico became a capo—captain. Santo called on Frankie occasionally to deal with difficult situations, but usually his son, Tony, handled the jobs no one else wanted to do.