Nico Read online

  “I want to give you this, and get out of here.” She pulled a letter from the bra cups of her corset and offered it to him and he strangled back a groan. His cock, already semi-erect from verbally sparring with the beautiful little minx, became fully hard as he imagined his mouth going where that letter had been.

  “What is it?”

  “A letter from my company confirming my identity and explaining what I’m doing here.” She placed it on the desk in front of him when he made no move to take it.

  Curiosity got the better of him, and he skimmed the short paragraphs. Mia Cordano, owner of HGH Enterprises Inc., had come to Casino Italia at the request of his casino manager, Vito Bottaro, for a pre-arranged security test. Vito’s signature was scrawled at the bottom of the letter, but it was the woman’s name that kept his attention.

  Mia Cordano.

  Nico spun his silver pen around his thumb as he studied her fidgeting in front of his desk, seeing her dark beauty in another light. An enemy light. “Cordano.” The word was bitter on his tongue. For ten years his family had been involved in a faida—blood feud—with the Cordanos that had started the night Don Cordano killed Nico’s father in cold blood along with a young Toscani associate he had accused of defiling his daughter.

  “Yes.” She tilted her head to the side and her brow creased. “Do we know each other? You look familiar.”

  “Who’s your father?” he asked, ignoring her question.

  Her frown deepened. “Battista Cordano.”

  Don Cordano’s daughter. The woman who had started a war. He remembered her now, although without the name he would never have recognized her ten years later and all grown up. She had been there the night his father had been murdered.

  Memories gripped him, and he crushed the paper in his hand.

  He had been so proud the night his father asked him to join him in a sit-down at Luigi’s Restaurant with Don Cordano, the boss of one of the three leading crime families in Las Vegas. Don Cordano wanted permission to whack Danny Mantelli, an associate in the crew of one of his father’s capos. Made men could only be whacked with the permission of a boss, and Danny had secretly been dating Don Cordano’s teenage daughter—something strictly forbidden in the Mafia world. The women of made men—daughters, mistresses, and wives—were considered untouchable. Women were property and often the objects of passion. More than anything, passion could destroy the careful balance that existed between the Mafia families. As it had done that very night.

  “You were at Luigi’s.” Bile rose in his throat, and for a moment he couldn’t speak. Nothing in his life, not even the death of his mother when he was eight years old, had prepared him for the moment his beloved Papà had been murdered, his blood spilling through Nico’s fingers as he desperately tried to save him. He had declared the faida that night. A man of honor could do no less, and a son had to avenge his father.

  Her face paled as recognition dawned. “You’re the boy who held me. Nico Toscani.”

  He spun the pen faster as he remembered holding Mia in his arms, trying to protect her from her father’s anger. Don Cordano had been enraged that Mia dared interrupt the sit-down to beg for Danny’s life, and he struck her so hard she fell to the ground

  Raised in single parent households—first by his mother and then, for a short time, by his nonna after his mother died—Nico had a tremendous respect for women, and the brutality of Don Cordano’s attack on young Mia had shocked and appalled him. Without thinking, he had stepped in to defend her. She wrapped her arms around him, held on tight. And in that one moment, in the midst of the horror, eighteen-year-old Nico came alive. He felt a sense of purpose and worth that he’d never felt as a bastard son—he was a protector and this sixteen-year-old Mafia princess who felt so right in his arms, was his to protect. When her father turned his gun on Danny, Nico covered her ears and pressed her face to his chest to spare her the horror of witnessing her boyfriend’s death. And then she’d been ripped away and life as he knew it had ended with the crack of a gun.

  He had no desire to rehash that night, or to hear what she had to say, whether it was regrets or apologies, thanks or accusations. He had lost not only his father, but also the fleeting glimpse of a life that could have been more than just following in his father’s footsteps—a life with purpose and fulfillment. A life with love.

  Mia was a brutal reminder of the emptiness he’d felt since that night, the black hole that had opened in his chest and couldn’t be filled no matter how many women he took to his bed or how much success he achieved. He lived now solely to avenge his father and take his place as boss of the family.

  Dropping the pen, he tossed the crumpled letter on his desk and vented his frustration. “Cristo santo! I told Vito to hire the best cybersecurity firm in the city and he hired you?”

  Mia folded her arms across her chest. “What do you mean by that?”

  Nico made a dismissive gesture with his hand, trying not to focus on any one part of her beautiful body. “First of all, you’re a Cordano. Second, you’re a woman.”

  She gave an indignant sniff. “So what? Women can be hackers. A woman wrote the first ever C Sharp virus. Women speak at DefCon, one of the world’s most prestigious gatherings of hackers. If you’re not familiar with us, it’s because most female hackers are interested in technology for what it does and not so we can break it or watch people suffer. We’re not interested in cyber-vandalism. There’s nothing clever about dismantling a system, and everything good about helping companies secure themselves against cyber attacks, which is what Vito hired me to do.”

  “Hacking is for men. This stuff…” He waved vaguely at her outfit. “Security work is for men. It’s a dangerous business. It involves skill, deception, focus, and intelligence.”

  Her eyes blazed, and she crossed the floor to lean over his desk. “Intelligence? I was at the top of my class at UCLA. If you had even bothered to read the resume I sent your casino manager, you would have seen I’ve had contracts from multi-national corporations, state and local governments. I was even invited to submit a tender to the FBI. I got those contracts myself. I run a very successful business with the help of two on-site employees and a floating team of five online hackers.”

  She paused for breath, and Nico tried to tear his gaze away from her magnificent breasts now only inches away from his face, but she wouldn’t let him.

  “This…” She cupped her breasts over the corset and gave them a shake, sending all Nico’s blood down to his groin. “Ridiculous outfit is me doing my job and the only reason I was caught was because your security guard has the same antiquated, sexist, misogynistic attitude as you and decided to pinch my ass. I jabbed my knife into his thigh to defend myself as any woman being sexually harassed is entitled to do.”

  For the first time in his twenty-eight years, Nico had nothing to say. Captivated, entranced, and fiercely aroused by the infuriated, beautiful woman leaning over his desk, her face dark with indignant fury, he almost forgot she was the enemy—the daughter of the man he hated most in the world.

  “If I hadn’t been distracted,” she continued, straightening up to Nico’s abject disappointment, “I would have been in and out of your control room and hacking into your system as we speak.”

  “Exactly.” Unable to contain the fierce arousal coursing through his veins, Nico pushed back his chair, and rounded his desk forcing her to take a few steps back. He perched on the edge of the desk in front of her, arms folded, legs spread wide, back in control of the room, of himself. “You were distracted. A man wouldn’t have been distracted.”

  Her lips pressed tight together, she brazenly stepped between his parted legs. Electricity crackled between them, caused the air in the room to swelter. Unused to being challenged in any way, and never by a woman, Nico couldn’t decide if she was coming on to him or about to rip out his throat.

  She gave him a smile that was at once sultry and sweet. “So you’re saying”—she dropped her hand until it dangled just below
his crotch—“that if I were to grab you right now, you wouldn’t get distracted?”

  Adrenaline pulsed through his body in response to her challenge, and he fought the urge to slide back on his desk. Not because she scared him—he was confident he could knock her hand away before she got close—but because he was so fucking turned on, he didn’t know what would happen if she touched him.

  Goddam fucking delicious.

  He curled his hand around her neck, beneath the silken waterfall of her hair, and pulled her close, so close he could feel her breath on his cheek. “Do it,” he demanded.

  She met his challenging gaze, and he could almost taste her need, as thick and fierce as his own. Finally, her hand fell to the side and she wrenched out of his grasp. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Well, you’re not worth it.”

  Dio mio. If he didn’t get rid of her, he’d have her over his desk in a heartbeat, stockings and panties torn away, skirt flipped up to bare that beautiful ass, hair wrapped around his hand, her back arched, and his name a scream of pleasure on her lips. “Goodbye, Ms. Cordano.”

  He expected apologies, embarrassment, some sign that acknowledged he had won that confrontation. Instead, he got a sniff.

  “I’ll send you my bill.”

  She turned and walked out of the room, back straight, head high, beautiful ass swaying gently as she walked.

  He couldn’t tear his gaze away.

  Magnificent.

  Irritating and utterly disrespectful.

  Totally off-limits.

  The enemy.

  TWO

  Unlike most Vegas locals, Mia loved the city at the tail end of winter. From the light dusting of snow that covered the hills in the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, to the rain that turned the Interstate 15 into an angry mess, and from the gray skies that put everyone in a bad mood to the shortened days, it was a Vegas that most tourists didn’t know existed, and with everyone huddling in doors in weather that the rest of the country embraced in spring, it gave the city an intimate feel.

  It also meant she could indulge her passion for street-punk clothing without worrying that she would melt the minute she stepped outside her grungy apartment. Today she wore a pair of worn, skintight black jeans, a graphic rocker shirt, and her favorite green cargo jacket. She’d paired it with her favorite Doc Martens lace-up boots embroidered with red flowers, and a cozy, oversized black wool hat that flopped from side to side as she walked.

  By the time she reached the coffee shop two blocks away from her apartment in the John S. Park neighborhood of downtown, she was chilled to the bone and grateful for the fingerless gloves she wore on her hands. She picked up her usual double-shot Monday morning latte from the small, free-trade coffee shop on the corner and made her way to the pool hall where she rented office space in the upstairs suite.

  “What happened on Friday?” Mia’s bestie and second in command, Jules Rafferty, spun around in her chair when Mia walked through the door and into the open plan space.

  A perpetually cheery, blue-eyed blonde with hot-pink streaks in her hair, a filthy mouth, and a sarcastic sense of humor, Jules had been an online hacker friend until Mia decided to take her business legit and set up a physical office.

  Hired as a both an office manager and a hacker, Jules had found the newly renovated business suite above the pool hall. Decorated with exposed brick walls, timber beams and rustic accents, it was as “heritage” as Vegas could get, although the location left a little to be desired. Clients had to walk through the pool hall to get to the stairway leading upstairs, but Jules had convinced her it just added to their unconventional charm.

  “How do you know something happened?” Mia unlocked her office door and Jules followed her inside.

  “I just received a termination of contract notice by email from Casino Italia, so I figured the penetration test didn’t go well.”

  Mia dumped her bag on the credenza, the only piece of furniture in the room not covered in computer equipment. She had four monitors set up in a U-shape around her desk, along with two hard drives and miscellaneous other equipment that would have made even the most hardcore IT guys drool. “Didn’t go well is an understatement.” She sighed and pulled a candy bar from her bag for a quick breakfast fix. Caffeine and chocolate were her morning mainstays, and even Jules’ constant nagging couldn’t get her to change.

  “I had to dress in the skimpiest costume I’ve ever seen in a casino to get into the back room. Apparently that was an invitation for the guard to pinch my ass when we were alone, so I nicked him in the leg with my knife. He took me to see the boss…” She hesitated, choosing her words carefully. After running away from an abusive stepfather at the age of thirteen, Jules had been struggling to turn her life around when Mia met her online. She knew all about the underbelly of Vegas, from the pimps to the street gangs. Mia had told her about her Mafia family, but was careful never to tell her anything that would put her in danger.

  “I knew him,” Mia continued. “He’s from a rival Mafia family. He didn’t know his casino manager had hired us, and I didn’t know he owned the casino. Needless to stay, things didn’t go well between us.”

  Jules twisted her lips to the side. “That’s gonna be bad for business.”

  Very bad for business. Mia had made her start when one of her father’s capos asked her test the security of one of his legitimate businesses. After she pointed out the numerous flaws in his system and how easy it was to hack, he’d recommended her to another wiseguy. Mia quickly realized she had a vast pool of untapped clients who had been reluctant to hire civilian hackers to test the security of their businesses. Over the years, organized crime had embraced the digital age in every way from laundering money, to Internet scams, and who needed security more than the mob?

  Mia kept her Mafia work above board, only taking contracts for legitimate businesses. As her reputation grew, she got calls from big corporates who did business with the mob bosses. When the work became too much to handle on her own, she contacted some of her online hacker friends and hired Jules and single mom Christine to help with on-site work. They now had a steady flow of quality work but because they worked contract to contract, the loss of the Casino Italia job would hit them hard this month.

  “I guess I’d better return the outfit.” She tossed the bag containing the go-go dancer outfit she’d appropriated from the casino change room on the table. “I don’t want to be accused of stealing it even though the contract allows for the use of company equipment and attire.”

  Jules pulled the outfit out of the bag and laughed. “I wish I’d been there. I’ve never seen you in anything like this.”

  “And you never will.” Mia didn’t dress to show off her body. Growing up in a Mafia household, she’d quickly realized that women had little respect. When nothing she did could get her the attention she so desperately craved from her father, she’d expressed her displeasure by making a mockery of the pink, frilly, feminine clothes he expected women to wear by giving them her own punk-rock style, and forging a path in an online community almost totally dominated by men.

  “Your dad would love it.”

  Mia took the dress and put it back in the bag. “Maybe I should wear it for the family dinner on Wednesday night. Then I won’t have to spend my time justifying my life choices. Every time I wear my punk clothes home, Papa becomes apoplectic with rage and refuses to speak to me.” She loathed going home for the family dinners with her abusive, domineering father, and her cool, detached mother who accepted her place as subservient to her husband and said nothing about the numerous mistresses he kept. Mia could have forgiven her that—after all she’d been raised in a very traditional Mafia family. But she couldn’t forgive her mother for not defending Mia from her father’s abuse.

  “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.