Page 8 of Playing for the Dark
That’s her. I know it is just from that throaty laugh that fills the room. God, I’ve missed her laugh.1I’m sitting across the bar from her, admiring the slope of her delicate neck, andcazzo, she’s colored her hair. It’s pitch black, but one side of the front is pure white. Looks like she has a couple of new tattoos on her sleeve, too. It’s been too long since I laid my eyes on my Ragazza Dolce.In person, that is.
She’s laughing at some fuck standing at the bar she’s a little too close to this guy.
Nash fucking Hayden.
I invited him as a VIP for tonight’s opening event. One of many, I might add, for all the marketing and social media shit. Not that I’m worriedabout the club not popping off. It will. Percy, my marketing guy, said I had to do something to get the people to start talking about Club Onyx. No one knows, but the only reason this place even exists is because of the girl laughing at the bar with another man.
This is her dream club.
Nash is the newest draft for the Vegas Rebels. The young promising quarterback that’s hopefully going to make me lots of fucking money from bets. I own most of the casinos in Vegas, and if I don’t own them, I get a cut of all their profits. Sports betting goes hand in hand with all of that. Add the Barone family tax that’s owed and it is nothing to play around with. If my money gets fucked with, they get fucked with. A quick meeting with Vincent is never an enjoyable time for them.
I can’t get rid of this one.
Not like the last one.
He’s eyeing my Ragazza Dolcelike a meal, and I won’t stand for it.
She’s still laughing, but it’s at him. Hearing that sweet sound is worth watching from a distance. That’s all you can have, Marcello.
I’m a good seven years older than Ellie, but it feels like a lifetime. I had to grow up quickly due to my piece of shit father running the family businesses through the mud.
He dragged the Barone family name to the gates of hell and left us there for me to pull us back up. Little does he know I love the burn.
When I took over, we didn’t have an ally within a 300 mile radius of Vegas. Now, that’s a different story.
It’s taken ten long years, but we’ve done it. Mainly Vincent and I. He’s my second and my enforcer. He’s in here somewhere, supposed to be keeping an eye out for Ellie and Blair, making sure they’re both safe. Vin is the only one who knows about my sick little obsession with Ellie. Well, and Noah, my hacker… I always think I’m unhinged by the shit I do, but I do it out of necessity. Vin, on the other hand, enjoys the shit. If somebody’s due for some torment or we need information… Vin will be there, foaming at the mouth. He gets the information ninety-nine percent of the time, and if he ends up killing them while playing, we miss out on those organs, but it's one less mouth to worry about spilling secrets. I try jumping in before then to at least save some of the organs first. I like to think I’m helping his karma out too.
Usually, the second in command would be a younger brother. Vin isn’t blood, but he might as well be. My parents adopted him when he was twelve. My mother’s doing, but she saved his life. I won’t get into what his home life was like. That’s his story to tell, but you get where the unhinged behavior stems from. He left one hell for another, coming to live with Saverio.
I was forced to take over at the ripe age of twenty-one. I was born for this life. No one had to convince me to be a killer, my father trained me from the moment I could walk. Guns, knives, and most importantly, beating all feelings out of me from the moment I could remember things. I’m a trained killer with zero remorse.
It’s not just the killing that comes along with the mafia life. It’s the constant danger of looking over your shoulder and running hundreds of businesses. People’s livelihoods are in your hands twenty-four seven. That’s why my father had to go. He had no one’s best interest at heart but his own. If that man even had a heart.
Now, my Ellie is with Blair. Blair happens to be my niece, which made carrying out my obsession even easier when they decided to move in together. My sister is over a decade older than me; she’s the only child from my father’s first marriage. Then he got his mistress, Jennifer, pregnant. She also happens to be my mother, and I’m now the oldest of the three brothers. My sister Elena should have been a mafia princess pawn, but she ran off and got married before my father could force an arranged marriage on her.
They were high school sweethearts and are still sickly in love to this day. She didn’t want Blair to be around the mafia shit and the danger that came with it, so she cut ties with my father. I would see Blair occasionally, but not as much as I wanted to.Sorry, Sis, she’s involved.
I get up, move out of my seat at the bar, and walk over to Ellie and Nash to get some space between them. “Nash, nice to finally meet you.” I push my hand out. The little shit lives in the other penthouse on my floor. “Marcello, the owner. I see you’re enjoying Club Onyx,” I deadpan.
“So nice to meet you, sir.” He puts his hand into mine to shake. I grab ahold of him, giving the firmest handshake I’ve given in a while. Then I stop when I see the slight wince, remembering this is his throwing hand that’s going to make me lots of money. A devilish smirk covers my face.
“Ellie, so nice to see you here.” I put my hand out, palm up. She places her delicate hand on top of mine, and I give each of her knuckles a kiss. My eyes narrow at Nash, silently telling him to fuck off.
“What is it with the men doing this shit now?” she spits out while trying to get her hand out of my grip.
“You need no one else kissing your hands, Elle,” I spit out.
Turning my back, I walk away; I can’t lose my cool about Ellie in front of people. No one can know she means anything to me.
I walk back to the my favorite corner in the whole club, sitting down on the deep plum velvet lounger to take in the view of the club; it has about twenty gold vintage mirrors; all the lighting is red in the club; velvet wallpaper covers most of the walls up to the ceiling, alsoin red; even the bar has red back lighting. It has the goth vibe but simultaneously fits the atmosphere of the Vegas strip. It’s everything from Ellie’s Pinterest board.
I don’t allow mafia business to take place or be talked about in this club. Any other business of mine is free rein, but I needed one place to get away from everything. I also knew that my Ragazza Dolceloves to go clubbing, and I wanted her and Blair to feel comfortable and safe somewhere.
Ellie’s dad working at Barone’s is the only reason we were ever close before. It always made it easy to keep tabs on her when she was living at home with her dad. He thought I was just being a nice guy when I would ask about her almost daily when he would be in the back running my kitchen like a well-oiled machine. Little did he know he was actively feeding into my obsession. The man is oblivious. I genuinely don’t know if he knows that he works for the biggest mafia man in the states.
Club Onyx has been my newest project. My newest obsession for my forever obsession. Ellie. My Ragazza Dolce.
MINE.