High Stakes (Vegas Vampires #1)(54)
Author: Erin McCarthy

Her cheeks turned crimson. "You’re such a freak."

"Alex!" Brittany sounded horrified. " Geez, be nice." She moved over to his dresser and watched herself in the mirror so she could tie her scarf back on.

"Yeah, be nice," he murmured to Alexis, nuzzling along her neck.

She pinched his arm. "I love you, too," she said, before jumping off the bed and joining Brittany at the mirror.

Ethan stared after her in shock. Well, hell. She’d said it.

And it had sounded bloody brilliant.

Chapter Eighteen

"You’re late." Donatelli glanced at his watch. "By about ten hours. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t just kill you."

Ringopulled his gun on Donatelli ."Because I’ll kill you first." He was going on no sleep, and he was getting himself out of this if he had to waste the man in front of him.

Donatellimerely glanced at his gun, looking unperturbed as he sat on his ivory sofa, stroking an ugly little brown dog. It was such a f**king cliche , Ringo almost laughed.

"This is how we’re going to play this. I shot Carrick,then sent him over his balcony. I did my job, but I won’t take any money. I’m just going to walk away and you and I are both going to forget we ever met."

"Do you really think I’ll agree to that?"

"You don’t have a choice."

Donatellisnapped his fingers, which nearly got him shot. Ringo stopped from pulling the trigger at the last possible second. Then he regretted his self-control when Donatelli spoke.

"Maybe your girlfriend will give me some choices back."

Sweat trickled down Ringo’s back, sticking to his silk shirt. "What are you talking about?"

But he already knew, because he could hear Kelsey crying from behind him. A quick glance over his shoulder showed her being held by two brawny guys, her shoulders shaking as she sobbed. Her eyes pleaded with him.

Shit. "Do you think you could listen to me?" he yelled at her. "I f**king told you to stay at the hotel."

"I’m sorry I thought that I could help."

"Women are such a hassle, aren’t they?" Donatelli clucked with sympathy, the bastard. "You should just hire a mistress like I do. Much lowermaintenance, and they know to stay out of your business."

"Thank you, I’ll consider that in the future." Ringo stepped closer to Donatelli , marking the heart as his target, watching the other two men with his peripheral vision. "Let her go."

They did, shoving her forward toward him. Kelsey stumbled in her heels and fell to the ground five feet behind Ringo . The ping, ping sound and a scream had him spinning around and firing his own weapon at the bodyguard—who was already pumping Kelsey full of bullets.

Ringodropped both men with quick shots, but not before a whole round had gone into Kelsey’s back and side. Blood spatter was on her dress, her arm, an arcing mist of red dusting the carpet.

Jerking at her arm, he turned her on her side and saw her eyes were open, but empty, her breathing stopped.Her body limp and very much dead.

Donatellihadn’t moved on the couch, just sat with his leg crossed over a knee, stroking, stroking the rat-like dog,who let out a yip as Ringo knelt beside Kelsey.

Checking for a pulse, he felt everything inside him that he’d pushed down, trampled over, hidden, and ignored burst forward. Sorrow, rage, disgust, grief all ripped out of him. He brushed a hand over Kelsey’s cool cheek, closed her eyelids.

"You didn’t have to kill her," he told Donatelli in a hard, low voice. "She had nothing to do with anything."

And she was dead because of him.

"Oh, on the contrary, she has everything to do with this. Boys, take care of Miss Kelsey, please. She’s bleeding on the carpet."

Ringoturned, wondering who the hell Donatelli was talking to. What he saw made fear and disbelief crawl up his spine like an aggressive spider. The two guards he’d shot were sitting up, brushing themselves off.

"Holy shit "

He’d put three bullets through the hearts of each of them. There was no way they could be alive. Cold panic iced his limbs and he positioned himself in front of Kelsey. They weren’t going to disrespect her corpse, throw her in some Dumpster. "You’re not doing a damn thing with her."

"You don’t really have a say in it."

Ringofelt around for his gun. He’d set it down when he’d checked for Kelsey’s pulse.

They were on him in a second and Ringo kicked, punched, clawed, but they pinned his arms behind him. The big one with dark hair, who smelled like mothballs, covered Ringo , blocking out the light. He brought his knee up, making contact, but it didn’t stop the man’s descent, his body crushing out Ringo’s breath, his face leering and grinning as he bent over, closer and closer.

Fangs, long and violent, flashed in the man’s mouth, and Ringo felt pure and total terror as the creature, person, whatever the hell he was, cut off his air, light, sound. A sharp pain sliced into his neck.

Ringoheard himself moan, felt the shock, the pain, the cold as a violent tugging consumed him. He hurt everywhere, frozen in place, his body shuddering and panicking, his cells collapsing in, his teeth sinking down into his tongue. From across the room, he heard Donatelli’s voice floating over to him.

"I knew you couldn’t kill Carrick, you know. Not because you wouldn’t try, but because you cannot kill the undead unless you cut their heads off, and I strongly suspected you would think that too messy. All I really wanted was to rattle Carrick, throw him off his game as we head into the homestretch of our campaigns. It was a psychological tactic, but I didn’t expect you to get involved with Carrick’s secretary."

Ringotried to open his eyes, tried to focus, but the room was spinning and exploding behind his eyelids. He must have been injected with a drug, something that was paralyzing him, threaten- ingto send him unconscious.

"A little more, Smith."

Ringogave a silent scream in his head as his insides felt scored and raked, trussed and sliced.

"That’s it. Good. Now go take care of the girl, give her your excess. I’ll finish here."

Ringofell back on a soft heap as hands let go of him. Then he hit the carpet with a hard thud that jarred his skull when Kelsey’s body was pulled from beneath him. He wanted to move, wanted to protest, but he was a fly caught in the spider’s web, and Donatelli was playing with him.

Warmth smothered his mouth, a sharp, tinny kind of liquid that moistened his dried, cracking lips, and lifted his tongue off the roof of his mouth.

"I appreciate your qualities. And I find it rather quaint that you thought to protect the girl—I didn’t expect that of you."