Deadly Ink: A Dark Mafia Romance (Omerta Series Book 3) Read online

  Deadly Ink

  A Dark Mafia Romance

  Roxy Sinclaire

  Edited by

  Teresa Banschbach

  Illustrated by

  Resplendent Media

  Contents

  Mailing List

  1. What Happens In Vegas

  2. A Free Man

  3. Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You

  4. He Knows What She Wants

  5. Good Two Shoes No More

  6. No Strings Attached

  7. The Bad Girl

  8. Down and Dirty

  9. In The Shower

  10. Best I Ever Had

  11. Trust

  12. Promotion

  13. Missed Period

  14. Pregnancy Test

  15. The Meeting

  16. Mom’s Drunk

  17. Fate

  18. Kissing Her

  19. Protection

  20. Unexpected News

  21. Quitting

  22. Coming Clean

  23. Never The Plan

  24. Blind Eye

  25. Saving Her

  26. Blown Cover

  27. Bust

  28. Jailed

  29. A Long Wait

  Taking Care Of The Baby

  About Roxy Sinclaire

  Also by Roxy Sinclaire

  Excerpt From Dirty Indiscretions

  Excerpt From Touchdown

  Excerpt From Lethal Seduction

  Excerpt From Tempting Me

  Copyright © 2017 by Roxy Sinclaire

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design © 2017 by Resplendent Media

  Edited by Teresa Banschbach

  Email: [email protected]

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental. The characters are all productions of the authors’ imagination.

  Please note that this work is intended only for adults over the age of 18 and all characters represented as 18 or over.

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  What Happens In Vegas

  Sierra

  “To never having to take another test for as long as we live,” Kara said, holding her glass of champagne into the air. “Well, except for pregnancy and STD tests, Felicity,” she added.

  I giggled as Felicity rolled her eyes and held her glass next to Kara’s. “We still have to recertify, but whatever. To us.”

  We clinked our glasses together and guzzled down the cold champagne. I was starting to feel a little tipsy. The other two girls, of course, didn’t feel a thing. I wasn’t as good at drinking as they were.

  They would always call me a lightweight, which seemed painfully ironic because I had at least twenty pounds on both of them. But, when it came to alcohol, I liked to practice moderation. I knew too well what an excess of drink could do to a person.

  “For a nurse,” I said to Kara, “you’re fairly judgmental about other people’s sex lives,” I joked.

  “Says the prude,” she replied, pouring another round. “Sierra, if I didn’t know any better, I would have guessed that you were a virgin.”

  “Me?” I squealed. “Why?”

  “Because you never seem to have an interest in any guy. Meanwhile, Felicity and I are chasing after anyone who looks remotely male. Just for once, I’d like to see you bring someone home for the night.”

  “Who knows,” I said dreamily. “Maybe tonight’s the night.”

  They both cackled in response. I felt like I should take offense to the fact that the very thought of me getting with a guy was hilarious.

  “I hope so,” Felicity said. “This may be our last big vacation together. We can hardly get our shifts to line up, so I can’t imagine that we’ll ever be able to get an entire week off at the same time. We have to go all out and get all the partying out of our system.”

  “Agreed,” Kara said solemnly.

  “You guys, we’re going to have more opportunities to party,” I said.

  “Not like this,” Felicity said. “That’s why you can’t let us down, Sierra.”

  “Me?” I asked. “What does this have to do with me?”

  “I won’t be able to find closure on this stage of my life if I can’t see you go completely wild tonight,” she answered.

  I scoffed. I knew that once we really got the party going, they would become too absorbed into their own little worlds to care about what I was doing. We would go to a club, and I’d be sure to lose them both at some point during the night. With Kara, I was likely to find her crying in the bathroom after drinking one too many shots, and Felicity would have her mouth pressed against some stranger’s mouth. For as wild as the pair of them could be, they were anything but unpredictable.

  “I told you,” Kara said to Felicity.

  “Told her what?” I asked.

  “I told her that you would talk a big game about hooking up with guys and having a bunch of drinks, but in the end, you’d come back to the room early to go to bed. What time did you predict she’d be tucked in?”

  “Eleven-thirty,” Felicity answered, looking at her watch.

  “It’s already nine and we haven’t even gotten dressed to go out yet,” I said defensively. “Do you really think I’m going to call it quits after two and a half hours?”

  They looked at each other and burst into laughter. I was starting to feel like they were ganging up on me.

  “I’m going to prove both of you wrong,” I said, standing up from my hotel bed. “This is going to be the wildest night of our lives.”

  Felicity cheered as Kara stuck another bottle in the ice bucket. “Good,” Kara said. “Let’s get ready to go out.”

  We scurried around the hotel room my dad paid for as a nursing school graduation gift. It was way nicer than anything I could afford, so I was extremely appreciative of it. I was exhausted from all of my studying, and I was excited to blow off a little steam.

  Kara and Felicity worked together to straighten my long, frizzy hair. I had my parents to thank for my wild Italian hair. My complexion was perfect for sitting out around the pool all day, but my wild, uncontrollable hair was a family curse. That, plus my love for big, starchy meals. My blue eyed, blonde haired friends never had these problems.

  “You look incredible,” Kara gushed once I put on my skin-tight black dress. I placed my hands on my wide hips, hoping the color would at least be slimming.

  “You’re absolutely going to get some tonight,” Felicity agreed. I had my doubts, but I cleared my belongings from my bed, just in case. If someone happened to come back with me, I wanted to at least be able to pretend I wasn’t a huge slob.

  Once we got ready, it was time to hit the town. Felicity found a nightclub nearby so we squeezed into the backseat of a cab and sped off into the night.

  The girls and I danced in the sweltering club until the wee hours of the morning. Sure, I drank more than I usually did on a night out, but nothing really happened on the dance floor. I was really hoping I’d meet a guy to go off with for a little fun if just to prove to my friends that I wasn’t the sad prude. At different times throughout the night, I saw both Kara and Felicity grinding up on g
ood-looking guys. I knew I wasn’t stunning like they were, but it would have been nice to be found attractive by someone.

  I had fun, but eventually, I wanted to leave the club. It was just too hot and crowded in there. Of course, I couldn’t be the first one to suggest we leave, and thankfully, Kara made the first move. A little after midnight, we made our way out into the cool night air. I was relieved that we had left the club, but I was still feeling like I had missed my chance to make something happen.

  “What now?” Felicity asked, taking her heels off on the sidewalk outside the bar.

  “Should we find another club?” Kara asked.

  I grimaced. “Can we get a bite to eat first?” I asked. “I need some time to cool down before I go back in there,” I said. That, plus the alcohol in my empty stomach was a perfect recipe for a disastrous hangover.

  We found a stand selling french fries and took the takeout box to a park bench. I dug into our late night snack as I watched girls in tight dresses like mine stumble their way across the street. We were all just trying to do the same thing—have one night so wild that we could go back to our boring lives and still feel satisfied.

  “The guys at that club were kinda cute, right?” Felicity asked.

  Kara chuckled. “They were okay at best. I wonder if we just picked the wrong bar. Should keep going down the street and stop whenever we find something good?”

  “No,” Felicity said, dropping her fry back into the container. “I know exactly what we should do next.”

  I followed her gaze across the street. Now I knew what that strange buzzing sound was.

  “Yes!” Kara shrieked. “Let’s get tattoos!”

  Both of their heads whipped toward me with expectant faces, as if they knew that my reaction was going to prove some point.

  “Sure,” I said casually, eating another french fry. “Let’s do it.”

  Their mouths dropped open. “Really?” Kara asked.

  “Why not? This is the kind of thing you do when you have a massive party night in Vegas, right?”

  I got up and tossed our empty takeout box in the trash can. Felicity and Kara hesitantly got up after me.

  “Is this really happening?” Felicity asked, a look of pure delight on her face.

  “Let’s fucking do it!” I exclaimed, feeling a wild energy come over me.

  The three of us linked arms and crossed the street to go to the tattoo parlor, Felicity and Kara gushing over my sudden change of personality. It felt good to let loose for once in my life. I spent so much of my time trying to be responsible and take care of everyone else, that I never took the time to relax and think about myself. I was about to start a new and demanding career. I deserved to go wild, even if it was just for one night.

  A Free Man

  Apollo

  When I stepped into the bare apartment, I flung my bag off my shoulder and let it hit the ground with a thud. This place could be considered a closet, but it would have to do. There weren’t many landlords out there who were willing to rent out their property to an ex-convict with no source of income. All I had was the money I was given for taking the fall and going to the clink in the first place. That, and the knapsack of whatever possessions I had when I went to prison.

  I was still incredibly angry about what had happened. No amount of time in prison can take that away. In their attempts to make it seem like we were being rehabilitated in there, the prison brought in speakers to talk about getting our lives back on track once we were released. I was going to get my life back on track, all right. It just wasn’t going to be in a way that the Department of Corrections would approve of. There was no one to bring me the justice I deserved. I would have to find it myself.

  While it was nice to have a place to myself, it still felt incredibly lonely in the one-room apartment. I had nothing here but a mattress on the floor and a wooden dresser that looked like it could fall apart at any time. It hardly mattered, though. This wasn’t going to be my permanent home. I would find something better when the time was right.

  The one place I didn’t feel lonely was in the shower, though. After fiddling with the faucet to get a little lukewarm water, I stripped down and enjoyed the privacy of my little mildew-covered shower stall. At least this was all mine.

  After I dried off, I pulled a fresh outfit from my bag—a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. The biceps that I worked on in the prison gym bulged from the armholes. I was thankful for that tiny release in prison, where I could work out some of that extra rage that built up inside me. It was either bench press until I couldn’t lift my arms, or punch out the next guy who looked at me funny. I wasn’t always a violent guy, but there was something about the constant restrictions on my life that drove me a little crazy.

  It was getting late, but I couldn’t stand being in the dingy apartment for longer than absolutely necessary. I walked down the dark stairwell and out onto the street.

  If I had more options, I would have chosen any other location but here. I liked peace and quiet, not neon lights and drunk people yelling at all hours of the night. Maybe it was because I missed out on this part of my life, but the thought of even going out to party made my head hurt.

  In my late teens and early twenties, I would have loved this kind of thing. Girls came into the city looking to get wild. Even the city’s tourism board encouraged absolute debauchery. Young Apollo would have eaten this shit up.

  If there was there was one good thing about living in a place like this, it was that there was no shortage of scantily clad women to ogle at. They traversed the sidewalk in herds, giggling ladies clutching on to one another. They made my animal instincts kick in. If only I could separate one from the group, then both of us would have a good night.

  After grabbing a bite to eat, I walked back toward my apartment. On my way, I heard the familiar buzz of a tattoo parlor. Suddenly feeling the urge to check it out, I made a beeline around the corner to check it out.

  I was usually a little more particular about my tattoos, to stop into a shop that was clearly made for drunk tourists to get a souvenir of their time in Las Vegas, but I was really itching to get inked again.

  In prison, there is always some guy who swaps his tattoo skills for cigarettes or snacks from the commissary. Sometimes, they’d do really great work. Other times, you’d spot someone walking around with misspelled words on their face and have to stifle your laughter. I wasn’t about to take that risk.

  Strangely enough, out of all the things I missed about the outside world, getting tattoos done was one of them. When I got my first half sleeve at the age of nineteen, going to my appointments was the thing I looked forward to the most. I loved the smell of disinfectant, the relaxed atmosphere, the mind-quieting buzzing of the needle, and the pain that reminded me that I could feel things.

  My mother hated my tattoos, but my dad always approved. He had more tattoos than I could count. I think my mom was afraid that I would turn into my father. My father was a good man, but he often found himself in the middle of bad situations. Neither of them wanted that kind of life for me.

  I didn’t have a lot of cash on me, so I would have to get something small. Luckily, the shop wasn’t very busy, so they’d be able to get me in a chair within the hour.

  While I waited, I got out my new phone that I bought on my way to the apartment. With the scrap of paper I brought out of prison with my contacts, I sent a few messages to some guys that promised to help me out.

  Sure enough, within a few minutes, I got a response from a guy who was just getting out when I came into prison. I didn’t know him before we met, but after we spoke for a while, I realized that we were both in jail because of the same person. In fact, there were a lot of people who were not very happy with Giorgio D’Angelo.

  Giorgio had made a lot of enemies, but no one had the balls to take him down. Those who had tried tended to end up back in prison, or worse, depending on one’s view of prison and the length of their sentence.

  He had caused me and
my family a lot of pain, and I couldn’t live with the fact that he lived his comfortable life when people like me had to go to prison for nothing. I had to do something about it.

  I wouldn’t say that I was scared, but when I thought about my plan for too long, I started to get a little nervous. Prison was hard, and I was in no way ready to go back again. But, I knew that if I slipped up, I would be back, probably for even longer. Five years was bad enough—I couldn’t imagine ten years or longer.

  That’s why I needed to remember why I was doing this. I had to protect the little people who were stepped on time and time again. I needed to get my life back, to have the freedom to do what I wanted without worrying if I had a hit on me. I wouldn’t let some mobster take my life away again.

  “Apollo Nano?” the tattoo artist called.

  I stood up, my body towering over the frat boys looking through binders of designs.

  “Do you know what you want?” she asked.

  I nodded. “I know exactly what I want.”

  Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You

  Sierra

  After much discussion, the three of us decided to get matching tattoos—a tiny bird on the inside of our wrists.

  Kara first suggested syringes, because of our nursing degrees, but we thought that people would assume they were linked to drug use or something. Then we tossed around ideas for every other medical themed imagery, but there was nothing we wanted to permanently ink onto our skin. Then, we just thought about any generic symbol that could be meaningful to all of us, but would still look cute at the same time.

  “It’s because we’re officially adults now that we’re done with school,” Felicity said, the alcohol making her feel especially sentimental. “We’re free to fly away and begin our lives.”