High Card: A Billionaire Shifter Novel (Lions of Las Vegas Book 1) by May Ellis Daniels Page B

shirt. Slicked-back hair. “Seems like a douchebag,” I say.
    “You think? Meet Vito Abatelli. He’s a bottom feeder in Il Potere. A small time enforcer. Runs drug deliveries too. A glorified mule. But he has the famous family name, and he slings it all over town. Summer’s been fucking him since they were in their early teens. You should see some of the emails he sent her. Dude’s no poet, but Summer’s gotten way under his skin.”
    He’s not the only one.
    “You think Vito was involved in her playing the Savannah tonight?”
    “Nah. Not his style, from what I gather. More of a gun-in-your-mouth kinda gentleman. But…”
    “Say it.”
    Cole tenses. “Don Luca Abatelli does have a beef with you.”
    “I paid that motherfucker off.”
    “Not how the dons work. You disrespected a mafia boss in his own town.”
    “Bullshit,” I say, getting pissed off. “I can’t help it if the fucker didn’t want my casino on the property next to his. Tough shit. I have more money. It’s not the early Twentieth Century in Sicily. Welcome to America. He with the most cash wins.”
    Cole cringes. “I know, I know. But you asked about dirt on this Summer girl. There it is. A potential connection linking the grifter who just fried your soft opening to the crime boss who hates you.”
    My phone buzzes in my pocket. I take it out.  
    My entire body tenses.
    “What is it, Landon?” Cole asks, his eyes wide as he scents my anger. “What the fuck is it?”
    “Nothing. I want cameras on the girl. Everywhere. In the next hour.”
    “That’s gunna be—”
    The six computer screens go black.  
    Cole looses a panicked choke and begins frantically banging on his keyboard. Written across each screen is a single word that makes a sentence that matches the threat I just read on my phone:  

    YOU’RE ALREADY DEAD AND BURIED, WILDBLOOD.

C H A P T E R F I V E
S U M M E R

    “WHERE THE FUCK were you ?” I yell at Alfie as he pulls to the curb in his shitbox Porsche 911.
    “You followed?”
    “What kind of question is that? No. Where were you?”
    “Getting stoned. Playing Angry Birds. You should see my score. Why? Something go down?”
    I slide into the passenger seat and smack him on the shoulder. Alonso’s one of my oldest friends. He’s a smallish, thin-boned Latino guy with a knot of curly dark hair and mischievous eyes that sparkle when he’s taking the piss, which is just about always.
    “Nah,” I say. “You know. Tried rolling the largest casino in the world. Had my usual shit luck. Got chased down by tools. Oh, and this…”  
    I lift my broken pinkie finger in Alfie’s face. It’s duct-taped to a Bic pen. It’s a shitty splint, but it’ll have to do. I don’t have the time for a trip to the hospital. Or the money.  
    Alfie punches into traffic along the Strip. “What the fuck happened?”
    “Assholes happened,” I say, wrapping the finger with another few layers of duct tape, chewing through the end and spitting a piece out as we gain speed. “Caught me in the alley. Where you were supposed to be, engine gunning, ready to tear ass outta there.”
    “Got held up, Summer. Sorry.”
    “Oh yeah?”
    Alfie flicks me a quick glance. “I got the fire alarm going, didn’t I?”
    “You want a medal? What happened?”
    “You’re not the only one who had a run-in with assholes. I was jacked into Savannah’s security network like we planned. Took a bit longer than expected. Whoever’s running firewall security at Savannah’s knows his shit…”
    “But you got in.”
    Alfie grins. “I watched your play through their video feeds. Nothing you coulda done different. Just a bad roll.”
    “Fuck that. You see the good samaritan rat sitting beside me? The one who called me out for pocketing my chips? I could’ve had another round if he hadn’t opened his mouth. The croupier might as well not have been there, she was so fucking blind.”  
    I dig in the Porsche’s glove compartment until I find my pack