Page 5 of The Kingpin's Call Girl

I fight to get my fear under control, or maybe it’s awe.Because really? Who is he to assess me and silently mesmerize me or whatever the hell he did?

I remind myself I’m helping to take him and his crew down, so that’s a plus. Not enthusiastically helping but helping.

Luka takes one of the chairs like it’s his throne, and his bald-headed right-hand man takes the one next to him, which forces everybody to squish into the booth. I end up sandwiched between Dardan and another guy.

The other man who had flanked Luka coming in, a big scary blond who looks like a villain from a military thriller set in the Arctic Circle, stands next to Luka’s chair because, apparently, Luka is the king, and he is the king’s soldier.

A waiter swoops in and sets a drink in front of Luka.

Another waiter sets down plates of food, narrating all the while. “Fried cheese with honey and walnuts, Albanian American bruschetta topped with a spread made from roasted red peppers, feta, and olive oil, finished with a slice of prosciutto and a balsamic glaze. Crispy eggplant stuffed withgee-zuhand Italian mascarpone. Fergese stuffed mushrooms. Warm rosemary bread. Can we bring anything else, Mr. Zogaj?”

Mr. Luka Zogaj lifts a hand in a kingly wave. “That’ll be all.”

My mouth waters. It all just looks so delicious. I focus on stirring my drink with the little red straw while Dardan settles a possessive hand on my thigh.

Luka instructs people to eat, but they remain frozen until he samples an olive with imperial indifference; only then do they cautiously reach for the food. The men, anyway. The women abstain, so I follow their cue, even though I could inhale the entire basket of rosemary bread if they let me.

I manage to create mnemonic devices for each man I get a name for. Ghost with his pale skin, Cyrus like a cyclops, Rick with slick-Rick hair who worked with Gianni. I don’t need a memory device for the grand poo-bah, Luka Zogaj, the center of theuniverse, smooth as polished stone with his sooty lashes and his perfectly disheveled battlefield hair.

I grab my napkin and fold it into a tiny square, and then a triangle, and then a smaller triangle, and then I sneak another glance at him.

He swishes his drink as he talks. When he catches me looking, I quickly look away because criminals like him don’t deserve attention.

If karma were real, he’d be burning in utter agony. That is what I wish for him—to suffer tenfold for every bad thing he’s done.

My hatred for him feels like heat under my skin.

I fold my napkin into increasingly tiny shapes.

Chapter Two

LUKA

Is that scorn I detect? This is something new.

Who looks at me like that?

It gets my blood racing.

This girl—it’s like somebody snatched her from a quaint farmhouse, poured her into a garishly tight red dress, plastered makeup all over her fresh-scrubbed cheeks, and styled her light brown hair like a doll. The look is perverse in a way I can’t tear my attention away from. I want to peel everything away from her and get to the heart of her and the heat of that scorn.

And then there’s her glittering gaze. That gaze is the key thing about her. Incandescent. Silently raging at us. At me.

She thinks people won’t notice.

But I see everything. I always have.

Also,‘greetings?’

But what am I doing? This outraged little whore in this completely wrong outfit is not where I need my attention. A king doesn’t lower himself to notice every trembling peasant in his kingdom.

I settle back into my chair and put my attention on the situation at hand.

The men are nervous. They have questions. Why did the new boss—thekyre—come down the mountain with his attack dogs to sit with the low-level guys? And most importantly, who will I kill next?

I like nervous people. Nervous people are stupid people, and stupid people show me things they shouldn’t. I like to see those things.

I swirl my drink, getting a sense of the men as they bluster on.

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