Amauri maniac?Francesca made a face. He seemed like a lot of things, but a madman pushed it a little far.
To be fair, she didn’t know much, if anything, about Luis Amauri. She barely knew anything about Casanova. For all she knew, he could’ve been a particularly charming serial killer or something.
Maxine sliced her gloved hand through the air like an executioner’s axe. “If you’ve done something as stupid as owing money to the Amauris, maybe you deserve to be murdered! It’d save the rest of us from enduring the social manifestation of an infected tooth that is your presence!”
“You don’t have to be mean,” Easton muttered, arms crossing like the toddler he was.
Despite the silk of her gloves, Maxine managed to snap her fingers in front of his nose. “Au contraire mon cousin idiot! I clearly haven’t been mean enough if you were able to pull off this shit show. Inevershould’ve let you talk Frankie into this.”
Easton shot Francesca a dirty look, like all of this was her fault. “Well, how was I supposed to know she had a thing with Luis fucking Amauri?”
“What’s so bad about Luis?”
The cousins turned to look at her. Maxine wore a soul-deep grimace, while Easton looked annoyed that she’d spoken at all.
“How do you not know who the Amauris are?” he demanded.
Rapidly losing her patience with him, she asked, “Do you know who the Jacksons are?”
Easton’s auburn brows furrowed. “No. Who?—”
“They’re a wealthy family frommyhometown,” she explained, hands up in aslow downsort of gesture. “But you wouldn’t know them, would you? Since it’s not fair to think you’dknow every damn family who lives in a place you’re not that familiar with.”
Before a new sort of argument could bloom, Maxine explained, “The Amauris are a famous syndicate family. They own a good chunk of United Washington, have their fingers in just about every illicit weapon sale on this side of the continent, and…”
“And they’re batshit nuts,” Easton finished for her. “They’refamousfor killing each other — and whoever else gets in their way. Luis is in charge of the gambling and racketeering side of things, as well astorture.I once heard a rumor that he keeps all the fingers he chops off mounted on a shelf in his bedroom.”
“Oh,” she breathed, swaying a little in her chair.
Francesca wasn’t stupid, and she wasn’t nearly as naive as people tended to think she was. Of course she suspected that Luis wasn’t exactly working within the limits of the law.
He never said what he did for work, yet he managed to afford one of the nicest penthouses in UW, which sat mostly untouched. She never wanted to jump to conclusions about things that weren’t her business, but it was hard to ignore what was right in front of her face.
It just never occurred to her that he might not be a crooked businessman or a lobbyist. He was a real, bona fidecriminal.
And he’d had his hand in her panties not an hour ago.
Oh gods.
The bright side, if one could call it that, was that she’d never seen nail clipping or knuckle hair of any disembodied fingers when she cleaned Luis’s penthouse bedroom. That had to be a good sign that not all rumors were true. Possibly.
Maxine rounded on Easton again. “Andyouwent into business with these people.”
“MeandRuss,” he protested, throwing his arms up.
“Yes, and the reason my brother isn’t here right now is because he’s smart enough to actually pay his debts back! It’s one of the few things he’s actually good at.” Maxine put her hands on her shapely hips and let out a slow, calming breath. In a calmer voice, she continued, “Okay. Right. There’s no point in arguing about this anymore. We need to figure out what we’re going to do now.”
Easton rubbed his palm down his face. In a muffled voice, he replied, “There’s nothingtodo. We’re stuck here now. He’s signed a contract to enter the Games and paid the fee. As long as nothing goes tits up and no one tries to murder me, we should be in the clear by the end of the night.”
“What if he loses?” Francesca whispered. She really couldn’t decide whether she wished for that outcome or not at this point.
“He’ll still get his money,” Easton answered a mite uneasily. “Amauris don’t take losing well, though. And if he’s attached to you…” His already clammy face turned downright unhealthy looking.
Maxine came over to lay her hand on the center of Francesca’s back. Giving it a reassuring rub, she asked, “Just how closeareyou two?”
Her thighs clenched. She did not want to admit to what she’d let happen in this very room, and she certainly didn’t feel like explaining the embarrassing crush she had on a man she now knew to be a few cards short of a deck. “Not at all! I mean, notreally.I clean his house just like I clean yours, Max. Sometimes we talk.”
“I say this with all the love in my heart,” her friend began in a distinctly unloving way, “but I don’t buy that shit for a second.”