You Had One Job

By Cari Z and L. A. Witt

Nikita Ravenov

It was supposed to be a simple job—tail the Italian for an evening, see if he was up to anything shady, and report back to the Bratva.

But I didn't expect him to go into gay bars. Is someone trying to out me to the Bratva? Am I being set up?

And what the hell do I do now that my mark knows I'm following him?

Lorenzo Ferrari

It's insulting, really. My organization wants to do business with the Russians, but they're putting tails on me? That's just bad manners.

But when that tail gets a beating from his own for failing to tell them everything he knows about me, I know something is up.

Now we're both in way over our heads. Our only hope is working together.

And even then, I'm not so sure we're getting out of this.

CW: On-page drug use, active addiction, graphic violence, suicidal ideation, domestic abuse.

• Language: English
• Publisher: GallagherWitt
• Release date: Apr 25, 2023
• ISBN: 9781642301144

Book preview

Chapter 1

Nikita

Isn’t he a little young for you?

The beat of the club’s music throbbed in my ears as I sat at the bar, a safe distance away from Lorenzo Ferrari and that kid—seriously, that was a kid—chatting at a table at the opposite side of the room.

Ferrari. What kind of pretentious name was that? Was he an heir to the family who founded—wait, was there a Ferrari family? Was that how the cars got their name? Shit, now I was curious, but I couldn’t look it up on my phone because I had to keep watching Mr. Sports Car and his toy boy.

I sniffed sharply and swiped at my nose. It was still a little numb. Usually was for a while after I’d done a line, but it was fucking annoying. About as annoying as the noise, and being here, and watching Ferrari and his boyfriend, and the people…

I glanced toward the men’s room. Another line wouldn’t calm me down, but it would keep me focused. Because right now I couldn’t focus, and I needed to. On that guy. On Ferrari.

It shouldn’t have been that hard. If I ignored the kid sitting next to him and that stupid name, Ferrari was… Hell, he was hot. Kind of rough around the edges the way gangsters got after a few too many years. Salt and pepper hair. Lines. Lips that didn’t seem like they smiled very often. Not much of a surprise. What did Italian gangsters have to smile about? What did any of us in this seedy underbelly of the world have to smile about?

I shook myself and took a drink. I hated the way it felt going down when the back of my throat was still numb, but I’d blend in better if I was drinking instead of just sitting here like an idiot watching that guy with his middle school boyfriend.

Okay, the kid wasn’t that young. Twenty-one, twenty-two, I thought. I was twenty-nine and I could totally get away with dating him or blowing him or whatever. Unlike too-many-miles-on-the-odometer Ferrari over there.

Any other night, if I’d gone into a club—I fucking hated clubs unless I was absolutely soaring, and I wasn’t that high right now—I’d have tried drawing that kid away. Tell him he could do better unless Ferrari was as loaded as his name suggested, and even if he was, that this bright-eyed sugar baby would have a lot more fun with me. I could see myself sidling up to him in the men’s room, charming him into a stall, and showing him a hell of a good time. Maybe even doing a couple of lines with him if he was into that.

My eyes darted toward the men’s room again, and I bit back a groan. Forget the hookup in the stall. I wanted to do another damned line.

I sniffed sharply and forced my attention back to Ferrari and company. Weren’t clubs and bars usually more fun than this? Oh. Right. I wasn’t usually going to clubs and bars on surreptitious babysitting detail. Fuck.

This wasn’t the kind of shit I did. Ever. The work I did for the Bratva usually involved ones and zeroes, not…well, not that kind of zero. The one with the stupid name and the too-young boyfriend.

My own ex-boyfriend Yakov had volunteered me for this stupid detail. Yakov, not Yasha like everyone else called him, because fuck him. Especially since he kept trying to get everyone who wasn’t Russian to call me Nisha. Nikita, you fucker. Not Nisha. But he knew it annoyed me when people who didn’t understand Russian diminutives went along with his insistence that Russians called Nikita went by Nisha, which was bullshit, and—

Damn it, why couldn’t I focus?

Anyway. Fuck him. He’d volunteered me for this, sneering as he told the Pakhan that I’d be happy to tail this asshole all around town and keep an eye on him. I’d thought it was weird, but now that I realized exactly where I’d be tailing Ferrari and who he’d be with, there was a low-grade thrum of panic in my chest. Was Yakov trying to out me? Taunting me with how easily he could let it slip that I was queer? Of course I had enough proof that he was queer that if he outed me, he’d regret it. But that still meant I’d have a bullet in my head.

Though, hell, I’d considered doing that last part myself, so maybe he’d just get someone in the Bratva to save me the trouble.

Come on. Focus.

I couldn’t focus. I was depressed as shit. Was the powder in my pocket even the real thing? It numbed my face all to hell, but it wasn’t doing a thing to pull me out of this funk or keep my attention on—

On that guy who was heading for the door.

"Gavno," I muttered, and threw some bills down beside my drink as I got up. I hurried outside into the thin crowd on the sidewalk and looked around, trying to be as subtle as possible. Why did they send me to do this? I wasn’t trained to be all slick and—

There.

They were walking down the street, hands in their pockets and seemingly oblivious to anyone following them. Hopefully they were about to get in a car and go do…whatever it was they did. I’d made it clear before I’d gone out on this little errand that I wasn’t chasing anyone in a car. Following Ferrari from his hotel had been easy enough, but if they got away from me now, oh well, somebody else would have to get on their tail tomorrow.

As casually as I could, I followed them at a safe distance, my phone out so I could pretend to be focused on the screen and not on Tweedle Gangster and his twink.

I considered bailing and reporting back to Yakov that I’d lost them because they’d gotten into a car and taken off, but Yakov was a slippery bastard. It wouldn’t be beneath him at all to have someone tailing me tonight too, which was why I hadn’t dared let my gaze linger on any man in the club except Ferrari.

Was that all this was? A ploy to get me into a gay bar, bust me perving on a guy, and out me to the Bratva?

Go ahead, Yakov. I wasn’t lying when I said if you out me, I’ll take you down with me.

Nothing said healthy breakup like a little mutually assured destruction between gangster exes.

Hey, Nikita? Pay attention.

I shook myself and looked up, afraid for a panicked second that I’d let them out of my sight while my mind had been wandering, but no. They were still ahead of me.

And just my luck, they were going into another nightclub.

I muttered a few words that my mother would’ve slapped my face for and then followed the pair inside.

By the time I stepped in and my eyes adjusted to the dimmer lighting, my marks had found a table near the back. They were hunched over it, gazes locked as the kid spoke animatedly. Now and then, Ferrari would shake his head or make a placating gesture, but the kid would quickly cut him off and start again. Lover’s quarrel, maybe?

And why the hell did the Bratva care about this? La Cosa Nostra wasn’t quite so uptight about queer people anymore, and while the Bratva absolutely was—hence the mutually assured destruction if my stupid ex ever outed me—they sure as shit weren’t going to say no to a lucrative deal just because the guy making that deal liked gargling balls.

Yakov had been a little vague on the details—or maybe that was the cocaine—but this guy was some… I don’t know. Negotiator? Whatever. He was involved with a La Cosa Nostra organization that wanted to make some deals with the Bratva. There were others, all of them vying for the Pakhan’s favor, and whichever bunch Ferrari was attached to was either really high on the list of prospects, or really high on someone’s shit list, because the boss man had ordered a tail on him to see what he was up to and who he talked to after today’s long closed-door meeting. And on today’s game of Pin the Tail on the Italian Stronzo, I’d been the lucky winner. Or something.

With an irritated grumble, I sat at the bar, and when the bartender came by, I ordered a drink. My nose and throat were still numb, but there was a tingle that meant feeling was coming back. I still had a hankering for another line, too.

And…Ferrari and his pissed-off boyfriend had just gotten here. They wouldn’t be leaving any time soon, would they? They’d hung around the other place for over an hour, and a waiter had just brought them drinks.

I had enough time for a line, right?

The longer I stayed here debating it, the less time I had, so I told the bartender I’d be back in a minute, and I headed for the men’s room.

Despite the nightclub itself being reasonably nice, the restrooms were…not. There wasn’t a surface in here clean enough for me to snort off. I was doing enough damage to my nose without inhaling E.coli or something. Gross.

Next best thing—I poured the powder across the back of my hand, nudged it into a tidy-ish line with the edge of the bag, then plugged one nostril and snorted the line with the other.

The rush drove a Fuck from my lips, and I shook my head. I paused for a moment just to enjoy that initial high. A lot of that was a placebo effect and I knew it—cocaine took a minute or so to hit my system—but I didn’t care. My head spun and my heart raced and goddamn, I felt good. And alert. And focused.

I have a job to do.

Right. That Italian dude. Lamborghini or—Ferrari. That was his name.

I shook myself, quickly washed my hands so I didn’t have any residue on my skin, and dried them off. Then I wiped my nose a few times—ugh, I hated that part of this habit—and tossed the paper towel.

And just as I reached for the door, it swung open.

I had a split second to think, Damn, timed that one perfectly.

But then Lorenzo Ferrari walked into the men’s room, and from the way he looked right at me, he hadn’t just come in for a break from his boyfriend or to take a leak. And he was blocking the doorway. Shit.

The door shut behind him, and without taking his eyes off me, he reached back and turned the lock.

I swallowed hard, my throat freshly-numbed from the line I’d just done.

Folding his arms across his broad chest, he glared down at me. You want to tell me why you’re following me?

My mind was racing. I was focused as fuck.

But hell if I had an answer for him.

Chapter 2

Lorenzo

On a night that I was convinced couldn’t get much worse, a night punctuated by music I hated, smells I despised, and a young man I alternately felt like consoling and shaking by the scruff of the neck, somehow worse had found a way. Forget Murphy’s Law: it should be called Lorenzo’s Law at this point in this fucking trip.

I’m waiting. I leaned back against the door and took my chance to look my stalker over in brighter, if not better, light. The fluorescents weren’t doing him any favors, making his already pale skin look sallow, bringing out the shadows under his eyes. He was still cute, if you liked them young and desperate, which I never had before. His hair was brown, a little long and deliberately messy, and his eyes were blue, his pupils too big for a room this bright.

He sniffed, twice, biting his lower lip as he did. Cocaine, probably. Great. I had a stalker, or as my would-be nephew put it, an admirer, and he was also a drug addict. What genius had put this person on my tail? Irritation ground through me, pulsing in my temples, surging sluggishly through my veins like a shot of adrenaline in reverse. I gritted my teeth to keep myself from yelling at this idiot, whoever he was.

Speaking of… Last chance. You can tell me who you are and why you’re following me, or I can assume the worst. And take care of things, I finished, unsaid but I was sure that he heard it anyway. And don’t bother lying to me. I saw you at the last place too. I was going to beat Alessandro’s ass for dragging me around to the noisiest gay clubs in this god-forsaken metropolis instead of letting me treat him to dinner and then get back to my damn hotel to get ready for tomorrow.

He’d ended up playing the guilt card, the You said I shouldn’t be ashamed of who I am and who I love, and if you really meant it you’d go out with me card. The I’m all alone in a big city, far from family, and I’m scared card. And I was a fucking sucker, because I fell for it.

Ten minutes had been enough to convince me that not only did Alessandro have plenty of friends in this city, or at least in its bars, he was also more than comfortable with being out and proud, despite the fact that his grandfather Vito, the head of the Valentino branch of La Cosa Nostra, had nearly had him assassinated over being gay. Coming out wasn’t something you did in the mafia, at least not in this family. I sure as fuck hadn’t. Being far from the family was what was keeping Alessandro alive, and he knew that.

Part of me wished I could just let go and have fun, the way he obviously wanted me to. He looked a lot like his father Raffaele, Vito’s eldest son and my best friend since childhood. It should have felt natural, being out looking for a good time with a Valentino by my side. It didn’t, though. Alessandro would never be his father, and I would never be able to let my guard down now like I had when I’d been his age and just as much of an idiot. Ah, well. Il tempo passa e non retorna.

The young man in front of me finally started speaking. What came out of his mouth, though, wasn’t what I’d expected.

I was following you because you caught my eye, he said simply, a half-smile curling his lips. It was surprisingly seductive despite the fact that he was clearly trying to hide an accent of some kind behind a flat midwestern drawl, and even more surprisingly effective. I didn’t have lovers or one night stands; I had a few special, chosen partners I visited on an irregular basis, men who fascinated me—or at least didn’t bore me—and who were willing to put up with my idiosyncrasies because they liked my money. I thought I might try my luck if you got rid of that kid you’re with. You look like a guy who’d appreciate a little more… He licked his lips. Experience.

Do I? I didn’t appreciate being told what I needed. I especially didn’t appreciate the fact that tonight, for once, I felt on edge enough to consider it. Stupid, so stupid. You just finished telling Alessandro off for being an idiot. Don’t make a hypocrite of yourself. I tried to focus on the holes in his story, on the way he’d walked—not like a man who was trying to pull, but like a man who was doing his best not to be noticed. If he hadn’t sped out of the last place after us, he might have slipped under my radar. There are plenty of men here tonight who’d appreciate you more than I would.

Plenty in the last club, too. He fingered the edge of his jacket, pulling it open just enough that I could see the curve of his waist. I didn’t want them.

I’m not going to pay you. Fuck, I mean I wouldn’t pay you, even if I was considering this, which I’m not.

He took a few steps toward me, increasingly confident. I’m not looking for money, just a good time.

I don’t have any drugs.

Now he was close enough to touch me, and he did—barely, just a finger across my collarbone and down the center of my chest. I don’t need your drugs.

Because you have your own, clearly. I looked him up and down, still not reaching out, because I wasn’t doing this, damn it. Figlio di puttana. Could you even get off right now? Cocaine use had a way of fucking with orgasms, I’d been told, and the longer you used it, the harder it got to come.

He grinned. It was almost sweet on that face, with those broad cheekbones and the little upturn in his nose. It made him look even younger than he probably was. Younger. Fuck.

There’s only one way to find out. There was something about his voice, something about his accent…he sounded almost more American than most Americans, fake in a way that made me do a double-take to check whether what I was hearing was real or not.

C’mon, Daddy. He wrapped his arms around my neck. Show me a good time.

I didn’t touch him, but I didn’t push him off either. It had been over six months since I’d had sex, six months of hell and heartache and hard work, and I didn’t want to want this man, but my body—usually so reliable in its predictable desires—was betraying me now. He felt it, too, and pressed his groin against mine. He was hard, so there was that, at least.

Uncle Lorenzo! The sound of Alessandro banging on the door resounded through the dim, dank restroom as he laughed on the other side. "Ha, I told you you’d have fun here, didn’t I? Don’t forget to play safe!" He moved off, and the young man in front of me looked up into my eyes, still grinning.

Uncle, hmm? Do you prefer that to Daddy?

How could I want to fuck someone so much and want to gag him so badly at the same time? You can call me Lorenzo if you need to call me anything at all. I wanted him—more than him, I wanted release. I wanted to think about something other than the lion’s den behind me and the snake pit I was walking into, for a little while at least. Hunger crawled through me like a swarm of ants, and I hated the feeling as much as I wanted it. And your name? Because I had a line, and it included knowing the name of the person I was fucking.

He pressed his lips to my jaw. Nick, he whispered against my ear. Call me Nick.

Good enough. I finally let myself touch him, reaching my hands around his waist and hiking him in closer to me before capturing his mouth in a kiss. He tasted like vodka and a little bitter too—probably from the cocaine.

What the fuck are you doing, Lorenzo?

I ran my hands across Nick’s lower back, then his ass, feeling for any place he might have a weapon. Nothing but a wallet in one pocket—no knives, no guns. Good. I pulled back a bit. Condom?

He shrugged and smirked. That was a no. Good thing Alessandro had gone so far as to stick a couple of condoms in my pocket earlier tonight, as good luck charms! Little asshole, but I was grateful now. I spun us, turning Nick so that he faced the door and I was at his back. There was no time for seduction—Nick didn’t seem to want it and I would do without it, just for tonight. No decadent meal, no bottle of wine, no beautiful music, just a quick fuck in a bathroom.

Nick pressed his ass back against me. What are you waiting for?

My common sense to catch up with me. But it was too late for that. I reached around the front of his skinny jeans and opened his fly, spread the fabric apart and down his legs just far enough. His briefs followed, and then…

His back tensed beneath my chest, and his breathing grew shallow. He was still hard, ostensibly still turned on, but he was expecting something painful. He was expecting this to hurt.

Fuck that. I didn’t care whether pain did it for him or not; it didn’t do it for me. I opened one of the condoms—lubricated, thankfully—and slid it over the middle and index finger on my right hand, then reached down and touched him, slow and gentle, sliding slickly around his hole.

You don’t have to—it’s fine, I can—

You, I breathed against the back of his neck, really need to shut up and let me do this. Unless you want to call it off, don’t talk, all right?

He exhaled unsteadily, then nodded and set his forehead on his own arm. Bit by bit, touch by touch his whole body relaxed, until I pressed a finger into him and got nothing but an appreciative groan. I fucked him with one hand and stroked his dick with the other, winding him up. Even if he didn’t come, I was going to make this good.

Every other thing in my life lately seemed to be about damage, either doing it or shoring it up—this, at least, could just be something nice. Something easy, simple. Maybe even fun, although I’d never tell Alessandro that.

I threw the used condom away, opened my pants and put the other one on me. My dick was hypersensitive—I hadn’t even bothered to jerk off in weeks, not when there was always another fire to put out. I wanted to go fast, but I also wanted to last longer than a second, so when I finally slid inside Nick I went slow,