Wages of Sin: Las Vegas Syndicate Book Two

by Michelle St. James

  So weak.

  She moved toward the armoire and the suitcase she’d stashed there when she’d first arrived in Mexico. “Can you give me a ride to the airport?”

  “I can do more than that,” Angel said. “I have a plane.”

  Abby pulled out the suitcase and lay it on the bed. She’d opened the top drawer of the dresser when a new question came to mind.

  “If the game’s done, how can Max help?”

  “I don’t know,” Angel said. “But I get the feeling his mission against Jason Draper has become even more personal. He’s going to bring Jason down whatever it takes. It would be better for him, safer, if he worked with the Syndicate.”

  It was the first time Angel had mentioned the name of the organization run by her husband, but Abby didn’t have time to think about it.

  Max was waiting. And he needed her.

  Five

  Max sat on the terrace, the living room doors open despite the AC that was still cranked in the house. It was almost midnight, the sky inky and endless, only a few stars visible amid the glow projected upward by the casinos.

  In the month Abby had been gone, temperatures had gone from pleasantly warm to the familiar inferno of summer. The impossibility of being outside for any length of time during the day only made him appreciate the hours after sunset more. He’d taken to sitting outside for hours, drinking and thinking of Abby, wondering where she was, wondering if the stars were brighter there.

  He hoped so. She deserved magic. He’d wanted to deliver it to her himself, to spend his life surrounding her with joy and luxury and security.

  With love.

  He wasn’t angry that she left without talking to him. The whole fiasco was his fault. He should have leveled with her in the beginning, told her about Nico Vitale’s allegations against Jason, clued her in to what he was about to do.

  He’d been trying to protect her, but that was little comfort now that she was gone. Now that she thought he was some kind of soulless criminal who gambled for women and drugs.

  And who could blame her? The lines of his moral code had been blurred by all his drinking and sleeping around. He’d been an asshole when he came back from Afghanistan. He’d hardly recognized himself. How could he expect her to know the old Max was still in there, buried under the bravado that masked his fear?

  He sighed and took a drink of the whiskey in his hand, rattled the ice cubes in the nearly-empty glass. He needed another, but he was comfortable in the lounge chair, the velvet sky stretched out above, the Strip glowing like the Emerald City in the distance.

  He turned his thoughts to the meeting with Nico and Farrell earlier that night. He still hated that fucker Farrell Black, although if he was honest with himself, it was hard to know how much of it was because of the man’s enormous ego and how much because of the feeling Max had that Farrell Black had more than enough to back it up.

  Nico was different. Calm. Collected. A born negotiator.

  Max had a hunch Farrell Black’s fists were the only thing he used in negotiations.

  Nico and Farrell were clearly invested in the Vegas territory, and Max didn’t think he’d been imagining the interest in their eyes when he’d told them about DeLuca’s men at the Tangier. Farrell had tried not to give Max the satisfaction, but his body language had told Max everything he needed to know: Farrell was as eager to take Vegas as Nico.

  They’d agreed to wait on further action until they’d gotten confirmation that the men Max had seen at the casino were indeed working for DeLuca. Max didn’t need it — the pattern was too clear, too consistent — but he understood why Nico wanted it.

  No one wanted to go down for a garden variety theft.

  It wasn’t about the money. It was about driving a wedge between the DeLuca family and Jason. About giving one of them an incentive to either abandon the territory altogether or agree to the Syndicate’s rules.

  The fallout for disrupting the DeLuca/Draper money laundromat would be significant. All hell would break loose when Fredo DeLuca realized his money had been stolen. He would turn the city inside out looking for the people responsible.

  But he would go to Jason first.

  Anticipation buoyed Max’s spirits. Seeing Jason destroyed wasn’t enough. Max wanted to see him burn. Wanted to see him watch everything he’d built implode in front of his eyes.

  The only thorn in the rose of Jason’s demise was Abby. Would she ever come back, either on her own or once Max found her? He had to believe she would. Vegas was her town.

  Their town.

  He drove by the little house she owned every day, holding his breath as he watched for a “For Sale” sign, for some other indication that she was gone for good.

  But it was just as it had been since she bought it, the porch light set on a timer, the landscaping lights that led to the picturesque front porch solar-powered, glowing blue after dark.

  He’d driven by Saturday morning once and had seen Abby’s best friend, Meredith. pulling the mail out of the box and unlocking the front door. It had given him a rush of hope. Abby hadn’t stopped delivery of her mail, and she’d obviously asked Meredith to look in on the house in her absence.

  Talking to Meredith, asking her if she knew where Abby had gone, was a course of action he’d only considered for a split second. He wasn’t going to grovel to Meredith. His pride wouldn’t allow it, and it wouldn’t be fair to put either Meredith or Abby in that situation.

  Abby trusted her, and there weren’t many people Abby trusted.

  He would just have to wait, either for the PI he’d hired to track Abby down so Max could make an appeal himself or for Abby to come home on her own.

  He stood and walked barefoot into the house, making a beeline for the bar where he planned to pour himself another stiff drink, the only cure for thoughts of Abby, the only chance he had of getting a decent night’s sleep without her haunting his dreams.

  He was lifting the bottle of Macallan, anticipating a long pour, when the doorbell rang through the house.

  He stopped cold and looked at his watch.

  12:04 a.m.

  The bottle was still in his hand. He set it down and opened the drawer in the end table near the sofa, then withdrew the gun he kept there.

  He tucked it into his jeans and pulled his T-shirt down over it, then made his way to the front door he’d bought from an architectural salvage company when designing the house. The company in question had found it in the south of France, and it was ten feet tall and crafted of solid oak.

  It also didn’t have a peephole, something Max hadn’t thought twice about back when his biggest problem was trying to remember if he’d already slept with a particularly fetching and flirtatious cocktail waitress.

  Now he couldn’t help wishing he’d been more forward-thinking. He had no idea who was on the other side of the door and no way to find out except one.

  He kept one hand near the gun hidden under his T-shirt and reached for the door with his other hand. He almost stopped breathing when the person on the other side of it came into view.

  It was Abby.

  “Max… hi.” He couldn’t speak. Was afraid to move for fear she’d change her mind about whatever she it was she was doing there, that she would turn and run again. She looked down at her hands, then looked back up at him, a swarm of emotion brewing in her eyes. “I… Can I come in?”

  Six

  She held onto her overnight bag with shaking hands as she followed him into the foyer and down the hall to the living room. She was trying not to think about what seeing him was doing to her — about the quickening of her heartbeat, the flush that was spreading outward from her chest, the breath that didn’t seem to make it all the way into her lungs.

  It wasn’t until she’d gotten on the private plane with Angel Vitale that she’d understood the sense of unease that had been seeping through her veins.

  It was fear. Fear that Max wouldn’t forgive her. That after all they’d been through, doubting him mig
ht be the one unforgivable sin she could have committed.

  They reached the living room and he turned to face her, extending a hand. “Let me take that.”

  It took her a few seconds to realize he was talking about the travel bag on her shoulder. She handed it over.

  “Thank you.”

  He nodded and set the bag down on the floor next to the bar. “Drink?”

  “No, thank you.” She needed to be clearheaded while she did what she’d come to do, while she said what she had to say.

  He poured himself a drink and finished it in one swallow. Then he gestured to the sofa. “Would you like to sit?”

  She crossed the room and lowered herself onto one end of the couch. It seemed like forever before he spoke again.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  Her throat closed with emotion. His first question wasn’t about why she’d left or why she hadn’t given him a chance to explain or even where she’d been.

  He just wanted to know if she was okay.

  “I’m fine.” She looked up at him, her breath catching in her throat. He was even more beautiful than she remembered, his dark hair tousled, his blue eyes piercing hers through the dim light of the room, lit only by a lamp on the end table. His muscled arms were crossed over his chest, his jeans just loose enough to hang sexily on his hips. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m better now.” His tone was almost angry, and he drew in a breath and ran a hand through his hair before softening his voice and speaking again. “Where have you been, Abby?”

  She looked down at her hands. “Mexico. Tulum, to be exact.”

  “Mexico.” He repeated the word softly, like a mantra he’d been chasing for a long time.

  “I guess you know why,” she said, shame heating her cheeks.

  “I do,” he said. “I just wish you’d talked to me first, given me a chance to explain.”

  She realized then that he had no idea Angel had come to see her in Mexico, had no idea she already knew about his involvement in the Syndicate.

  “I wish I had, too.”

  She caught the flash of surprise in his eyes in the moment before he covered it with his old machismo. That broke her heart more than anything else — seeing him brace himself against her, shielding himself as if she might hurt him again.

  “Why didn’t you?” he asked. “And why are you doing it now?”

  She drew in a breath. “I didn’t because… well, because I was stupid. I think I was scared that everything we’d had was a figment of my imagination, that you were a figment of my imagination. It seemed too good to be true, you know?”

  He nodded.

  “And then Jason gave me the flash drive and it seemed so clear. It never entered my mind that Jason might be…” She searched for the right words.

  “Fucking with your head?” Max offered.

  She nodded. “It all happened so fast. I should have taken more time to think things through. I should have talked to you.”

  “Is that why you’re here now,” he said. “To give me a chance to explain?”

  “No,” she said. “I’m here to say I’m sorry for ever believing you would do something so disgusting. I’m sorry for not trusting you. For not trusting what we had.”

  He studied her. “So you just woke up one day and realized you were wrong?”

  She shook her head. “I wish I could say that, but I can’t take credit for it.”

  “Then what happened?” he asked.

  “Angel Vitale came to see me in Tulum.”

  “Angel Vitale?”

  She nodded. “I think you know her husband, Nico.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t really understand either,” she said. “Angel showed up in Mexico earlier today. She told me about Jason, about your… partnership with Nico.” His eyes flashed and she hurried to explain. “She didn’t go into the details. She just said that you’d been working with Nico to get enough evidence to stop the poker games.”

  “That’s it?”

  “And that Nico was part of some kind of organized crime syndicate that’s trying to take over Vegas.”

  He swore under his breath and crossed to the terrace doors, open to the warm desert night.

  Abby stood and walked toward him. She hesitated before laying a hand on his back. “I’m glad she told me. It answered the questions I had, made sense of why you got involved in the first place. You were trying to protect me. Just like always.”

  His shoulders shook as he dragged in a breath. For a long moment she thought he was going to tell her to leave, that it was over between them.

  Then he turned to face her, his eyes a storm of emotion. “You were working with him every day, Abby. You told me about Filippovic, and then I saw him at the game, along with Jason, who couldn’t have been prouder to be running the whole thing. I had to put a stop to it.”

  “I know,” she said. “I just wish you’d told me.”

  “Would you have listened?”

  She looked down. “Probably not. Not because it wasn’t believable, but because I wouldn’t have wanted to believe it.”

  “At first, I wasn’t even sure Nico was right.” It didn’t surprise her that Max passed over her admission. Even now, he wouldn’t go out of his way to make her feel bad. “I wanted to see it for myself, to be sure before I said anything to you. I knew that you cared about Jason, that he was your friend.”

  The effort it took for him to say the words was written in the tight set of his jaw and the flash of anger in his eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly. His eyes were unreadable, his face shadowed in the darkened room. The city beckoned beyond the terrace, a backdrop, as always, to their unfolding history. When he didn’t speak, she drew in a long, shuddering breath. “Say something, Max. Be angry. Yell at me. Tell me I hurt you. Just… say something. I can handle anything but your silence.”

  “I’m not angry,” he said. “Not at you.”

  “Then what are you thinking?”

  She almost couldn’t breathe as he lifted a hand to her face, traced a finger over her brow and down her temple, along the lines of her cheek, across her lips. He was so close she could smell him. His scent was intoxicating, a musky undertone of cologne mixed with male sweat, remnants of laundry soap and whiskey.

  When he finally spoke, his voice was low and hoarse. “I’m thinking it’s past time I took you to bed.”

  Seven

  Max stood in front of her for a long time, taking in the planes of the face: her eyes bigger than he remembered, her cheekbones more pronounced. There was hardly any light in the room, the desert dark through the open doors to the terrace off his bedroom, the lights of the city just a shimmer in the air.

  He’d led her up the stairs without a word, relieved when she didn’t bolt. He wondered if it was a whiskey-induced dream, if he would wake up tomorrow passed out on his bed, Abby as far away as ever. He almost didn’t care. Right now she was here, as real as she’d ever been.

  As beautiful as she’d ever been.

  He dropped a hand to her collarbone and realized she’d lost weight she hadn’t needed to lose. The fullness and vitality that had been her hallmark had shrunk, proof that the last month had taken a toll on her.

  It gave him no comfort. He didn’t want company in his misery, not with Abby. If she had to leave him, he wished she’d been having fun in Mexico, the past too far behind to haunt her.

  He slid a hand into her hair and angled her head, forcing her to look at him. “I fucking missed you, Abby.”

  “I missed you, too,” she whispered.

  “Then never leave me again.”

  He lowered his mouth to hers, allowed himself to linger on her lips, feeling the pillowy give of them, the gentle intake of her breath, in the moment before he deepened the kiss. It was like opening a floodgate, all the longing and despair of the past month released as he slipped his tongue into the sweetness of her mouth.

  She sighed, her b
ody melting against his, her arms sliding around his waist, her hands traveling over his back as if she wanted to make sure he was real.

  He cradled her head in his hands as he swept her mouth with his tongue, mapping it like a traveler returning home after a long journey, wanting to make sure nothing had changed.

  His cock, hard and throbbing, was pressed against her stomach. It demanded release, but it would have to wait. He was going to take his time with her, learn her all over again, savor every inch of her silken skin, every curve and hollow of her body.

  He touched his lips to the corners of her mouth as his hands moved across her shoulders. He stroked the hollow of her collarbone with his thumb as he kissed his way along her jaw.

  Her head fell to the side when he reached her ear. He kissed his way down her neck, the peaks of her nipples jutting against his ribcage through the thin fabric of her dress. He cupped her breasts in his hands, rubbing his thumbs against the hard little nubs until she moaned.

  He inhaled her scent — something tropical mixed with the brine of the sea — as he dropped his lips to her bare shoulder. Her skin was raised with gooseflesh as he hooked a finger under the thin strap of the dress and slid it off her shoulder. Then he reached up with his other hand and did the same to the other one.

  The dress fell to the floor in a heap.

  She was almost bare before him, her breasts naked and begging for his mouth, a strip of fabric between her legs the only thing between him and the perfect purity of her body.

  He bent his head to one of her breasts, cupping it in his hands as he took the nipple in his mouth. She moaned, her fingers sliding into his hair, grasping as he sucked, the near-pain of it sending another pulse of need to his swollen cock.

  He kneeled in front of her and sat back on his heels, looking up at the ivory pillar of her body.

  She was perfection, every bit as flawless as Venus herself.

  “You’re the most magnificent thing I’ve ever fucking seen, Abby.”

  She looked down at him through half-closed eyes as he leaned forward, pressing his mouth against her mound. Her heat warmed his mouth even through the fabric of her underwear, and he pressed his tongue against it, dampening the fabric, his lust shooting through the roof at the taste of her.