Wages of Sin: Las Vegas Syndicate Book Two

by Michelle St. James

  She went to the coffee machine and made herself a cup, glad she didn’t have to pass Frazier again, then took her coffee back to her office and spent a few minutes gathering her thoughts. When she felt calm and in control, she got up and made her way to Jason’s office.

  He was sitting at his desk, eyes focused on his computer screen, an elephant statue on his desk to the right of the screen. The figure held an ax in one hand, to symbolize cutting off all attachment, and a rope in the other, to bring one nearer to the highest goal. The statue had been there so long Abby had stopped seeing it after awhile.

  Now it took on new meaning: Ganesh, Remover of Obstacles.

  Jason smiled when he saw her and rose to his feet. “Abby!”

  She forced herself not to cringe as he made his way around his desk to give her a hug. She was surprised to feel tears spring to her eyes. It would be easy to believe it was all a mistake. That this was the same Jason she’d played with as a kid, the same Jason who’d stood next to her at school when they were bullied, the same Jason who had given her a job at the Tangier.

  But he wasn’t the same. Either that, or he’d never been the person she’d thought he was.

  He pulled back to look at her. “You look well. How was your sabbatical?”

  Is that what we’re calling it? she thought.

  “It was great,” she said. “Much needed.”

  “You’ve always worked too hard.”

  She smiled. “You’re one to talk.”

  He laughed. “Touché. How long have you been back?”

  “Just a couple days.”

  His brow furrowed. “Do you need more time to settle in?”

  “I’m good,” she said. “I think work is the best thing for me right now.”

  “There’s plenty of that.” His expression was grave, and she was glad when he seemed to assume she was referring to a breakup with Max. “I hope the accounts aren’t too much of a mess.”

  “The messier the better.” You want to play? she thought. I can play this whole I’m-so-upset-about-Max-I-can’t-talk-about-it game all day. “Is there anything specific I should be looking for?”

  Besides more evidence of your corruption?

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “Take your time getting reoriented and we can meet later in the week. Peter has been overseeing things in your absence. You can check with him if you have any questions, and of course, you can always come to me.”

  “Thanks. I’ll get to it then.” She started for the door, then turned around. “What’s with the giant in the hall?”

  He sighed. “I finally gave in and hired a security team.”

  “Really?” She tried for an expression of concern. “Is everything okay?”

  “It’s just a precaution,” he said. “I’d say Bruce looks scarier than he is, but I’d be lying. I couldn’t be safer in his company.”

  He grinned as he said it, but she couldn’t help wondering if it was some kind of message.

  “Yikes.”

  “Nothing for you to worry about,” Jason said. “We’re on the same side, remember?”

  She forced a smile. “Always.”

  She was almost to the hall when he spoke again.

  “Abby?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m glad you’re back.”

  “Me too.”

  She made her way down the hall to her office.

  Let’s see how glad you are when the DeLucas turn on you, asshole.

  Thirteen

  Max was waiting on Abby’s porch when she pulled up after work Friday afternoon. He’d agreed to keep their relationship out of the public eye for the time being — but that didn’t mean he was going to actively hide it. If Jason got wind of them and appeared to be a threat, Max would act as Abby’s personal bodyguard if he had to.

  They’d spent her first week back at the hotel meeting at his house or hers and cooking or ordering takeout in order to avoid being seen in public. Max’s memory was all too vivid, the image of Jason spotting him and Abby kissing in the Tangier like a warning bell in reverse.

  That had been the day Jason decided to drive them apart, Max was sure of it.

  He hadn’t minded staying in all week. He had Abby back. Keeping her safe was all that mattered. But they could only do so much, could only go so far in keeping their relationship quiet.

  “Hey!” she said, obviously surprised as she stepped out of her car. “Is everything all right?”

  He stood, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her forehead. “Everything will be fine as long as you pack a bag and get in the car in the next twenty minutes.”

  She looked up at him. “A bag? Are you sure everything’s okay?”

  “I promise,” he said. “I want to take my woman out to dinner, and if we can’t do it here, we’ll do it somewhere else.”

  “Where are we going?” she asked, laughing as he ushered her into the house.

  “It’s a surprise. But I promise there will be sun and trees and lots of sleeping and nakedness.”

  “Hmmm, sounds intriguing,” she said, setting her bag by the door. “But assuming we can’t be naked the entire weekend, what type of clothing should I pack?”

  “Lightweight, one nice outfit, a swimsuit, and a comfortable long-sleeved shirt,” he said. “Oh, and some kind of shoe you can walk or hike in.”

  She turned halfway up the stairs to look at him. “Walking and hiking? You’re not going to make me work out on this getaway are you?”

  He grinned. “Not unless you count bedroom acrobatics as working out.”

  She laughed and shook her head, then continued up the stairs.

  He paced the house, listening to the sounds of her packing in the master bedroom upstairs. He was oddly excited. Their relationship had started just as the Syndicate approached him to take down Jason. Then there had been the DarkNet games and his counterfeit reconciliation with Jason, the long separation when Abby had been in Mexico.

  They hadn’t had more than a few meals out before things fell apart, and now that he had Abby back he was anxious to treat her the way she deserved to be treated. It pissed him off that he couldn’t do it in Vegas — this was their town as much as Jason’s — but taking her away was a small enough concession for the luxury of treating her like the woman he loved in full view of anyone and everyone.

  She was ready with five minutes to spare, looking casual but classy in sleek black ankle pants and a pale pink blouse that set off the blush in her cheeks, the rosy hue of her full mouth.

  “All right, Mister. You’re calling the shots. What now?”

  “Now we go to the airport,” he said.

  They passed her car in the driveway on the way to his, parked by the curb. He opened her door and took her bag, then loaded it into the trunk with his before sliding into the driver’s seat.

  He started the car and reached across the console for her hand, relishing the softness of it in his as he pulled into traffic. Vegas wasn’t a very big town, and he felt liberated as he drove toward the airport, the prospect of two whole days as a couple making him feel like a schoolboy bringing a valentine to school for his secret crush.

  They bypassed the commercial arrival and departure terminals of the airport and made their way toward the section designated for charters. Abby looked over at him as he made the turnoff.

  “Did you charter us a plane?”

  “Something like that,” he said.

  Earlier in the week, he’d mentioned to Nico that he was planning to go out of town with Abby over the weekend. He’d already booked their lodging and had been planning on booking a first class commercial flight when Nico offered him one of the Syndicate jets.

  It had taken him by surprise, yet another sign that the Syndicate wasn’t a stereotypical criminal organization. He’d been hesitant to take Nico up on the offer — the last thing he needed was to feel in debt to the organization — but if it meant a more comfortable trip for Abby, he was all in.

  Max spotted a j
et with its steps lowered on the tarmac. The lights were on and a black SUV idled nearby.

  Reaching inside his jacket for the gun holstered at his side was becoming second nature. He was assured by the cold metal, then felt the rush of adrenaline slow as a suited man stepped from the passenger side of the car.

  “Who’s that?” Abby asked as he pulled the car to a stop next to the SUV.

  “Not sure.” He turned off the car. “Stay here.”

  He stepped onto the tarmac and approached the man in the suit. His hands were in full view, no indication that he was on guard or preparing to reach for a weapon. Besides, no one but Nico knew Max’s plans. Abby herself hadn’t known until an hour ago.

  “Max Cartwright?” The man’s eyes were shielded behind sunglasses.

  “Who’s asking?”

  “Nico Vitale sent me for your car.” Max’s body tightened as the man reached into his jacket pocket, but a second later he withdrew a business card and handed it to Max. “Call me when you need the jet again. We’ll make sure it’s here.”

  Max tried not to show his surprise. The jet was one thing: having Nico send someone to pick up his car was a whole other level of service. He wondered suddenly if he was being groomed — or at least influenced — by the Syndicate.

  But that didn’t make sense. Farrell Black hated his guts, and the feeling was mutual.

  He pocketed the business card without looking at it and handed the keys over to the man in the suit. “Thanks.”

  The man took the keys with a nod and stepped back against the SUV, waiting as Max went to the passenger side of his Porsche.

  He opened the door for Abby, then went to the trunk to retrieve their bags. She looked at the man standing against the SUV.

  “Who is that?” she said without breaking her smile.

  Max laughed. “Don’t worry about it. He’s going to take care of the car.”

  “Fancy,” she said.

  “Only the best for the best.”

  She linked her arm through his and leaned her head against his arm. “I already have the best.”

  They climbed the stairs and entered a luxurious world of cream-colored leather. On one side, a sofa extended half the length of the plane. Across from it, a table with four chairs sat ready for a meal or a meeting. Further back in the plane, three rows of plush, wide seats lead to what looked like a sleeping cabin.

  The pilot, dressed in a suit not unlike the one the man on the tarmac was wearing, came out of the cockpit and introduced himself and a male steward who offered to get them drinks before takeoff.

  A few minutes later, Abby was strapped in next to Max, one hand holding a glass of champagne, the other linked with his as the plane’s engine built to a quiet roar.

  “Welcome aboard,” the pilot said over the intercom. “Please make yourself comfortable. Flight time to Sedona is one hour, twenty minutes.”

  Abby looked at him. “Sedona?”

  He leaned over to kiss her. “Sedona.”

  Fourteen

  Abby took a drink of coffee and leaned back with a sigh. “I’m not ready to leave.”

  Max smiled from across the table. “No reason we have to leave.”

  “I know what you’re trying to do,” she said.

  “Me?” he asked with mock innocence.

  “Yes, you.” She looked at the trees that surrounded the deck of their private cottage. It was designed to look simple and unostentatious, but she wasn’t fooled: the place was a luxury resort. “Bringing me here for the weekend, feeding me beautiful food, taking me on a midnight hike to look at the stars, hiring people to give me massages. It’s all a trick.”

  “A trick?”

  She nodded. “To keep me from wanting to go back to Vegas, to the Tangier.”

  He grinned. “Is it working?”

  “Yes and no,” she said. “It’s a lovely dream.”

  His expression grew serious. “It doesn’t have to be a dream. We could leave Vegas, buy a little place up here or somewhere else, leave all the ugliness behind.”

  It was tempting, not because she wanted out of Vegas, but because it was the only way she saw the feud ending between Jason and Max without bloodshed. She loved their hometown, but for the first time, she wasn’t looking forward to returning to it that afternoon.

  “You would do that?” she asked. “Just walk away? Let Jason get away with all he’s done?”

  “I didn’t say that.” His voice was like cold steel.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  Max looked through the trees, his voice faraway. “I could have walked away before he tried to drive us apart, or I could have walked away if you’d walked away with me,” he corrected himself. “I would never have left as long as I knew you were at the Tangier, not after I knew what he was up to.”

  “Does it matter so much?” Abby asked. “It didn’t work, Max. We’re together now.”

  It wouldn’t be easy for her to forget either, but she would do it if it meant ensuring Max’s safety, if it meant him walking away from the conflict with Jason, from the Syndicate and a lifestyle with an allure that even she wasn’t immune to.

  He turned to look at her and she was startled by his eyes, the pupils turned to blue fire. “It does matter, Abby. You know it does.”

  She nodded, the old pain opening up inside of her at the thought of their month apart, the nights she’d spent crying herself to sleep, the emptiness that had existed like a vacuum at the center of her soul.

  “If you go back, I go back,” she said. “We’re in this together.”

  She regretted the unhappiness in his eyes as she spoke the words, but they were the truth, and they’d promised to only deal in the truth from here on out. Sedona had been a beautiful reprieve, two long days spent walking through the scrubby woods, sitting by the trickling stream that surrounded the resort, talking over long meals, making love until the sun filtered through the trees like golden lace.

  It couldn’t last forever.

  She reached across the table for his hand. “It’ll be over soon.”

  “It was supposed to be over weeks ago,” he said darkly.

  “I know,” she said. “But I’ve been doing a lot of digging this past week, and I’m starting to orient myself with parts of the casino I hadn’t paid much attention to before all of this.”

  Interest lit his eyes. “Have you found something?”

  “Not yet,” she said. “But I’m starting to find some order to the different systems — inventory control, restaurant and bar supply, transportation and logistics. That’s an important step, because I can’t find anomalies if I’m not starting from some kind of baseline. Before, I was focused only on the financials. I didn’t have a big-picture view of the casino’s systems. I’m starting to get that now, and that will make it easier for me to find discrepancies.”

  “Has Jason given any indication he’s onto you?” Max asked.

  She shook her head. “He’s been surprisingly hands-off. I think he’s assuming I need some time to catch up, and I’m being careful.”

  She regretted the words as soon as she said them. Max was too tuned into the tone of her voice, the expressions on her face.

  “Careful?”

  She kept her face impassive. Max didn’t need to know that she’d started to wonder if she was being followed, that she’d spotted the same lanky man in a leather jacket at the casino, at the grocery store near her father’s house, in the street near the coffee shop where she stopped every morning on her way to work.

  And he really didn’t need to know how unsettled she was by the constant presence of Bruce Frazier, by the way his eyes followed her whenever they were in the same room, even when his head and body remained still.

  “Understanding the casino’s operations means talking to people,” she said calmly. “I’ve had to ask questions of people I know in various departments, but I’ve been careful to keep it casual, make it part of our conversation or tie it into the casino’s finances.”
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br />   He looked only moderately relieved. “And if Jason gets wind of it?”

  “He won’t,” Abby said. “And even if he does, it’s all easily explainable in the context of my job as Finance Director, especially since I was gone for a month.”

  Max’s eyes were dark as he looked at her.

  She got up from the table and walked around the table, setting her hands on his shoulders and bending to kiss his cheek. “You worry too much. Everything’s fine. It’s all business as usual.”

  “None of this is business as usual,” he said, taking her hands and turning his head to kiss her on the mouth.

  “You know what is business as usual?”

  He nuzzled her neck. “What?”

  “That big, soft bed, which is still ours for another two hours.”

  He growled and pulled her into his lap. She squealed as he got to his feet, holding her in his arms as he carried her inside.

  Fifteen

  Max stood in the shadows of the casino’s parking lot, watching as Abby stepped out of her car. They’d been home from Sedona for almost a week, and he’d spent every day of it tailing her. It had felt wrong at first — like he was spying on her, like he didn’t trust her — but that was before he’d realized he’d been right about their conversation in Sedona.

  She’d been hiding something from him.

  Or more accurately, someone.

  He wasn’t angry. He didn’t blame Abby for not telling him, not after the fight they’d had about her going back to work for Jason. For all Max knew, Abby hadn’t even been sure she was being followed, a fact she’d probably used to justify her reneging on their promise of total honesty.

  He was less pissed at Abby and more concerned that she didn’t trust him to be reasonable. He would have to prove himself if he wanted her to be straight with him next time, would have to prove he wouldn’t try to keep her under lock and key when he was concerned for her safety.