Wages of Sin: Las Vegas Syndicate Book Two

by Michelle St. James

  “Are there any pictures of Mom?” she asked.

  He avoided her eyes. “A couple.”

  It was the most tantalizing promise of all — a rare window into a part of her life she barely remembered, a mother who was nothing but a soft voice behind a blurry face.

  “Maybe we can go through some of them next week when I come,” she said.

  He ducked his head. “Might be able to get it done by then.”

  She nodded and followed him down the hall into the living room. She was struck with the sudden desire to tell him to call if he needed her, to promise she would be there if he got into a tight spot with his sobriety.

  She resisted the urge. She’d been there before, and it was a guarantee of madness, of desperate, rambling, three a.m. phone calls and angry, violent outbursts.

  She picked up her purse. “I’ll see you next week then.”

  She was almost to the door when his voice sounded behind her.

  “Thank you.”

  She turned to face him. “For what?”

  He waved a hand in the air. “The food. Cleaning. Christ, I don’t now. Everything.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  She stepped into the hall and closed the door behind her.

  Twenty-Five

  Max was in the kitchen when the doorbell rang. He put down the lemon in his hand, cut for the marinade he planned to use on the salmon he was making for dinner with Abby, and crossed the living room toward the front hall.

  He paused at the end table next to the sofa, then opened the drawer and removed the handgun he’d been keeping there ever since Nico Vitale had roped him into this mess with Jason.

  Stuffing the weapon in his waistband, he continued into the hall and pulled open the front door. It said a lot about the changes in his life that he wasn’t surprised to see Nico standing on the other side.

  He relaxed a little, another indication of how much things had changed. “Nico.”

  It was nearly June, the sun a scorching orb hanging in the evening sky, but Nico was in one of his immaculately tailored suits, his face as cool as if he were standing in an air-conditioned room instead of outside in hundred-degree weather.

  “Sorry to drop by unannounced,” he said, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses.

  “It’s okay.” Max meant it. He liked Nico more than he wanted to admit. “Come in.”

  Nico stepped into the house and Max shut the door.

  “I was just starting dinner,” Max said, heading for the living room. “Want a drink?”

  “I won’t turn one down.”

  Max removed the gun from his waistband and put it back inside the drawer.

  “Nervous?” Nico asked as Max poured Scotch into a glass.

  He handed the glass to Nico. “It’s become a habit.”

  “I don’t blame you,” Nico said. “I’ve been meaning to ask if you’ve considered a partner.”

  Max grinned. “You were my partner. Don’t need one now.”

  Nico took his drink to the sofa and unbuttoned his coat, then sat down. “I’m talking about a friend, a right-hand man, what in our business we call an underboss.”

  Max shook his head. “I’m not in your business. I’m not in any business.”

  “I’m aware of that,” Nico said. “But perhaps things will change.”

  “Not in a way that would require me to have an underboss,” Max said.

  Nico studied him. “I’m aware of your feelings about our business.”

  “Can you blame me?”

  “Not at all. It’s… unsavory, at times,” Nico admitted.

  “Then why do you do it?”

  “I came to it through legacy.” Nico paused to take a drink from his glass. “My father was the boss of the New York territory when it was run by the old Syndicate leadership.”

  The information offered an explanation for some of the things Max had noticed about Nico — his strange calm, the delicate balance between gentility and violence that seemed to be at his core.

  Nico Vitale had been born to lead the Syndicate. Bred to it.

  “I didn’t think the Mob was a monarchy,” Max said.

  “It isn’t,” Nico said. “Not always. In fact, I wanted nothing to do with it for a long time.” He laughed. “I was going to business school, if you can believe it.”

  “I do.” It was as easy to imagine Nico running a Fortune 500 company as it was to imagine him running the modern day Mob. “So what happened?”

  “My father confided his fear that a hit had been taken out on him by someone in the business. He feared for my mother’s life, wanted me to help watch their backs.”

  “And did you?” Max asked.

  Nico nodded. “Although it didn’t do any good. They were executed shortly thereafter.”

  Max had asked the question even though he knew some of Nico’s background from the research he’d done after Nico’s first visit to his house. Back then, the information had seemed part of a distant and twisted fairy tale.

  Things looked different now.

  “I’m sorry,” Max said. “I lost both my parents as well. I know how difficult that can be.”

  As he said it, he was hit with the realization that Nico had known this all along. That the death of Max’s parents was one of the reasons he’d been chosen to approach Jason. That Nico had sensed a similarity between them even on paper.

  “Their death brought me fully into the business,” Nico said. “Forced me to hunt for their murderer. In a strange way, it even led me to my wife, my daughter.” He sighed. “Life is strange that way. Happiness borne out of pain. Love borne out of loss.”

  Max thought about Abby, wondered if they would have been friends if she’d been a different little girl, one with parents who took care of her and a posse of girlfriends to giggle with in the cafeteria at school. Would Max still have been drawn to her? Would she have been drawn to Max? Would they have forged the same kind of bond under different circumstances?

  Nico pulled himself from the past with what looked like effort. “The meeting with Draper and DeLuca is set for tomorrow at one p.m. at the Tangier.”

  “The Tangier?”

  “I was surprised by that, too,” Nico said. “But it’s Draper’s home turf. I imagine he needs all the safety he thinks he can get at this point. He’s not exactly popular right now.”

  “Makes sense,” Max said.

  Nico considered his next words. “And what about Abby? Have provisions been made for her safety?”

  “She’ll hole up at her house until the meeting’s over. Everyone who poses a threat to her will be there.”

  “I can fly her to Rome in the morning,” Nico suggested. “She can stay with Angel until this all blows over.”

  “I appreciate that,” Max said. He did, more than he was willing to let on. “But she won’t go.”

  “I suspected as much,” Nico said. “It’s an open-ended offer. Keep it in mind.”

  “Thank you.”

  Nico nodded.

  “So what’s the plan?” Max asked.

  “The plan is to negotiate Jason out of the equation, force DeLuca to agree to our terms in order to stay in Vegas.”

  “What if it doesn’t work?” Max asked. “What if stealing the money wasn’t enough to drive a wedge between Jason and DeLuca?”

  Nico didn’t look concerned. “Then we’ll work a new plan, but I don’t think that will be necessary. Jason lost five million dollars. That would trigger a drop in confidence in anyone, and by now word about the missing money has gotten around DeLuca’s crew. It won’t inspire confidence — or respect — from his men. DeLuca is in a significantly weakened position. ”

  “And the theft?”

  “We admit to nothing about the theft. Our strength lies in Fredo not knowing if he can trust Jason,” Nico said. “It will be our word against his.”

  “Who’s attending from our side?” Max was aware of the slip, of the reference to his being on the same side as Nico, part of the same
team. He was glad when Nico ignored it.

  “Myself, Farrell, Luca, you.”

  “No Christophe?”

  “Not necessary,” Nico said. “He’s dealing with a situation in Boston, and I think we’ll be covered.”

  “Anything else I should know? Anything I should bring?”

  Nico stood and tipped his head at the closed drawer with the gun. “Bring that.”

  “Don’t leave home without it these days.”

  “Good.” Nico set his empty glass on the bar and clapped Max on the back. “I’ll see myself out.”

  He headed for the hall, then turned around to face Max. “You were supposed to be our last resort in Vegas.”

  “Gee, I bet you say that to all the girls,” Max joked.

  Nico smiled. “It’s true, and I know you think we were right in our assessment, that ours has been a marriage of convenience, so to speak. But I have a hunch about you, Cartwright. Have had since the beginning.”

  “What kind of hunch?”

  “The kind of hunch that makes me think you’re exactly the man to run this territory.”

  “What about DeLuca?” Max asked.

  “I have a hunch about him, too.”

  “Which is?”

  Nico hesitated. “That he’s not going to be running Vegas for much longer — with or without the Syndicate.” He resumed his path to the door. “Think about it,” he said without turning around.

  Max didn’t have a chance to answer before he was gone.

  Twenty-Six

  Abby took a drink of her wine and lifted her legs onto the couch, stretching them out over Max’s lap with a sigh.

  “Get enough to eat?” Max asked. “Want more salmon? A shark? A whale?”

  She laughed. “You think you’re funny with these food jokes, don’t you?”

  He gave her a rakish grin. “Well, I am kind of funny.”

  “Says you.”

  He started rubbing her feet, a ritual she’d grown used to over the past few weeks. She’d gotten used to a lot of things: sexy texts that made her blush, cooking with Max, the two of them moving easily around the kitchen, the hours they spent on the sofa after dinner, sometimes talking, but more often than not reading or cuddling.

  It would have been easy to forget the uncertainty around them. To forget the fact that everything was finally coming to a head.

  And they couldn’t afford to forget. They weren’t out of the woods yet.

  The meeting tomorrow at the Tangier would define everything — whether she and Max could remain safely in Vegas, whether the town’s criminal enterprise would be run under the auspices of the Syndicate’s rules or whether Fredo DeLuca — and maybe even Jason — would somehow prevail.

  She’d been trying not to think about it ever since Max told her the meeting had been set, but it lurked in the back of her mind like a rapidly approaching storm cloud.

  Her visit with her father earlier that night only added to her feeling of being off-balance. She’d been happy by his change in demeanor, hopeful they might find a civil way forward, but there was no rule book for forgiving your abusive father.

  She was conflicted, full of shame at her desperation to resolve the past, to find a way to love him, to know him without forgiving what he’d done.

  “What’s the matter, beautiful?”

  Max’s words were spoken softly, and she opened her eyes to find him looking at her. “What makes you think something’s the matter?”

  “Your expression changed just then, and your mouth did that thing where it turned down on the one side.”

  It was both annoying and endearing that he knew her so well, but she was nowhere near ready to have this conversation, and now wasn’t the time to have it anyway. She just wanted to enjoy this night with Max, to shut out the rest of the world and all their problems.

  She wouldn’t find answers tonight anyway. Not about her father or the future. Some things just had to play out.

  She closed her eyes. “Why did you stop rubbing?”

  He laughed. “Getting a little demanding, are we?”

  She allowed her body to sink deeper into Max’s couch, her body molding to the gray suede. The pressure of his hands on her feet and the warmth of the room made her limbs feel leaden, her eyelids heavy.

  She let herself drift, floating on the feel of Max’s body under her legs, the smell of eucalyptus and sage drifting into the room through the terrace doors, the smell of candles burning on the coffee table.

  She jerked awake, the couch disappearing below as Max lifted her into his arms. She had no idea how long she’d been dozing.

  She slid her hands around his neck and nestled into his shoulder. “I’m not tired,” she murmured.

  His laughter was a low chuckle that vibrated against her ear. “We don’t have to sleep.”

  The promise in his voice sent a shiver through her body, and she inhaled his scent as he made his way slowly up the stairs, his arms solid around her.

  “I guess I didn’t eat too much after all,” she said. “Otherwise you might not be able to carry me.”

  “I’ll always be able to carry you,” he said.

  His tone was serious, and she knew he meant it. Knew she could count on the fact that she would always be able to lean on him, and that he would carry her over the hard parts when she was too tired to keep going.

  He stopped walking and she opened her eyes to find that they were in the bedroom. The only light shone from the moon outside the terrace doors. It illuminated the sharp planes of his cheeks and jaw, made his eyes look like mercury.

  He set her down on the bed. “Shall I tuck you in?”

  “No.” She raised her arms to him.

  He stripped off his shirt and she watched as the perfection of his body was revealed: the wide shoulders and sculpted chest, the tapered waist and fine trail of hair that disappeared into his jeans.

  He stretched out next to her on the bed and propped himself up on one arm to look down at her. He traced a finger across her forehead, down her temple, along the line of her cheekbone, the only sound in the room the quiet rush of their breathing, coyotes howling outside in the distance.

  It was perfect. She didn’t want to talk. About her father or her pain or Jason or what was coming tomorrow.

  She just wanted Max to do what he’d always been able to do — to take her away, to make her forget.

  She lifted a hand and held it against his face. “I want you inside me, Max.”

  He groaned and lowered his head, closing his mouth over hers, his tongue a hot invading force that swept her breath away as it plundered.

  She slid her fingers into his hair and tightened her grip until he moaned. There was nothing sleepy about their passion, the frenzied kisses as they tried to get closer, and then closer still.

  The warmth of Max’s bare chest seeped through her T-shirt, but it wasn’t enough. She wanted the heat of him on her skin, wanted him to brand her with his warmth and smell and sweat.

  She pulled back from their kiss long enough to lift her own shirt over her head and quickly unhooked her bra. His hands were on her in an instant, briefly covering her breasts before pulling her into his arms.

  “How did I go my whole life without kissing you?” he asked, dropping kisses on her face and working his way back to her lips.

  He dipped into her mouth again, his tongue hot and fevered as she ran her hands over his back and around to his chest. She flattened her palms along the swell of his pecs, the ridges of his stomach. When she reached for the button on his pants, he growled and kneeled on the bed.

  “Let’s get this over with,” he said.

  “What?” she gasped.

  “This.” He reached for the leggings she’d put on before dinner, hooking her underwear in his fingers and pulling everything off at once. Then he stood and quickly stripped off his jeans, his cock springing free, erect and glorious.

  Ready for her.

  “That’s better,” he said, covering her naked
body with his own. He buried his face in her neck, and she gasped when he licked his way up to her ear.

  His need to be skin to skin matched her own. They’d had plenty of slow undressings, would have plenty more. Right now she needed his body to move against hers, needed him to fill her up so there was no room for anything else.

  He tugged on her ear with her teeth, and she opened her legs to him, moaning as his cock brushed against her wet center. She grabbed the tight apples of his ass and squeezed, pushing him into her until his swollen head bumped against her clit.

  She writhed under him, an aching yawn of need opening up inside her at the knowledge of his proximity. Just another inch or two, and he’d be inside her.

  He kissed his way down her neck, stopping at her breasts long enough to nibble and suck at the hard peak of her nipple. She arched her back, pushing the bud farther into his mouth, her legs wide, knees locked against his hips.

  He kissed his way down her belly, forgoing the usual exploration of her body to kneel between her legs and push her knees open even wider.

  “Just fuck me, Max,” she said. “That’s all I want."

  He ran a thumb over her slick folds. “I’m never going to just fuck you, beautiful, don’t you know that? I’m always going to need to taste you, to feel you come against my mouth.”

  She closed her eyes and gave herself over to the sensation she knew was coming. It was delivered a moment later when the heat of his tongue slid through the petals of her sex, all the way from her perineum to her clit.

  She moaned and grabbed the sheets under her hands, bunching them in her fists as he circled her clit with his tongue. Her pussy was throbbing, aching for his cock, the need all-consuming.

  She reached down for his hair and pulled until he groaned, the vibration of it against her clit sending a pulse of pure pleasure to the center of her body.

  He responded by closing his mouth over her clit and sucking until she cried out. Her hips moved of their own accord, locked in the rhythm of his sucking and licking, already reaching for the release gathering in her stomach like the summer thunderstorms that made the ground vibrate and cracked open the sky with fiery bolts of lightning.