Now she was glad she’d done it. The payment wasn’t that much more — definitely affordable with her salary from the Tangier — and she felt new and clean every time she stepped into it.
Like she was a normal person who’d lived a normal life.
Like there weren’t secrets that still kept her up at night.
Those feelings were worth the inevitable and immediate devaluation of a brand new car.
She started the engine and wound her way down the parking garage. Traffic was already heavy on the Strip, tour buses interspersed with taxis advertising strip clubs, tourists lining the walkway in front of the Bellagio, waiting for the fountain show.
She drove without music, relishing the silence, the chance to collect her thoughts as she turned off the Strip and headed for the seedier part of town.
The city changed before her eyes, glamour replaced with cracked sidewalks and aging apartment buildings. She hadn’t wanted to rent the apartment for her father in this part of town, but he’d insisted. It wasn’t an effort to save her money; this was his Las Vegas, not the glamour and glitz of the Strip.
She stopped at the market near his house and filled a cart with bread, eggs, milk, cereal, ramen, precooked rotisserie chicken and premade potato salad (she’d learned the hard way that he wouldn’t cook anything more substantial than soup). Feeling optimistic, she added some salad and a bag of oranges, then paid with her credit card and took everything to the car.
Ten minutes later, she was pulling up outside the peeling stucco exterior of the apartment unit she’d moved him into when he’d gotten evicted from the last place. It was moderately better, although never truly clean unless she cleaned it, which she did on her days off when it got out of hand.
She turned off the car and took a few deep breaths, trying to calm the wild beating of her heart, the anxiety that swelled inside her chest like a balloon. She used to think it would someday pass. That she would get to the point where seeing her father didn’t set off a series of physical sensations that made her want to run, a poisonous concoction of fear and shame and disgust, and yes, toxic love.
Even now.
She’d surrendered to the fact that it wasn’t true. She would never see her father and not think of his drinking binges, the times when he came home angry and violent, or almost as bad, sad and tearful. She would never be able to hug him like a normal woman might hug her father. Would never be within a few feet of him without holding her breath, without remembering the feel of his hands on her small body, his voice guttural in her ear.
You love your daddy, don’t you?
She shook her head and got out of the car. Movement was the answer, the thing that had saved her. Staying busy with her many jobs, her classes, the most she could take at one time without collapsing under the weight, and eventually, her position at the Tangier, a position that required her to work long hours, to bury her head in mathematical equations and account numbers.
All of which left little room for anything else, which was how she liked it.
She removed the groceries from the trunk of her car and started up the walkway, turning left into a narrow hallway barely lit with the weak, blue light of an old fluorescent bulb.
She’d rented a place on the first floor on purpose — not because she didn’t want to haul groceries up the stairs but because she didn’t trust her father to be able to make it up the stairs when he was drunk. It was a full-time job keeping him alive and out of jail. The last thing she needed was a call from the emergency room telling her he’d fallen and broken a leg or cracked his head.
She knocked when she came to his door, even though she had a key. He might answer or he might not. He might be home, or he might not. She’d stopped worrying about the details. She came on Fridays, usually with groceries. She filled his cupboards and fridge, made sure he wasn’t living in squalor, made sure he was alive. He would be either nonplussed by her visit — neither grateful nor angry — or he would be subtly resentful, walking the edge of belligerence.
She told herself it didn’t matter. He was her father, albeit a shitty one who had hurt and damaged her in a myriad of ways. But he’d kept a roof over her head, had avoided having her sent to foster care — which would have been a million times worse — despite some close calls with Child Protective Services.
The door opened a few seconds later. She did a quick inventory, took in the greasy hair, too long, the purple smudge around his eye and cracked lip.
“How’s the other guy?” she asked.
He opened the door without answering and started toward the worn recliner in the tiny living room. The TV was on, blaring a game show that sounded vaguely familiar even though Abby had made a point of not buying a TV when she furnished her living room.
His bathrobe fell open a little when he sat down, revealing boxers and a stained wifebeater. She averted her eyes and continued into the kitchen, unloading the groceries quickly. Being in the apartment was like stepping over the threshold of her childhood, like revisiting every crappy apartment, every terrifying day of her first eighteen years. She always had the sense that it might reclaim her, that if she stayed too long her grown-up life might disappear and she might again be dependent on the lecherous drunk who was her father.
She’d stopped expecting it to change a long time ago.
Opening the fridge, she dragged the trash can over and emptied the rotting food. She left the bottles of cheap vodka alone. It wouldn’t do any good to get rid of it. He’d only find a way to buy more, and then he’d be angry, which made things worse.
Besides, it wasn’t her job to babysit him. She tried to do right by him by taking care of his basic needs. It was the least she could do given the fact that her mother hadn’t even stuck around, but she couldn’t bring herself to go any further.
Not anymore.
“Did you take care of that cut on your lip?” she asked as she crumpled up the grocery bags.
“It’s fine,” he muttered. “I don’t need no babysitter.”
“Okay,” she said, recognizing the confrontational edge in his voice.
“If you want to help you could give me some money,” he said.
“I’m not giving you money,” she said firmly.
She’d tried that in the beginning. It only went to more booze, or worse, into the slot machines. She couldn’t stop him from drinking, but she wouldn’t be party to it.
He muttered something, and she crossed her arms over her chest. “What did you say?”
“I said, you’ve always been a little cunt.”
Her cheeks flamed and she walked past him toward the bathroom. She was an adult. He had no power over her. She repeated it over and over in her head, but tears still stung her eyes as she cleaned up the dirty tissue on the bathroom counter, the used Q-tips.
She washed her hands and turned to leave. He was blocking the door.
“I have to go,” she said. “I have an appointment.”
“I have an appointment,” he mimicked. “So high and mighty now, aren’t you? Think college makes you better than me.”
“Excuse me,” she said, hoping it would nudge him out of the doorway so she could pass.
He leaned in, his hands bracing his weight on the doorframe, blocking the space around his body.
“You know what I see when I look at you?” She held her breath, forcing herself not to shrink away from him as he continued. “I see the same little bitch you’ve always been. Your fancy clothes and big words don’t fool me, and they don’t fool anyone else neither. Here in my house, you’re still my little girl.” She froze as he touched a hand to her face, his fingers rough on her skin. “You’ll always be my little girl.”
His hand drifted down to her neck, then her collarbone. It shook her out of her stupor, and she put her hands on his chest and shoved hard enough to send him stumbling backward.
She rushed into the hall and hurried toward the kitchen. He was still recovering when she spun to face him.
“If you ev
er lay a hand on me again, it will be the last time you see me or my money.”
She grabbed her bag on the way to the door. She didn’t look back, didn’t check to make sure he was okay. She didn’t care, and for once, she couldn’t even muster shame at the knowledge.
She hurried into the hall and raced to her car, clutching her purse like it was a life raft. She peeled out of the parking lot less than a minute later, pulling onto the road too fast, her hands shaking on the wheel.
She waited until she was out of the neighborhood to pull over, parking at the edge of a strip mall parking lot. Then she let the tears come, allowed them to cleanse her of the fear, the sorrow, the memories.
When she’d caught her breath she took a few minutes to freshen her makeup in the driver’s side mirror. She dabbed the roller ball of her perfume onto her neck and wrists, hoping it would exorcise of any remnant of her old life. Then she took a deep breath and started for Herbs & Rye and the part of her week she looked forward to most.
Six
Max slid into the booth at the back of Herbs & Rye and waved over their usual waitress.
She grinned as she approached the table. “Hey there, handsome.”
She was a tall, willowy brunette with collagen-injected lips and perky, silicone-enhanced breasts. To his knowledge, he’d never slept with her, a recollection he hoped was reliable.
“Hey, Amanda. How’s it going?” he asked.
“Can’t complain,” she said. “Although you might make my night better if you stay and buy me a drink after my shift.”
He winked. “The stuff of my every fantasy.”
She lifted a perfectly arched eyebrow. “So?”
“You’d only spoil me for other women,” he said, shaking his head with mock sadness. “You don’t want to do that to me, do you?”
He was almost sorry he had to say no; he had a hunch Amanda would be fun. But while Abby was fully aware of his tomcatting, that didn’t mean he wanted to throw it in her face. He was already modestly embarrassed by his behavior, although only with her. He justified the few times they’d discussed it as another way to make sure he never had a chance to sleep with Abby Sterling.
She was too good for him. She didn’t believe it, but he knew it with every ounce of his being.
Herbs & Rye was their Friday night spot. He didn’t want to complicate it because of a sordid night with their regular waitress.
“Let me know if you change your mind,” Amanda said.
He grinned. “You’ll definitely be the first to know.”
“The usual then?” she asked.
“The usual.”
“Be right back.”
He watched her sashay away, wondering if he was imagining the extra sway in her hips. He’d decided he wasn’t when the door opened at the front of the bar and Abby walked in.
Her gaze found him immediately at their regular table. Her smile lit the candle inside him that was reserved just for her, and he watched as she made her way toward him.
Damn, she’d become a beautiful woman.
Once upon a time, she’d been a scrawny kid with long hair that always needed trimming and clothes from the thrift store that had never fit her quite right. He’d loved her anyway.
Thought she was the sun, moon, and stars anyway.
But now… now she was a statuesque beauty with soft curves and voluptuous thighs and a regal bearing that said she’d been through the shit and survived. No, she’d more than survived — she’d emerged a fucking queen.
He had a feeling she didn’t know it yet, that she didn’t see it, but he saw it every time he looked at her. Knew it was true in his bones.
Had always known it was true.
“Hey.”
She was a little breathless as she slid into the booth. He caught a whiff of her perfume — musky rose and something that reminded him of the jasmine that had grown wild during a brief trip to Pakistan when he’d been in the Army. To his chagrin, his cock hardened. He told himself it was because of his earlier flirtation with Amanda. He would have to pull out his digital black book on his way home and look for someone to ease the pressure building in the lower half of his body.
Somebody who had no connection to Abby.
“Hey,” he said. “Already ordered.”
“Good. I’m famished.”
Amanda returned with their drinks and set them on the table. Her hand lingered on Max’s shoulder as she straightened. “Nachos and calamari will be up in a few.”
Max smiled up at her. “You take such good care of us, Amanda.”
“You have no idea.” She wagged her eyebrows at him and walked away with a smile.
“Gross,” Abby said, reaching for her manhattan.
Max put both hands over his heart as if he were wounded. “Amanda doesn’t think I’m gross.”
“Amanda doesn’t know she’d be just another notch on the old bedpost,” Abby said with a laugh.
Max held up his bourbon and they clinked glasses before drinking.
“Actually, I think Amanda does know. I just don’t think she cares.”
“You’re probably right.” Abby sighed in mock admiration. “I guess you’re just that desirable.”
“Why thank you,” Max said. “I think so.”
Abby shook her head. “So what’s new? Any big wins this week? Big losses? Great meals?”
She wasn’t being snide. It was the kind of question she’d asked a thousand times, the differences in their lives a source of amusement to them both. She didn’t envy him — she knew him too well for that — but she wouldn’t have been happy with his lifestyle even if it had been afforded to her. She was like a wild animal who ran and hunted all day to survive, who was only comfortable resting after it had burrowed into a deep and private cave where no one could reach it.
Where no one could hurt it.
In some ways, Max envied her. She had purpose, was driven by her need to make a better life for herself, to build something new on the ashes of the past and prove she was good enough.
Max was driven by nothing. Wanted nothing. Needed nothing.
And he already knew he wasn’t good enough.
“Won twenty-five at the Aria two nights ago,” Max said.
She smiled. “Nice!”
“Lost forty the next night at the Cosmopolitan.”
She laughed. “Oh, no! I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he said. “It was a few hours of amusement in both cases.”
And hookups with a cocktail waitress from one casino and the forty-five year old wife of a software developer from the other.
He left the words unsaid.
“Here you go.” Amanda set down a plate heaped with nachos dotted with jalapeños — Abby liked her food spicy — and another with golden calamari. “You ordering dinner tonight?”
“Yes, please!” Abby said. She looked at Max. “Unless you don’t have time.”
“I have all the time in the world,” he said.
It was true in the practical sense, but it would have been true for Abby even if he’d had plans. He would move them or change them or just not show up to spend time with her.
“Good,” Abby said. “I”m starving. I’ll have a double cheeseburger with bacon,” she said to Amanda. “And a side of onion rings.”
“Same,” Max said.
“You got it,” Amanda said.
“What about you?” Max asked Abby when Amanda had gone. “How’s the asshole?”
“Still an asshole,” Abby said, raising her glass.
They both knew they were talking about Abby’s father, and Max’s hand tightened involuntarily around his glass.
“Anything I can do?” Max asked.
She shook her head. “It’s fine.”
Max couldn’t count the number of nights he’d laid in bed, entertaining thoughts of killing Abby’s father. It had been a pastime since high school, when he started by imagining the asshole dying in a car accident or becoming the victim of a random mugging.
Then Max’s own father had died in a car crash and he’d stopped thinking about accidents and started thinking about homicide.
He would never do it though. Abby wouldn’t want him to. She was on her own journey with her father, and while Max would have preferred that she pretend the bastard didn’t exist, he knew that for her, it was a lot more complicated than that.
A lot had become complicated over the years. If anyone had told him ten years ago that Jason would take over his father’s company, that Abby would be working for Jason in a casino that hadn’t been part of the Vegas skyline until five years earlier, that he wouldn’t be speaking to Jason, he wouldn’t have believed them.
Thinking of Jason made him remember Nico Vitale. He’d been replaying their conversation in his mind ever since the other man had walked out of his house.
“What’s on your mind?” Abby asked.
Max looked up to find her staring at him, her eyes holding his gaze.
“What do you mean?”
She smiled. “Really?”
He chuckled. There was no hiding from her. She knew him too well.
He leaned back in the booth. “Have you ever seen anything weird at the Tangier?”
She laughed and drained her drink. “I see weird at the Tangier every day. It’s Vegas.”
“That’s not what I mean.’” He considered his words, uncomfortable being anywhere near the subject of Jason after so many years of keeping him off-limits. “I just wondered if you’ve noticed anything strange going on there.”
She sat up a little straighter. Max understood. To say Jason’s name after all this time was to conjure everything that had happened between them. To conjure all the years they’d spent together as the three musketeers.
To conjure the betrayal of Max’s father, his death.
“I’m not sure we should talk about this,” Abby said softly.
“I’m curious,” Max said. “That’s all.”
Abby lifted a hand to Amanda, indicating they needed another round, and turned her empty glass in her hand.
“He’s pretty normal,” Abby said. “But there is something that’s kind of funny.”
King of Sin: Las Vegas Syndicate Book One Page 4
