It could also mean Nico was right, that they actually worked with the FBI on some level.
He sighed and stood, closing the computer and pacing to the window. The courtyard was lit with landscaping lights, the desert black beyond the edges of the property.
If Nico was wrong about Jason and Max got involved, there would be no harm, no foul — except to his pride, which didn’t relish the idea of approaching Jason Draper and pretending everything that had happened hadn’t happened.
On the other hand, if Nico was right and Abby was connected even peripherally to Jason’s illegal enterprise, it meant she was in danger.
And that was something Max couldn’t risk.
He could try talking to her. Telling her what Nico Vitale had told him.
But it wouldn’t seem credible coming from him. There was too much bad blood between him and Jason. Too much history. Too many reasons Max might try to poison Abby’s mind against Jason.
He wanted to believe Abby would give him the benefit of the doubt, but he wouldn’t blame her for questioning his motives. He hadn’t been himself since coming back from Afghanistan, or not the version of himself Abby knew anyway.
He could hire a private investigator to do some digging. He had someone on file — someone he’d hired after the takeover of his father’s company and again after his father’s death. But if Vitale was right, Jason wasn’t likely to let just anyone into the games on Echo Peak Lane.
It didn’t leave him with a lot of options. Not if he wanted to protect Abby.
And he always wanted to protect Abby.
Worst case, he would swallow his pride and discover there was nothing to worry about.
No, that wasn’t right. Worst case, he would swallow his pride and confirm everything Vitale had told him, would confirm that Jason had become a monster — and that Abby might be on the chopping block as collateral damage.
Nine
Abby stretched to reach the corner of the ceiling with her paint brush while Meredith talked behind her.
“So I was like, this is basically sexual harassment right now, you know that, right? When you tell me I have a better shot at Shift Manager if I go to dinner with you, that’s sexual harassment,” Meredith said.
“And what did he say?” Abby asked, dipping the small brush into the cup of ceiling paint in her hand.
“He said he hadn’t asked me for sex — he’d asked me to dinner,” Meredith said.
Abby laughed. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I’m not,” Meredith said. “And you want to know the worst part?”
Abby looked over her shoulder. Meredith was on the floor, touching up the paint on the lower half of the wall. They’d been working on the extra upstairs room all weekend. The day before had been spent steaming the old floral wallpaper and sanding and priming the wall. Now the workweek loomed as they finished up the paint, a soft yellow that made Abby think of early mornings in an old farmhouse, the sun streaming in through the windows.
Not that she knew what that looked like.
“There’s a part worse than that?” she asked Meredith.
Meredith turned to face her. Her legs were splayed out on the tarp they’d used to cover the floor. She looked very young with her chestnut hair in a ponytail. “He actually seemed to believe it.”
“Jesus,” Abby said.
“Yeah.”
She heard the weariness in Meredith’s voice and got down off the step stool. “I’m sorry, Mer. That really sucks. I can’t wait for you to leave that job.”
“Same.”
She and Meredith had gone to community college together and transferred to the accounting program at State at the same time. For awhile, they’d both worked crappy day jobs and crappier night jobs to pay off their student loans, but Abby had caught a break working for Jason.
Meredith hadn’t been so lucky. She still spent four nights a week waitressing at TGIFridays to pay off her loans. Abby had felt guilty accepting her offer to help paint, but Meredith had insisted it was a welcome respite from her usual grind. Abby had tried to make it up to her with pizza and wine, but there was no amount of either that would repay Meredith for the friend she’d been.
“I wish you’d let me give you the money,” Abby said. “You can pay me back without interest so you can get out of that place.”
Meredith shook her head. “We’ve talked about this. Thank you — but no.”
“It’s a standing offer. Let me know if you change your mind.”
She had some money put away. Not a lot, but enough to help a friend like Meredith. Her accounting degree coupled with the poverty of her youth had served to make her cautious with money. She’d saved twenty percent of every paycheck even when it had meant eating ramen five nights a week. The money had grown surprisingly fast thanks to compound interest, although the safety net hadn’t done anything to ease Abby’s financial insecurity. She still lived frugally, finding a perverse kind of pleasure in sticking to her budget.
Meredith stood and took a few steps back to look at the wall she’d been painting. “Can you see anything that needs touching up?”
Abby paced in front of the wall, trying to get a look at it from every angle. “It looks great. I can’t thank you enough. This would have taken me two weekends if I’d done it alone.”
“You could always ask Max,” Meredith teased.
Abby had told her about the weird drinks date with Max when they’d gone out for pizza the night before. Meredith was solidly in the Tell Max You’ve Always Loved Him Camp, even though according to Abby, there was not and never would be a camp with that name.
“Ha-ha,” Abby said.
“I think you’d be surprised by his… enthusiasm for the job.”
Abby rolled her eyes at the suggestive tone in Meredith’s voice. It had been two days since Max walked her to her car outside Herbs & Rye. Two days since he’d tucked the piece of hair behind her ear and touched his lips to her cheek.
Since he’d held her a beat longer then normal.
She’d convinced herself that it had been her imagination despite the fact that Max had texted her more frequently than usual over the weekend. Meredith’s insinuations weren’t good for Abby’s frame of mind. Reality was her touchstone. She’d hadn’t survived her childhood by pretending it hadn’t happened — she’d survived it by reminding herself that it had.
By promising herself that someday she would be in control.
The last thing she needed was to lose control with Max Cartwright.
“Abby…” She and Meredith froze as a voice called up the stairs. “You home?”
“Upstairs, Max!”
Meredith’s mouth was open in excited surprise as Max’s footsteps sounded on the staircase.
“Stop!” Abby hissed at Meredith.
She listened as Max made his way down the hall, his footsteps heavy on the hardwood floors. By the time he appeared in the doorway, she could only hope she’d managed to compose her features into an expression of nonchalance.
“Sorry to barge in. I knocked, but you didn’t answer.” He looked briefly at Meredith. “Hi, Meredith.”
Meredith grinned. “Hi, Max.”
Abby forced herself to breathe, to not notice the way his shoulders strained the “V” of skin visible at his neck, the way his five o’ clock shadow suddenly made her think of morning sex and sheets twisted with lovemaking.
“It’s fine,” she said. “But what are you doing here?”
Max rarely stopped by her house. They met at Herbs & Rye, or occasionally at some other bar or the movie theater. Abby had liked it that way: safe and squarely in the territory of friendship.
She didn’t want to spend time at the house where he brought his women, and bringing him to hers felt dangerous. No one knew more about her than Max, but this was her grown-up domain, the place where she was Abby the woman, not Abby the broken child.
He looked momentarily uncertain, his blue eyes wavering. “Fuck… I should have call
ed. I’m sorry.”
“No, no!” she said. “I didn’t mean that at all. I’m just surprised to see you, that’s all.”
“I was just out for a drive,” he said. “Realized I hadn’t seen the place in a while.”
Meredith yawned and Abby wondered if Max could tell how fake it was.
“I’m beat,” Meredith said. “I’m going to head out so you can give Max the grand tour.”
“You don’t have to leave,” Abby said, suddenly desperate not to be alone with Max.
“I do.” There was a wicked twinkle in Meredith’s eye. “I need to do laundry and stuff before tomorrow.” She leaned in to give Abby a hug. “Text me later.”
“I will.”
“Bye, Max,” Meredith said on her way out of the room.
“Bye.”
Abby smiled at him as Meredith’s footsteps receded down the stairs. A few seconds later the front door slammed shut.
Max’s eyes were on her face, like he was looking for an answer to a question he hadn’t yet asked. “So,” he said, ”you going to show me around or what?”
“Sure,” she said. “Although I’m not sure it looks very different from the first time you saw it.”
She moved nervously past him, wondering if she stunk from her long day of painting, and started down the narrow wooden stairs.
“I can already tell it’s different,” he said. “The last time I was here the place had that old door — the one with the three little windows?”
She laughed, and her body relaxed a little. This was Max. Nothing had changed between them. He was the same friend she’d had since she was a little girl in thrift store dresses.
“I remember it well, although not fondly,” she said. “It was a bitch to replace.”
“I like the new one,” he said. “The glass lets in a lot of light. It suits the house.”
She led him into the kitchen. “Thanks.”
She didn’t speak the truth: that she’d been trying to create a fairy tale for the little girl she’d been. That the front door’s mullioned windows had made her think of a cottage in the woods where the windows were open in summer and where a fire roared in the hearth in winter.
A place where everyone felt safe, especially her.
She reminded him of the old kitchen layout as she showed him the new design, pointing out the buffed soapstone counters and subway tile backsplash, the small commercial range and the pendant lights that had been salvaged from an old schoolhouse in Bakersfield.
It was a little less modern than his house on the outskirts of town, but he seemed genuinely impressed, complimenting her on the flow of the kitchen and the position of the new windows she’d installed. They continued through the living room and back up the stairs, through the bedroom that had become her office and the master bath she’d designed herself, complete with an antique claw-foot tub she’d refurbished herself in the backyard. She told him about the crane she’d had to hire to get it into the second floor, laughing as she remembered the way it swung back and forth over her neighbor’s house, how she’d had to turn her back to avoid the panic attack that had resulted from images of the tub crashing through the neighboring roof.
He was laughing along with her by the time they reached the master bedroom. She looked around, trying to see it through Max’s eyes.
“It’s kind of small, I guess.”
His gaze swept the room, over the new windows, the vintage sketch of a nude woman reclining in a bed. There was the overstuffed chair that she’d gotten on sale, covered in raspberry velvet, and the vintage bureau from the 1940’s, plus a full length Cheval mirror and a dressing screen that softened the corner, even if she didn’t use it for dressing.
“It’s perfect,” he said.
“Do you think?” she asked.
He nodded. “Definitely.”
Silence stretched between them, but it wasn’t the familiar silence she was used to. Not the silence of their childhood, borne of the hours they’d spent on their backs as children, watching the clouds, or listening to music when they’d been teenagers.
This was something different.
He was a couple feet away, looming over the bed, its slender posters nearly touching the ceiling. It felt strangely intimate, although they’d spent hours on Max’s bed when they were kids. Max had even helped her choose the mattress that currently existed under the sheets and comforter she’d chosen for her bedroom. They’d gone to the mattress store together, laughing as they’d tried the different models, being scolded by the sales staff when Max had pulled her to her feet, insisting she test it to see if it would hold up to a good old-fashioned jumping.
None of it had felt strange, not even when they’d laid side by side and pretended to sleep.
Now his scent flooded her body — an undertone of male sweat and the earthy, woodsy scent of his cologne, the clean smell of the laundry soap his maid, Nancy, used to wash his clothes.
When she dared to look at his face, she was surprised to find that he was looking at her, his eyes like the Nevada sky in October.
She was having a hard time catching her breath, the air moving too quickly in and our of her lungs, her chest rising and falling with the effort. She didn’t want him to see it. Didn’t want him to know she was fighting the urge to close her eyes, to breathe him in.
To stop pretending.
“Abby…” His voice was soft and low, a little hoarse.
“Yeah?” She didn’t know why she was whispering. Maybe she was afraid to break the spell.
He stepped slowly toward her, stopping when he was only inches away. His presence was palpable, his body giving off energy like a force field she could almost see.
She was being pulled into his orbit, leaning toward him even as a distant voice screamed at her to stop. She was standing at the top of a cliff, the voice of reason snatched by the hot desert wind, the primal pull of the jump encouraging her to the edge as he leaned toward her.
“I’m not going to regret this, Abby.” His lips were inches from hers. “I’m never going to regret it.”
She looked into his eyes. “Okay.”
He leaned in a little closer, and then his lips were on hers, as warm and gentle as the wind in summer. She closed her eyes, let herself fall as his hand slipped into her hair, his tongue coaxing open her mouth.
A flood of adrenaline and desire roared through her body as her tongue met his, heat radiating outward from her center as he tipped her face to get a better angle, to take their kiss deeper even as he moved slower, like he was drinking from a sacred well.
His mouth was familiar and yet somehow still known to her, like an old house she’d only seen pictures of. She explored it carefully, making her way through the shadows, letting her tongue sweep every hidden corner, molding her lips to his as his hands cupped her face.
The fire radiating from her body was raging in spite of the fact that there was an inch of space between them, every nerve sparking at the same time. She thought she might combust if they got any closer.
When he finally pulled away, they were both breathing fast. He looked down at her, his eyes drinking in her face like he couldn’t believe she was standing in front of him.
He reached up, touched her lower lip with his thumb. “That should have happened a long time ago, Abby.” He let his hand fall, then leaned down to kiss her cheek. “I’ll call you later. And I’ll pick you up at seven on Friday.”
The words shook her out of her stupor. Max never picked her up.
He’d reached the door when she finally managed to get words out of her mouth.
“I can just meet you at Herbs & Rye like always,” she said.
He looked back at her. “That’s not what this is anymore.” He hesitated. “It never was.”
She touched a hand to her lips as he made his way down the hall and out the door.
Ten
Max stepped out of his car outside the Rio Hotel and Casino and took the ticket from the valet on his way through the door
s. The light inside was dim, the ceiling low as he wound his way through the warren of slot machines and gaming tables to the conference rooms.
He’d called Nico Vitale Sunday morning before he’d gone to Abby’s house. It had taken three more days to get the rest of the Syndicate leadership in town, something Max had insisted happen before he formally agreed to work with them.
Nico hadn’t been happy about Max’s demand — Max had the feeling Vitale wasn’t used to making concessions — but to his credit, he’d agreed to make it happen as a gesture of goodwill.
Max hadn’t been entirely surprised when Nico chose the Rio for their meeting. It was off the Strip, a poorer, shabbier sister to Caesar’s and owned by the same company. If Vitale was right about Fredo DeLuca, they were less likely to be noticed meeting here than at any of the top-tier casinos.
He continued down a long hall, passing by a restaurant and a Starbucks on his way into the bowels of the hotel. It was only Wednesday, and he felt like a fucking schoolboy waiting to see his crush. He and Abby had spoken on the phone nearly every night, and Max had been surprised by the intimacy of their conversations, the closeness conjured by her voice in his ear as he lay in his dark bedroom, the lights of the city beyond the golf course.
Their conversations had been long and effortless, moving easily between the content of their days, their childhood memories, the falling away of the barriers between them. She’d only addressed it directly once, her voice soft and sultry over the phone after a three-hour conversation Monday night.
“Max… what if this ruins everything?” she’d asked after a long silence.
He hadn’t even had to think about his reply. “It can’t. Not when it’s making everything right.”
He felt the truth of it in his soul.
He turned down a smaller, less populated hallway and immediately spotted the conference room Nico Vitale had rented. Two tall, broad-shouldered men stood outside the door in suits. Both men looked straight ahead, their arms crossed in front of their bodies like Secret Service agents.
King of Sin: Las Vegas Syndicate Book One Page 6
