That she didn’t want any space between them at all.
She let him go anyway. There was a kind of deliciousness in missing him, in their flirtatious texts and the anticipation of his goodnight phone call, his voice deep and sexy in her ear just before she fell asleep.
It wouldn’t last. She could feel the runaway train of their feelings for each other bearing down on her, could feel its inevitability.
She looked up as the elevator beeped, surprised to find the other passengers had already exited and the doors were now open to the lobby of the executive offices. The nervousness in her stomach returned as she smiled at Samantha, the receptionist, on her way into her office.
The break room was empty when she got there to fill her coffee cup. She took it as a good sign; she’d come in a little earlier than usual, wanting to get to Jason before the office got too crowded.
She took her coffee to her office and opened her computer, reviewing the weekend financials. She immediately felt calmer and more in control. Unlike people, numbers always made sense. Making the calculations was soothing, a kind of therapy she supposed some people found in cooking or gardening.
Ten minutes later, she stood, smoothing her skirt as she made her way down the hall to Jason’s office.
She had no doubt that he would be there. He arrived at the office at six a.m. every morning like clockwork, except on the weekends, when his hours were less predictable. Of all the successful people she knew, he was the one who most deserved his success. He’d built his empire without the help of rich parents or high-level connections, through intelligence and the kind of dogged hard work most people weren’t willing to commit to in an era when social media made everything look easy.
As her friend, she loved him. As a businessman, she admired him more than anyone. All off which made what happened between them Friday night almost unbearable.
The area in front of his office was empty and quiet. Rosie was not yet at the office, sternly rejecting or warmly accepting the myriad of requests directed at Jason that had to make their way through her.
She passed Rosie’s desk, spotting Jason through the glass windows as she approached his office. She could only make out the shape of him, his suit a smudge of dark blue behind the frosted glass, but as expected, he was already at work.
She hesitated, then raised her hand to knock.
“Yes?”
She opened the door and poked her head through the crack. “Hey, it’s me. Got a minute?”
He hesitated, then nodded and shut his computer.
She entered the office and shut the door behind her. The conversation was personal, and she didn’t want to embarrass Jason by having Rosie or anyone else overhear when they got to the office.
She took a seat across from Jason’s imposing steel desk. Behind him, a wall of windows looked out over the casino’s pool area and south tower.
“Jason, I…” She sighed and met his gaze. “I’m so sorry about Friday.”
She expected him to brush off the apology. To insist that it wasn’t her fault, that he’d been out of line. Instead, he regarded her with unwavering eyes, his face expressionless.
“Which part?” he asked.
“All of it.” She looked down at her hands. “I love you so much. You’re one of my best friends. I never want to do anything to hurt you.”
“So you’ve changed your mind?”
She looked up, surprised by the question. “Changed my mind?”
“About us,” he said.
She shook her head. “I’m sorry, but no. I just don’t feel that way about you. I know it’s cliche, and it’s not what anyone in this position wants to hear, but it’s true.”
She thought about Max, wondered if maybe now was the time to tell Jason about them, then quickly discarded the idea. She didn’t want Jason to associate Max with this mess.
It had nothing to do with him. It wouldn’t have mattered if things had stayed the same between her and Max. She didn’t have those kinds of feelings for Jason. She never had.
“Maybe you just need to give it a chance,” he said. “As you’ve said, we’ve been friends for a long time.”
He wasn’t begging. In fact, his voice was strangely cold, like he was negotiating a challenging business deal.
She’d gone into the meeting without any expectations, and yet even in her wildest imagination, she wouldn’t have expected this strange interaction occurring between them.
She would have to be more clear, leave no room for misunderstanding.
“That’s not it, Jason. I’m sorry. We’ll only ever be friends. It’s important that you understand that.”
“Is there someone else?” he asked.
“That’s none of your business.” It came out more sharply than she’d intended, and she drew in a calming breath. “This has nothing to do with anyone else. This is about you and me.”
“And you’re saying there is no you and me,” he said. “That there never will be.”
“Yes, not romantically, although I hope we’ll always be close.”
“I understand.” He stood, his signal that their meeting was over. “Thank you for clarifying, Abby.”
She nodded and rose to her feet. “Thanks for taking the time to talk to me. I know how busy you are.”
She headed for the door, turning to face him when she reached it. “I want you to know that I think you’re amazing, Jason. What you’ve done, what you’ve accomplished… I know the sacrifices you’ve made. I know how hard you’ve worked. You deserve this. You deserve everything.”
A bitter smile touched his lips. “Except you.”
She swallowed around the emotion that clogged her throat. “I’m sorry.”
She hurried out into the hall, past Rosie, who was stowing her purse in the bottom drawer of her desk as she prepared for the day ahead.
“Good morning, Miss Sterling,” she called as Abby sped past her desk.
“Good morning, Rosie.”
She didn’t turn around, just got to her office as quickly as possible and shut the door. She turned to lean against the wooden slab, trying to catch her breath.
She didn’t know what to call the way she was feeling. She was breathing fast, her body in a mode she knew all too well.
Flight.
She looked down at her shaking hands and tried to convince herself that she hadn’t been scared, that for a split second she hadn’t been aware of the empty office, the possibility that she didn’t know everything about Jason after all.
Eighteen
Max pulled up to the gate at Echo Peak Lane and handed over his passport to the man who had extended his hand toward Max’s open window. He studied the document under a flashlight, then used an ultraviolet wand to check its authenticity as another man worked his way around Max’s car with a Doberman on a leash.
The guard opened the iPad that had been tucked under his arm, typed something into it, and handed the passport back to Max.
“Key code,” he said.
“GRS568JR907,” Max said.
He’d memorized the code in accordance with the instructions sent to him through a series of links that had arrived in his inbox three days after his meeting with Jason. It had been a digital rabbit hole, the first link taking him to an e-commerce site advertising dietary supplements. After clicking on a particular product, he’d been taken to two other sites that had led to an encrypted email address that had been set up on his behalf.
There had been only one message, providing the date and address for the game, and instructions for the identification, betting, and delivery protocols. Max had attempted to pass the information along to Nico for processing through the Syndicate’s cyber lab, but apparently the link was a one-time pass. The second time Max tried to access the portal, only the nutritional supplement site worked. He’d repeated his actions from the first time but never advanced to the other sites.
The guard finished typing in Max’s key code, then waved him through the gate. Another car was
already in line behind him.
The house wasn’t visible from the gate, and Max started up a long drive that wound around several curves dotted with palm trees. He ran through everything Nico had said during their meeting the day before, plus the details in the dossier Nico had given him listing likely attendees of the game.
There was no way of knowing who would be at this particular game, but the Syndicate had been watching the house on Echo Peak Lane for quite some time. They had a surprising amount of information given the fact that they’d never been inside.
Now they just needed proof.
Nico had provided him with the VIN numbers of forty-five high-value stolen cars in order to make good on his claim to Jason. Max didn’t know where the cars came from, and he didn’t want to know. He could only assume stolen cars were a dime a dozen for the Syndicate, and while he wasn’t exactly thrilled by the possibility of betting them against more nauseating items, he would do it for Abby and anyone else affected by the twisted game.
Nico had warned him it might take more than one game to get enough evidence to justify a search warrant, but Max was aiming high in an effort to finish the whole nightmare up as quickly as possible.
If George Filippovic was there, the briefcase Abby mentioned was a good place to start. Getting into it might be difficult, but Max would do his best to get eyes on whatever was inside.
He didn’t have a backup plan. They didn’t know enough about what went down inside the house to know their options. According to Nico, a wire was out of the question — guests were swept for listening devices and phones were handed over at the door.
Weapons, on the other hand, were allowed, something that didn’t make Max feel any better about the situation, even as he’d strapped on his own weapon before leaving the house. The last fucking thing he wanted was to die in an illegal poker game when things were finally going right in his life.
And they were going right. Last Thursday at this time, he’d been counting the minutes until his first official date with Abby. He’d been taking it slow since then, texting her throughout the day, taking her out to lunch and dinner, cooking for her at his house and at hers, leaving her each night with a not-quite-chaste kiss at her doorstep.
It wasn’t easy. He wanted nothing more than to have her naked and in his bed again, screaming his name while he drove into her. While he ran his tongue over every inch of her body, while he showed her she had nothing to fear from him.
Would have nothing to fear ever again.
But he loved her. Loved her with a totality that took his breath away when he allowed himself to really feel it. Taking it slow, letting her set the pace, was nothing compared to what she gave him every time she smiled or laughed, every time she leaned her head on his shoulder or looked into his eyes.
He reluctantly let go of the thought of her as he pulled up in front of a house that was something between Jason Draper’s modern structure and the Prairie-stye homes made famous by Frank Lloyd Wright. It was beautiful, but not overly imposing for the area, something that Max had a feeling was intentional.
Rich enough to buy credibility, not so rich to draw undue attention.
Not for the first time, he wondered if Jason owned the house. Nico told him it was carefully shielded by several opaque shell companies, its true owner a mystery. Had Jason bought the house for this purpose? Or was there someone else — someone even more powerful — behind the games?
He pulled up to a suited valet in the courtyard and stepped out of the car.
“Sir.” The man nodded at him but didn’t offer a ticket. Presumably the crowd would be small enough for the valets to keep everyone straight.
Max headed up the wide stone steps to the front door. When he got there, a suited man six inches taller than Max tipped his head. Beyond him, a handful of people milled around the house, visible in glimpses through its many windows. Club music blared, giving the place a party atmosphere Max hadn’t expected.
“Welcome, Mr. Cartwright.”
“Thank you,” Max said.
He tried not to wonder how the man knew his name, if Jason had distributed the same kind of dossier Nico had given Max to the men working the game. Max didn’t like the idea of these people knowing too much about him — especially when it came to Abby.
The man held out a red velvet bag with a drawstring. “Phone.”
Max dropped his phone into the bag and the man removed a wand from his jacket.
“Mr. Draper has asked us to make you comfortable, but I’m afraid we’ll still need to perform countermeasures.”
“Of course.”
Max lifted his arms, grateful for Vitale’s recon on the games. So far, so good.
The man was surprisingly thorough, carefully running the wand over Max’s body, then tucking it back inside his jacket to pat Max down. He looked in Max’s ears. He even ordered Max to open his mouth, as if a listening device might be tucked into his teeth.
When the man was done, he stepped back. “Have a nice evening, Mr. Cartwright.”
“Thank you.”
Max advanced into the house. He made a point not to look around, calling on his many years as a gambler to act appropriately. When money was burning a hole in your pocket, you didn’t give two shits about anything but the game, the possibility of a hot number sitting on your lap, and the flow of alcohol.
He could already see the room was crowded with women — at least two for every man there. He wasn’t interested in them anymore. He only wanted to get this done and get back to Abby.
The alcohol on the other hand…
He headed for the bar set up against one wall.
He ordered a double bourbon and walked to the edge of the room, forcing an expression of nonchalance as he scanned the room. It’s what he would have done if he were here just for the game — scope out his opponents, get the lay of the land.
Some of the men in the dossier Nico had given him were already present.
On the sofa, Aram Sarkisian, an Armenian who dealt mostly in illegal weapons, flirting with a willowy blonde in a scrappy red dress on the sofa.
Vasyl Chumak and Yuri Kozlov stood near one of the floor to ceiling windows, speaking in tones too low for Max to hear over the music. Chumak’s specialty was heroin. Kozlov moved between counterfeit identification and stolen credit card information.
Alan Brooks had stepped up to the bar, a woman on either arm as he ordered a bottle of Veuve Clicquot.
Max had been surprised to see Brooks’s name in the dossier. A tech billionaire even younger than Jason, Brooks had made his money selling an app to Google four years earlier. He had a boyish grin and a smooth face. Max couldn’t help wondering what he had to trade — and what he wanted to buy.
The atmosphere was lush and expensive, a hedonistic man cave. It might have been any VIP game in any suite in any casino in the city. Max had been to more than his share, although none trading illegal goods. He wondered how long it had been going on, what else he didn’t know abut the city he thought he’d known so well.
There were three men in the room he didn’t recognize from the dossier and a handful who’d been in the dossier but weren’t present. It made sense — a game like this one wouldn’t be attended by the same people every week. It would be dependent on who was in town, who had goods to trade.
He looked over as a hand slid up his shoulder and discovered a tall blonde standing next to him. She was beautiful, with wholesome, symmetrical features. She was wearing a tasteful black dress that did just enough to show off her ample breasts and long legs.
He took her hand and removed it from his shoulder. “Not tonight. But thank you.”
Surprise lit her eyes. “Not looking for company?”
“No.” He turned his head toward the room, hoping she would disappear.
“What are you looking for?” she asked, seduction and curiosity mingling in her voice.
I’m looking for proof so I can get the fuck out of this place and get home to Abby.
> “Nothing you can help me with.”
“Have a nice evening then.”
He watched as she approached Chumak and Kozlov still talking by the window. He wondered how much the girls were paid, how far they were expected to go, if anyone ever got hurt.
It wouldn’t have surprised him. According to the dossier, the men gathered in the room were violent criminals, most with arrests for assault against women. He’d never been able to figure out what special set of circumstances had to occur to make a man hurt a woman, but just thinking about it made him want to torch the place.
The woman who’d talked to him was probably from a small town in Iowa or Kansas. Undoubtedly, she hadn’t come to Vegas looking to be an escort or prostitute, not that shutting down the game meant that she’d go home or switch vocations.
He didn’t judge. The deck was stacked against some people just like it had been stacked for him. Everyone had to make a living.
He looked toward the front door as it opened and watched as Jason entered with George Filippovic, briefcase in hand. Max felt sick when they entered the house without being swept with countermeasures.
Nico Vitale had been right: this was Jason’s show. He was calling the shots.
Filippovic had been in the Syndicate dossier, too. Reading his background, Max had had to resist the urge to get in his car and drive to the Tangier, yank Jason out of the place and beat him to a pulp, leave him in the desert for the coyotes.
It wouldn’t have been enough of a punishment for exposing Abby to a monster like Filippovic. The man was a Romanian criminal with a rap sheet a mile long and arrests in a dozen countries, plus one extended incarceration for murder in Ukraine.
Jason scanned the room, his gaze stopping on Max. He said something to Filippovic, who started up the stairs as Jason made his way across the room.
Max’s rage simmered as Jason greeted the other guests, his manner like that of a benevolent king. He was clearly well-known among the crowd in the room, something that did nothing to ease Max’s mind.
King of Sin: Las Vegas Syndicate Book One Page 12
