King of Sin: Las Vegas Syndicate Book One

by Michelle St. James

  “Everything’s fine,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  He’d probably mistaken one of the business men for Jason, but he was suddenly anxious to leave.

  He told himself it didn’t matter if Jason saw him and Abby together. Max didn’t owe Jason shit, and neither did Abby. Jason would just have to pull up his big-boy pants and deal.

  Max put his arm around Abby, scanning the crowd as they made their way to the door, trying to ignore the feeling that none of it would be that simple.

  Twenty-Five

  Abby closed her computer and leaned back in her desk chair with a sigh. Her phone buzzed and she looked at it to find a text from Max.

  Can I take you to dinner on a school night if I promise to have you back by curfew?

  She laughed out loud. It would have sounded patronizing coming from anyone else, but she knew Max respected her work, knew that he was teasing about their history as teenagers. Not that she’d ever had a curfew. You had to have responsible parents for that.

  Can’t. Homework.

  A new message came through a moment later.

  Are you playing hard to get?

  She smiled as she typed.

  I’ve gotten too easy for that. I actually promised Meredith I’d go to a show with her. She got free tickets.

  She added a bunch of sad emojis in order to be true to their high school role-play.

  She was surprised a moment later when a string of crying emojis came through from his end.

  Still good for Friday?

  She responded without hesitation.

  Always.

  They hadn’t been two days without seeing each other for awhile, but he had some kind of charity poker game tomorrow night. She’d been surprised that she could miss someone so much in so short a time. She’d been self-contained for so long, busy with her own life, comfortable being alone.

  But she did miss him, and she was already looking forward to the weekend, knowing they would spend it together without having to ask. That was one of the best things about their relationship — how naturally everything had progressed, how easy everything seemed.

  She was packing up her things for the night, planning to do some work from home, when a knock sounded at her office door. She looked up to find Jason waving through the glass.

  She gestured for him to come in. “Hey. What’s up?”

  Things had remained tense between them since their conversation the week before. Abby had steered clear as much as possible, hoping time would heal the wound, that eventually they’d be able to get back to normal.

  She wanted to tell him about Max, wanted him to hear it from her, but she knew it was too soon.

  “Nothing good, I’m afraid.”

  She looked up at him in alarm as he stood on the other side of her desk. “What’s wrong?”

  He sighed. “I’m not sure I know how to say this.”

  “Just say it, Jason.” Her heart was beating wildly, dread blooming like a black rose in her chest.

  He set a flash drive down on her desk, then reached inside his jacket and withdrew a piece of paper. “A Russian Rose is a trafficked girl,” he said.

  She shook her head. “What does that mean?”

  “You’ll understand when you see what’s on the flash drive.”

  “I don’t know what you’re saying."

  “This can be a hard town, Abby. A dirty town,” he said. “You know that better than anyone.”

  Her face flamed at the last sentence, shame uncoiling like a forgotten serpent in her stomach.

  “I hope you’ll remember that I care about you, that I’m trying to protect you.”

  She swallowed around her fear. No. Fear wasn’t the right word. She was feverish with terror.

  “You’re scaring me.”

  “I’m sorry, Abby. I’m here if you need me.”

  His expression was sorrowful as he turned for the door.

  She waited for him to close it and watched him work his way past her office before she reached for the flash drive. She stared at it, her hands shaking, then shoved it into her laptop.

  A few seconds later, she was looking at a video image of what looked like a poker game, a table surrounded by five men with chips in front of them.

  One of the men was Max.

  She watched as the dealer passed cards around and the men shuffled chips, some pushing more into the center of the table, others folding their cards.

  Okay, this was no big deal. Max liked to play cards. This was Vegas. Lots of people played cards.

  This can be a hard town, Abby. A dirty town.

  Her gaze fell on the piece of paper Jason had withdrawn from his jacket. She reached across the desk and opened it.

  And then everything made sense.

  Twenty-Six

  Max approached the bar and ordered a drink, then took it to the same place he’d occupied in the living room the week before. The makeup of the room was nearly identical, although Sarkisian was absent, replaced by a man Max didn’t recognize from the dossier.

  The women were all familiar from the week before. They steered clear of him, and he wondered if the blonde, talking and flirting with Alan Brooks, had put out the word that Max wasn’t interested.

  Good. If he’d been uninterested last week, he was even more so after the last week with Abby. He reached for his phone, wanting to check for a text from her, then remembered he’d given it up at the door.

  A thread of worry began to tease his mind. Abby hadn’t answered his texts in the couple of hours before he’d arrived at the game. She was usually quick to get back to him, but he knew she’d planned to catch up on work at home. There would probably be a message from her when he got his phone back.

  He’d told her he was going to poker game — wanting to keep as close to the truth as possible, not wanting to lie to her any more than necessary — but he’d said it was for charity.

  He hated lying to her, even a little. Hated thinking about the moment when he would have to tell her the truth about Jason.

  But telling her the truth now was worse. That put her in danger, made her a potential witness against Jason, and that he couldn’t risk.

  He looked toward the door as Jason walked into the house. Filippovic was at his side, briefcase in hand, and continued up the stairs while Jason scanned the living room. A moment later he was making his way across the room toward Max.

  “Glad to see you back,” Jason said.

  “It was surprisingly enjoyable,” Max said. “And I still have over a hundred cars to unload.”

  “Hopefully you have a better streak tonight,” Jason said. “Otherwise you might not be back.”

  Max laughed and raised his glass, trying to keep his manner easy.

  He’d purposefully lost last week, had thrown hands that cost him chips equating to heroin and coke. He wouldn’t leave with any of that shit on principle, and it was hard to imagine the Syndicate would take it off his hands given their business model.

  But Max could play along, play the rookie who’d lost his shirt.

  Whatever it took to take Jason off the chessboard, and Fredo DeLuca along with him. Even as Max called bullshit on the Syndicate’s idea of themselves as criminal saviors, he already knew Vegas was better with its illegal enterprises in their hands.

  Jason clapped him on the back. “See you upstairs.”

  Max watched him go and nursed his drink until the other men started making their way upstairs. He waited until they were gone to set the glass on the bar and follow their lead.

  He was already tired of this shit. He wanted to be home with Abby, sitting on the sofa, his arms wrapped around her as her body became loose and tired.

  He followed the protocol at the chip room, trying to look a little bored as he took in the details, looking for anything new that might be useful to Nico or the Feds.

  He got in line behind the new guy and tried to listen in as Filippovic spoke to him, but he only caught traces of the same speech Filippovic had given hi
m the week before. New guy listened patiently, picked up his chips, and headed for the hall. Max caught a closer glimpse of him — tall, with short blonde hair — as he walked past.

  “Mr. Cartwright,” Filippovic said as Max stepped up to the table.

  Max nodded.

  “Anything to add or subtract from last week’s inventory?”

  “No,” Max said.

  Filippovic counted out chips totaling the value of the remaining cars. He made a note in the ledger, then he pulled a piece of paper from his briefcase, folded it in half, and placed it inside Max’s chip case before closing it.

  “Good luck.”

  “Thanks.”

  Max picked up the case and headed slowly down the main hall, taking another peek down the short hall that held the boudoirs. This time all the doors were closed.

  By the time he reached the game room, he was already annoyed. He didn’t want to give Jason credit, but this place was locked down like fucking Fort Knox. He was going to have to be ballsy to get anything useful if he didn’t want to be attending these games when he was an old man.

  And he definitely fucking didn’t.

  Music played as he entered the room — Mozart’s Serenade Number 13. Brooks was at the bar, slugging a double and waiting for the bartender to pour him another. Chumack and Kozlov were speaking softly at the other end of the table, and Max wondered if they were associates outside of the game.

  The seat Max had occupied the week before was empty. He took it, wondering if it had been held for him or if it was just chance. The new guy was in the chair next to his, his drink on the table. Max nodded at him before opening up his chip case.

  He was unfolding the piece of paper that had been set on top of the chips, bracing himself to appear blasé about this week’s offerings when a vibration moved through the room. It was so subtle that at first Max thought he was imagining it. Then he heard the clink of ice in the new guy’s glass.

  He looked over at it, the liquid rippling as a low hum started from somewhere outside. And now he knew he wasn’t imagining it. He remembered the sound, one he would never forget: an incoming helicopter.

  Something crashed downstairs. Everyone in the room froze, the shriek of the girls making its way upstairs. Time was both slowing down and speeding up, the way it had when he’d been in firefights in Afghanistan.

  He felt the pull of paralysis, the temptation to remain frozen when being frozen could get you killed.

  The pulse of semiautomatic gunfire shook him from his stupor. He hit the floor along with the other men and covered his head, shrugging off his jacket and reaching for the gun holstered at his side as he low-crawled toward the bar, hoping to use it for cover.

  He was almost there when the door flew open.

  He pointed his weapon toward it and looked for a target, preparing for a round of gunfire to spray the room.

  Instead, a group of black-clad figures streamed toward them in tactical gear.

  “Put your weapons down! On the ground! FBI!”

  Twenty-Seven

  Abby closed her suitcase and looked around the room. It felt empty already, all of the life gone. It was more than the clothes she’d packed, the shoes she’d stuffed into her suitcase. It was the absence of the love that had been slowly filling the room over the last weeks with Max.

  The loss of all that light.

  She hadn’t wanted to believe it at first, but the piece of paper Jason had given her made it impossible to deny.

  Max wasn’t who she thought he was. He wasn’t a hero or a savior.

  He wasn’t even a good man.

  She’d watched the video three times, matching up the underground goods on the sheet of paper with the chips being played by the men at the table. Max had started trading cars, but she’d been able to zoom in on his pile of chips, had been able to see that he was winning heroin and coke.

  It didn’t matter that he hadn’t had any of the gold chips — the ones Jason had made clear represented a trafficked woman.

  Max had been in the game, had been making small talk with the men at the table.

  She didn’t know their names, and there was no audio on the video Jason had given her, but she didn’t need it. Anyone who would trade in those things was a monster.

  Max was a monster.

  How could she have been so wrong?

  I love you, I love you, I love you… I’ve always loved you, Abby.

  She’d believed it then. She still believed it. No one could fake the way he’d looked at her. The way he’d held her.

  That was why it hurt so much. Because he loved her and he was a monster. Because she loved him and would never be able to trust him again. Because despite how far they’d come, despite everything that had happened between them, it was over.

  She picked up her suitcase and carried it down the stairs. When she got to the foyer she set the flash drive and piece of paper Jason had given her on the table in the entry. Then she turned to look back at the little house that had given her so much joy, that had sheltered her when she wasn’t sure how to shelter herself.

  She would miss it, but Meredith had promised to look after it while she was gone. She didn’t know where she was going or how long she would stay away, but she couldn't remain in the city. It had given her too much.

  Had taken too much.

  She didn’t want to hear Max’s excuses, didn’t want to listen to him try to defend himself, to lie to her again. She would remember him as he’d been instead.

  She saw him as a blue-eyed little boy with an unruly shock of dark hair and a lopsided grin.

  She saw him laughing in middle school, covering his mouth with his hand like he was embarrassed to be seen in the throes of humor.

  Then they were teenagers, laying on Max’s bed, Jason off somewhere with Max’s father. Max turned his head to look at her, the cord of the headphones they were sharing streaming from one of his ears, the music cocooning them in a world all their own.

  She’d turned her head to meet his gaze, had matched his smile with one of her own as he’d reached for her hand, nothing between them but the music and the feeling that everything was exactly as it should be.

  That was what she would remember.

  She stepped outside and closed the door behind her, then bent to lift the plant outside her door. She tucked the key under the pot and started for the car.

  That is what she would remember.

  Twenty-Eight

  Max sat alone in the interrogation room, his mind working the problem in front of him. He’d paced the small space at least a thousand times since they’d put him in it and had finally given up, retreating to the metal chair to figure out what the fuck had happened.

  After the Feds had raided the game room, everything had moved surprisingly fast. Max was rounded up with the other players and taken to city jail. At first, they’d all been put in the same cell, but one by one, each of them had been removed, presumably to throw them in individual rooms like this one for questioning.

  In the interim, no one had spoken a word — unless Max counted the curse words that were unleashed in three languages by Chumak and Kozlov before they’d been removed from the cell.

  Max hadn’t seen any sign of Jason or Filippovic. He didn’t know if they were being held separately, or if they’d made it out of the house, but finding out was one of the first things Max would do if he ever got out of there.

  He hadn’t been given a phone call, something that didn’t surprise him given the Patriot Act. They could hold him for days — weeks, months — if they could connect him to potential terrorist activity, and given the goods that were traded during the games, that wasn’t a stretch.

  His work with Nico wasn’t a legal operation, and Nico’s ties to the FBI would necessarily be off-the-record.

  In other words, Max was fucked.

  He thought about Abby, then forced himself to push the thought away for the hundredth time. There was nothing he could do to get word to her. Imagining he
r worried about him, or worse, wondering if he’d disappeared on purpose, was a recipe for madness.

  It was possible the raid had been covered by the news, but he doubted they would have released any names yet, not if they were working the players for information about bigger fish. It meant Abby was totally in the dark, something that made him want to punch one of the gray walls in the tiny room.

  He looked toward the door as it opened. A man he’d never seen before stepped into the room. He didn’t look like a Fed — he looked like a beat cop.

  “Cartwright?”

  Max nodded.

  “Come with me.”

  Max followed him into the hall, wondering if they were moving him to a more secure facility, trying to think of a way he could get a phone call to his lawyer without using Vitale as leverage. He didn’t know who Nico’s sources were inside the FBI, and while he wanted to give the other man a beating for getting him into this mess, he was strangely hesitant to sell him out.

  They made their way down the hall amid the crackle of police radios, the sound of dispatch routing cars to various locations, a ringing phone, a drunk yelling from a cell in the other direction, demanding to be released.

  They emerged at the front of the station. To his right, four cops sat behind a tall counter, a glass window separating them from the lobby.

  The cop stopped at a door and extended his hand to the cop standing on the other side of the counter.

  “Give me Cartwright’s shit, will you?”

  The other cop rifled through something out of sight, then set a plastic bag labeled with Max’s name on the counter. Max wasn’t surprised to see his watch inside — but he was surprised to see his phone. He’d assumed they would keep it as evidence.

  The cop who’d sprung him from the room handed him the bag. “You’re free to go.”

  “Don’t I need to sign anything?”