Into the Shadows

by Carolyn Crane

  Dax had always believed there was one, that Victor ran his networks with a central interactive spreadsheet that governed all four areas of business. Thorne had searched Victor’s mansion top to bottom for it. Nothing.

  But what if it existed? The spreadsheet would hold the clues to the pirates.

  “What?” Jerrod demanded.

  “If there is a such a file, I could use it to identify the pirates. I could look at the players in Victor’s old silos and run financials and connections. All of Victor’s old operations would become transparent. And if nothing else, we’d be able to anticipate the next hit.”

  “Where’s the file?”

  Dax had always insisted it was hidden in that mansion. Had Thorne missed it? Thorne narrowed his eyes. “I’ll look for it. But I run the search.”

  “You think it’s in Victor’s old place?” Jerrod’s tone was skeptical.

  Thorne lifted his gaze to his boss, his enemy. “I run the search.”

  Jerrod stuck his tongue in his cheek and studied Thorne.

  Everyone waited. Just a hair more evidence, and Jerrod would use it as an excuse to kill him. Thorne had to nab the co-op pirates fast.

  “Twenty-four hours,” Jerrod said.

  Thorne raised his eyebrows.

  “What?”

  “Forty-eight,” Thorne said.

  “Fine. But I’ll tell you, Hangman searched that mansion.”

  Thorne wasn’t surprised—everybody had searched that mansion. “It’s got to be there.”

  Jerrod grunted his dissent. “We turned the place inside out.”

  Thorne experienced a pang of sympathy for what Nadia and Kara had gone through while their father’s empire burned. No matter what kind of users Victor’s daughters were, they hadn’t deserved to come home to find their father’s body riddled with bullets and thugs overrunning their home. Thorne had gotten them out and instructed them to lay low at an out-of-town hotel.

  They hadn’t done a very good job with the laying-low part.

  It had taken Thorne less than two minutes on the phone to social engineer the Altenvale Hilton desk clerk into revealing the sisters were guests, what names they were using, and their room number. He’d gone over there himself and threatened to gut each and every one of the clerks if the sisters’ information was ever revealed again.

  Even then, he lovehated Nadia like fucking crazy. She’d used him as a fuck toy, and he lovehated her.

  “I turned the mansion inside out, too,” Thorne said. “But I never took it apart.”

  Jerrod grunted. “Party Princess and Swiss Miss probably sold it by now.”

  “Nah, I hear they’re still in there,” one of the lower soldiers said.

  Thorne did his best not to give the soldier a hard, hard look. He reminded himself that Nadia, aka Party Princess, along with pretty blonde Kara, had been larger than life in the day. People didn’t forget women like that, even if they weren’t on the circuit anymore. Party Princess and Swiss Miss had been legendary.

  He sure the hell hadn’t forgotten. Just thinking about seeing Nadia again stoked him up with so much emotion that he could barely see straight. “Skooge,” he said. “You’ve done carpentry, right?”

  The big man nodded. “Hack, too. Hack was in the trades.”

  Thorne eyed Hack. Hack was a cyber guy, too. They could grab the disk and run things down right from the fortress of a mansion.

  “Drywall. Demo,” Hack said.

  “That works,” Thorne said. “You, me, and Skooge. We do the search. This mansion, it’s a custom job. We could be looking at custom hiding places…the baseboards, the walls. We’re searching with hardware. Know what I’m saying?”

  Hack grinned. “I’m sensing drills in my future.”

  Skooge squinted. He’d recently shaved his head, and the shaved part was sunburned pink. Skooge wasn’t very smart, but he was brave and loyal. Not the best combination, really.

  “We’ll hit a hardware store,” Hack said.

  Skooge and Hack left for tools.

  Thorne didn’t entirely trust Skooge—Skooge was Miguel’s guy. Of all the men in Hangman to emulate and form an alliance with, Skooge chose to fashion himself after Jerrod’s killing claw. Bringing Skooge was like bringing one of the enemy with him. But Skooge would see that the search was genuine, and report that fact to Miguel and Jerrod.

  Jerrod grinned. “Taking it down to the studs?”

  Thorne shrugged. He supposed there was a dirty joke in there, but he ignored it. And yeah, they’d be ripping the place apart, and then they’d damn well put it back together again. Jerrod didn’t have to know that part.

  Thorne grabbed his coat and eyed Jerrod. “The co-op pirates are going down.”

  Jerrod’s blank gaze sent chills down Thorne’s spine. Jerrod had something up his sleeve; Thorne could sense it.

  Thorne had to unmask the pirates fast.

  The clue would be in the spreadsheet file—if it existed. If he could find it. Hack could run down the Quartet players and see whose movements and bank accounts matched up.

  Thorne buttoned up his coat and swigged the last of his beer.

  Seeing Nadia and searching Victor’s old mansion was the last thing Thorne wanted to do. And now it was the only thing.

  Two years. He thought she was out of his system, but even now he could feel himself turning back into the lovehating brute she liked him to be. His lovehate made a wound in him.

  His lovehate for her was a prison and a heaven.

  Chapter Three

  Thorne led Hack and Skooge around to the service alley, passing a weedy area full of crushed soda cans and crumpled paper bags. He shoved at the stuff with his foot. Weeks old, maybe. Had somebody been staking the place out? His P.I., or somebody else?

  Two years back, when things had calmed down, he’d spent a lot of time parked up on the street with occasional sweeps of this alley, just to make sure nobody was watching the house, and that the right sort of people were going in and out. Eventually, it got too painful seeing Nadia every day like that, so he hired a P.I. to do it. He instructed the guy to report to him only if it looked like she was in danger. Maybe it was selfish, not wanting to hear about her rebuilding her life.

  They got to the spot in the wall with the compromised stones. He’d used instant cement to fix them back when he was monitoring the place himself. A few whacks with the hammer loosened the stones. He pulled them out to create footholds, like a motherfucking red carpet over the wall and right onto the grounds.

  He scrambled over, followed by Skooge and Hack. They’d take the house and bring in the truck. It wasn’t like Nadia and her sister would open the driveway gate for them.

  “Rear entry,” Skooge said, jumping down onto the grass between two clumps of palm trees. “Sounds about right for these two.”

  Thorne shoved him up against the inside wall before he could even think. “You do not disrespect them.” Thorne’s fingers tightened over Skooge’s neck. He wanted to hurt him. He was hurting him.

  “Okay,” Skooge rasped.

  Thorne needed to stand down, but he was too full of rage. His brain wasn’t connecting to his fingers.

  “Okay!” Skooge said.

  We need emotional content, not anger—that’s what Bruce Lee always used to say. He let Skooge down, heart pounding. “Okay,” Thorne said softly, fixing Skooge’s collar. Stupid.

  “He knew them, idiot,” Hack said. “Thorne came up here, yo.”

  Hack had brown hair with lots of product, hipster glasses, and a dubious moral core, but he sometimes seemed almost loyal to Thorne. Dax always told him to expect and cultivate loyalty, but Thorne didn’t trust loyalty. How did a man trust that?

  “That’s right,” Thorne said, looking around. “If anybody’s going to disrespect those women, it’ll be me, got it?” He dragged his foot over the grass, which was longer than it used to be. Some of it had gone to seed. Weeds had invaded the mulch circles that ringed the palm tree bases.

&nb
sp; Ferocious barking sounded. Thorne turned to see a huge, black pit bull barreling toward them like a comet.

  Skooge and Hack raised their weapons.

  “Stand down!” Thorne growled, dropping to his knees. He and Rufus had formed an understanding some time ago. He hoped it still held. He wasn’t entirely sure it would.

  “Jesus,” Skooge said. He and Hack backed up as the dog picked up speed, snarling like a hellhound.

  With a final leap, Rufus bashed into Thorne, knocking him down and licking his face.

  Rufus remembered. They were very much alike, when you got right down to it. Both were cast as villains; both were very good at their roles.

  Thorne stood and looped an arm around Skooge. “Put out your hand. Let him smell it.”

  Skooge put out his hand to Rufus, who growled. Even Thorne could feel Skooge’s fear. Sweat shone all over the kid’s pink, smooth-shaven head. His eyes were dark and small, like onyx marbles in dough.

  Thorne clapped a hand to Skooge’s heart to show Rufus that they were together. “Steady. Don’t look him in the eye. He doesn’t want to hurt you, but he will.” Another thing he and Rufus had in common.

  He introduced Rufus to Hack after that.

  “Rufus!” Thorne pointed at a squirrel at the opposite end of the yard, and Rufus was off like a cannonball.

  “Okay.” They headed across the lawn toward the late Victor Volkov’s huge modern home, built in the style of Frank Lloyd Wright, as Victor would often say. He liked to point out the intersecting planes. The man loved his intersecting planes. “We’re going up the stairs and up onto the deck.” The wily Russian would sometimes hold strategy sessions out there. The heart of the home was accessed from the deck.

  “Why keep this place?” Skooge asked. “What do the sisters need with a fortress now?”

  “Maybe they like it,” Thorne said.

  “I heard they have a live-in manicure team,” Hack said.

  Thorne had heard the same thing, but he didn’t buy it. Nadia had become downright reclusive after her father was killed, or at least she stayed away from the party circuit, and she certainly wasn’t playing hostess anymore. She would have no use for a team of manicurists. Her half-sister Kara went out now and then, but nothing like before

  “Stealth,” he said, leading them up the notoriously creaky porch steps. They didn’t make a sound; they knew how to do steps, these two. For all the chaos, Hangman guys were highly trained.

  He could feel her nearness now in the same way he could feel the nearness of dusk or danger or the ocean—a whole-body feeling that made his heart pound faster, intensified by the familiar smell of the Russian olive tree. He stopped in front of the plate glass window. Skooge and Hack stood on either side of him. He could feel their unrest; they didn’t like to be out in the open that way, but they’d been trained to follow his lead.

  They didn’t understand that Thorne wasn’t really there.

  Thorne was thinking about two years ago, stretched out on the white fuzzy rug in front of the grand fireplace with Nadia, his hand moving over her hip in the firelight, his eyes on hers. Three blissful months they spent together. She was the messed-up Party Princess, and he was the lowlife loser.

  He flashed on all the stupid things he’d done during that time. Like going to movies alone to figure out how men were supposed to act with women they loved. What shit they would say and do. Because what the fuck did he know about couples? He’d even read one of the Hunter S. Thompson books she so loved.

  Thorne leveled his Sig at the rug, aiming clear through the plane of glass at the place where they’d fucked. Where he’d felt like somebody good.

  Hack spoke up. “What the fuck…”

  Thorne pulled the trigger. The guys shielded their faces as the glass came down in a rain of shards. Thorne hadn’t intended to enter that way; it’s what he’d needed to do in the moment. He was surprised that his emotions were so close to the surface.

  “So much for stealth.” Skooge pulled out his extra piece, ready to go two-handed.

  Thorne simply walked in through the garage-door-sized opening. “Honey, I’m home!”

  It was a prayer and a wish and a threat.

  A massive man came out in full leathers, weapon drawn, rocker hair curling down to his shoulders. Richard Barbero. A lot of people called him Barbarian because of his last name and his hair.

  Richard’s face fell when he realized it was Thorne aiming at his forehead. Nobody played chicken with Thorne.

  Richard lowered his weapon. “What the fuck?”

  Richard had been one of Victor’s human watchdogs in the day, and a tough motherfucker. He’d been an enforcer for one of the Vegas mobs—Victor had bought him away at great expense to head up his daughters’ bodyguard detail. Richard Barbero as a bodyguard. Like killing a mosquito with a hammer.

  What the hell was Richard still doing here two years later?

  “Hangman’s searching the house,” Thorne said simply.

  “What? For what?” Richard asked.

  “A file.”

  “Of Victor’s?”

  “Yup.”

  “Everything walked out of here when shit got diced,” Richard said. “You know that. What the hell?”

  “We’re here to search for it again,” Thorne said. “We can do it carefully and with your cooperation, or the whole gang can come over for a sledgehammer fest. Up to you and the Party Princess.”

  He felt her before he saw her—she was a painful brightness in his chest. She was his heart banging in his ears.

  He turned to see her strolling in from the kitchen side. She was yards away, but she was in him already.

  Nadia.

  She’d ditched the bling and the big hair—he was startled at how different she looked—but she was still the most beautiful woman in the world to him. In fact, she was more beautiful plain and raw, as if all that crap had hidden her essence. Here was Nadia straight up. Brown hair cut simply to her shoulders. Wide cheekbones and brown eyes shining, 100 percent panther in yoga pants and a sweatshirt.

  Her lips parted in a sneer, and he caught sight of that gap between her front teeth that he so loved—Old Victor had never seen the need for braces for his girl. She’d always gotten seconds on everything in that family.

  “Get out,” she said, smooth and low. Her voice was like a tuning fork, vibrating him to attention. “Nobody’s searching shit.”

  “This doesn’t have to go badly,” Thorne said.

  By way of answer, she turned her gaze to the destroyed plate glass window. Somebody less cool than Nadia would say, It’s already gone badly. But not Nadia. A look was enough. “There’s nothing of his left here.”

  “Hangman’s going through again,” Thorne said.

  Hack spoke up. “Something on old-school media. Probably a CD.”

  “Nothing of his is here anymore,” she said again.

  Thorne lowered his gun. “We might not be the only ones in the Quartet who’ll come looking for it.” It was possible the other gangs would come looking for clues. Surely everybody didn’t think it was him?

  “In that case, let’s see…” She screwed up her big, bold lips in mock contemplation. “Hmm.” Nadia never did anything halfway; her expressions were always vivid. “Nope, answer’s still fuck off.”

  “Sorry, Princess,” he said.

  She glowered, and there it was, that little crease above her lip, just below her nose. That little crease would always disappear before you could touch it or kiss it, like it was hers alone. “There is nothing here for you.” She took a step nearer. His gut clenched as he caught the scent of her rose oil soap. “Get out,” she said.

  Thorne gazed into her eyes. Slowly he lifted the gun and pointed it over his shoulder. He could aim over his shoulder, and so could she. Going to the range had been one of their activities.

  “Don’t.” Her eyes flared. “Thorne, you can’t!”

  He pulled the trigger. Glass exploded like crystal rain.

&nb
sp; “No!” She grabbed his arm. “No more—I’m serious!”

  “That’s enough,” Richard warned Thorne, in a voice that meant business.

  Thorne was more interested in Nadia. Since when did Party Princess care about a window? The fact that she might be losing her edge both troubled and fascinated him.

  That’s when the crying started. A loud wail.

  He stiffened. A kid?

  Nadia’s gaze could cut gems. “You psycho! You better not have hurt his ears.”

  “Whose kid is that?”

  “What are you, the US Census Bureau?”

  A woman’s voice. “Everyone okay?” Kara.

  “We’re fine,” Nadia called. “Maybe go do blocks, huh?”

  A kid. Was it Kara’s kid? The P.I. hadn’t told him about Richard Barbarian being onsite. Or a kid. Of course, those things didn’t exactly signal danger.

  He looked over at Richard. He realized then that Nadia and Richard were some sort of unit. You could always tell when people worked as a unit—not by how they interacted, but by how they didn’t interact. When you were in absolute accord with a fellow fighter, you never even had to look at him. Like fighting back-to-back, and you just knew where he was—physically, mentally, and emotionally. Richard and Nadia knew where each other were. They weren’t fighting back-to-back physically, but they were fighting back-to-back mentally and emotionally.

  “Help us find the CD and we’ll be out of your hair,” Hack said.

  Thorne studied Nadia’s face as the wails grew louder. She stayed perfectly impassive. Or was she faking it? Nadia knew how to do that, but surely if it was her baby, she’d go to it, and she wouldn’t give a fuck about him or her window. Therefore it couldn’t be her kid. The relief he felt at that thought filled him with shame. What did he care if she’d taken up with Barbarian? If she’d had his baby?

  The wailing grew louder. He watched her, expecting her to do an old Nadia thing.

  The old Nadia would make some inappropriately humorous face. Or catch his eye and smile in a way that said, we really shouldn’t laugh at how tragic that baby sounds. Or she’d make a calm, yet snarky, comment. Where’s the fire? Something like that.