by HELEN HARDT
But damn, she was hot. Rock had given her the brush-off, so she’d been ripe for the picking.
What the hell did she want? Then again, what did it matter?
I could use a good fuck.
Sure. I’m staying at Wolfe Premiere. Meet me in the bar in a half hour.
You got it, hot stuff.
How did she know I was here? Maybe I could also get some information out of her. She and her sister, Leta, seemed to be involved in this mystery somehow, but how? And why? They had no connection to my father.
Not that we knew of, anyway.
The limo dropped me back at the hotel. I checked my phone for the time. I had fifteen minutes before Nieves showed up in the bar. Time for a few games of blackjack. I was a whiz at the game.
The high-stakes tables called to me. I found a spot and laid a thousand dollars on the table for some chips. Then I laid all the chips out for the next deal.
The rush of gambling had been my downfall when I was younger, until my father taught me how to control the urge. He taught me never to leave too much to chance and to stay in control of every situation. If the table wasn’t cooperating, leave.
Lose two games in a row, get up and walk away, was his motto.
It hadn’t failed me yet. Sure, I lost sometimes, but more often than not, I left richer than I started.
Funny. My father was an asshole extraordinaire, but he taught me the ins and outs of business and pleasure.
I was fucking lucky he hadn’t drawn me into his hunting games. Had that been his plan?
I’d never know, thank God.
What would I have done?
Didn’t matter. I washed the thought away as the dealer dealt me a jack and then an ace.
Fucking blackjack!
I gathered my two and a half thousand dollars’ worth of chips, tipped the dealer a couple hundred, and then cashed out.
After a drink and quick fuck with Nieves, I’d be back at this table.
I didn’t need more than four hours of sleep a night. Another weird trait I’d inherited from Derek Wolfe. He’d slept even less, and his brain was always at a hundred and ten percent.
Fuck. I’d always known he was a master of manipulation, but even I never imagined everything he was capable of.
Nieves was sitting at the bar, dressed in a green mini dress and black stilettos. Her long, dark hair and fair skin were an intoxicating combination, as was the tat on her shoulder. A scarlet rose and a skull. Like light meeting dark. I loved my sister-in-law, and she was certainly beautiful in a white picket fence kind of way. Nieves, though? Hot. As. Fuck.
“I took the liberty of ordering you a Macallan,” Nieves said in her smoky voice. “Neat, with a touch of water to release the bouquet.”
Macallan. My favorite Scotch, and what I’d drunk the last time we were together. She remembered my order in its entirety. Since then, I’d grown accustomed to Pappy Van Winkle’s fifteen-year bourbon, but Nieves had no way of knowing that.
I smiled. “On my tab, of course.”
She laughed. “Of course.”
I took a sip of the scotch. Smooth and peaty. Nice. Again, it was Derek Wolfe who taught me that just a touch of water released the fragrances and flavors tenfold.
Damn.
I owed so much to that man. That man I hated to the marrow in my bones.
“How did you know I was here?” I asked Nieves.
“A little bird told me.”
Another sip of scotch. “Oh?”
She batted her eyes. Yes, she seriously did. I wasn’t going to get an answer out of her, and I didn’t care, anyway. She had information I needed, and if I could get laid in the process? Even better.
“Did you know Rock is still here?” I asked her.
“He’s an old married man now,” she said.
“True.”
“What’s he see in that uptight attorney?” she asked.
He sees someone who isn’t you. Yeah, Nieves was hot as fuck, but she was also a manipulative little cunt. Great in the sack, though.
“Lacey’s a great woman,” I said. “Smart, too.”
“Yeah, but how is she in bed?”
I tool another sip of my scotch. “He hasn’t divulged those details to me.”
“Rock is a fucking master in bed.” Nieves sipped her dirty martini. “But even he doesn’t equal your talent.”
Nice touch. I doubted my brother had been celibate all those years in Montana, but already I knew I’d had more women. Hell, I’d had more women than most billionaire playboys in Manhattan. They didn’t call me the Wolfe of Manhattan for nothing.
“Thank you for the compliment,” I said.
“Tell me,” she said. “What’s your whole family doing here in Sin City?”
“Business.”
“Not pleasure?”
“Business. But I always find time for pleasure.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
“First, though”—I cleared my throat—“what are you doing here in Sin City?”
She took another sip of her drink and smirked. “I just love sin.”
Oh, she was good. And I was happy to bed her. But first, I needed some intel.
“What’s going on with you?” I asked. “Have you talked to your sister lately?”
“Leta or Ciara?”
She had another sister? News to me. “Leta, I guess.”
She shook her head. “Not since she talked to your brother in Helena.” She polished off her drink.
“Let me get you another.” I signaled the bartender. “Another dirty martini for the lady.”
“Sapphire, remember?” Nieves added with a wink. “And make that extra dirty.”
The young bartender blushed at the double entendre.
“Where are you staying?” I asked Nieves.
She touched her bottom lip coyly. “With you.”
Oh, she was good. Too good, really.
But not as good as I was.
“We’ll see about that,” I said.
The barkeep slid a fresh martini in front of her.
She gave him another wink. “Yes, we certainly will.”
I sipped my scotch slowly. Not that I was a lightweight or anything, but tonight was about getting information. It was also about a good fuck, but that was the less important part. Better to keep my faculties while I assisted Nieves in losing hers.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out.
Rock.
“Excuse me,” I said to Nieves. “I have to take this. I’ll only be a minute.”
“Of course.” She puckered her red lips around an olive.
My groin tightened as I walked far enough away for privacy. “Hey,” I said into the phone.
“So Nieves is here.”
“I know.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, she and I are having a drink at the bar as we speak.”
Rock laughed uproariously.
“And that’s funny because…”
“Because she’s so predictable. I’m taken, and you’re not. So she’s after a new Wolfe.”
I couldn’t fault his observation, but— “Are you sure? I mean, you were involved with her in Montana when you didn’t have a pot to piss in.”
“True enough, but she’s seen the green now. Trust me. She wants a piece of whatever pie she can get.”
“And you think I’m going to give her a piece.”
“Nah. I think you’re going to take a piece, if you haven’t already.” Rock laughed again.
“I’d say you know me too well, but you really don’t,” I said. “Since we really only just met a few weeks ago.”
“I read the tabloids. I know all about you, Reid. The Wolfe of Wall Street.”
I cleared my throat. “Actually, it’s the Wolfe of Manhattan.”
“My bad.” Rock chuckled again. “So what’s the plan with Nieves?”
“I’m going to pump her for info.”
“You sure that’s all you’
re going to pump?”
“For God’s sake, Rock.”
“Am I wrong?” He laughed again.
“You know, most guys wouldn’t want their little brothers poking their castoffs.”
He guffawed. Literally. It even sounded like guffaw.
“Nieves Romero is a hot little number and a fucking lioness between the sheets. She’s nothing compared to what I have with Lace, but bro, if she’s offering—and I’d bet your father’s fortune she is—go for it.”
“What if I’ve already poked that?”
Another guffaw. “Wouldn’t surprise me.”
“Is there anything else you wanted to tell me?” I asked. “I’ve got a hot number waiting for me in the bar, and yeah, she’s been innuendoing all evening.”
“Lacey wanted me to ask you to go easy on Zee,” he said.
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“We’re all leaving tomorrow, but you’ll still be here. We want her cooperation, but not at the cost of her mental health.”
“You seriously think I’d do something untoward to her? To one of our father’s victims?”
“No, no. Of course not. It’s just… Your way of getting your way is usually…you know. Sexual.”
He wasn’t wrong. “I believe I can seduce her,” I said.
“I believe you can too. That’s not the point. The question is whether you should.”
“Look,” I said. “I feel just as bad for Zee as the rest of you do. She had the shitty luck to come into contact with Derek Wolfe, and she paid the price. But if we look at it another way, she was actually really lucky. She lived through the ordeal, and as far as we know, no one else did.”
“Doesn’t mean she owes us anything.”
“Did I say that? But all of our lives are on the line here, including your wife’s. We’re all implicated, and if Zee has information that would clear us, we need it.”
“She doesn’t have that kind of info, Reid,” Rock said. “All she has is her own story.”
“Which will prove what kind of guy Dad was, and that there were many more out there who wanted him dead.”
“But there aren’t. Not with Zee’s story, anyway. They’re all dead. Hunted and killed. The only thing Zee’s story will do is make her a suspect instead of us.”
Again, Rock was not wrong. We could easily prove Zee wasn’t in New York the night of the murder, but what good would her story do other than to fuck with Dad’s character? It still wouldn’t absolve any of us of the crime. In fact, it would only give us more of a motive to off the psycho.
Something niggled at the back of my neck. That something called a conscience, which right now I wished I didn’t have.
“Why?” I asked Rock. “Why didn’t any one of us inherit Dad’s lack of conscience?”
“It’d make this a lot easier if we had.”
Truth be told, I was probably the closest to Dad’s lack of conscience. On more than one occasion, I’d ignored the angel on my shoulder in favor of the devil. Usually for business, though, not for personal gain. And never for sexual gain. I’d never bedded a woman without her explicit consent.
But wasn’t this business? I couldn’t run this business from a prison cell. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to prison for killing the bastard when my hands were sparkling clean.
Okay, maybe not sparkling, but still clean. I hated the mofo, but I didn’t kill him. Neither did Rock, Roy, Riley, or Lacey. I believed all of them. Hell, Lacey didn’t even have any motive.
“So about Zee,” Rock was saying.
“What about her?”
“We can sure use her story, but please don’t push her.”
“Is this you or the wife talking?”
“Both, to be honest, but Riley most of all.”
Riley. My kid sister, who had suffered more at our father’s hands than the three of us guys combined.
Riley, who I used to envy because of our father’s attention.
Boy, had I been dead-ass wrong.
For Riley, I’d do anything.
Even this.
“All right, brother. For Riley. Tell her I’ll treat Zee with kid gloves.”
It was a promise I knew I’d keep.
Didn’t mean I wouldn’t sleep with her, though.
5
Zee
That innocent eighteen-year-old girl had a plan.
Acceptance to Smith. Yeah, it was an all-girls school, but she didn’t worry about that. She looked at it as a gift. She’d be forced to spend more time on her studies. Her beauty wouldn’t be a hindrance in a group of all women. No one would envy her for the physical characteristics she couldn’t control.
The girl had aced the SAT and ACT, hitting a perfect score on the latter. She wanted to break free from the acting and modeling career her mother had forced on her and expand her horizons.
Turned out, though, that the acting and modeling stuff had helped her in the long run. She’d been homeschooled by a qualified teacher, and she was way ahead of her public school educated colleagues. Hence the amazing scores on the standardized college admission tests.
She was always bright. But even her intelligence couldn’t make an actress out of her. She didn’t have that kind of talent, and she just wasn’t interested. She wanted more. She wanted to help others. What better way than to become a physician? A healer? She dreamed of bringing new lives into the world, so she’d already decided that when—not if—she made it to medical school, she’d specialize in obstetrics.
Her mother was against Smith.
Her mother was against a career in medicine.
But the girl was eighteen. She could make her own decisions. Her own choices.
Her first choice was to leave acting and modeling behind.
No more auditions.
No more dieting.
No more dance classes.
Though she’d actually enjoyed the dance classes. She was a capable dancer, and she’d reaped the benefit of the hard work for the last ten years. Her body was toned and muscled.
But she just wouldn’t have time for dancing as she embarked on her new life.
Her brief foray into modeling had given her a lovely wardrobe, and she packed all of her clothes into her car for the road trip to Smith.
Her mother refused to go with her. Refused even to co-sign on her student loans.
No problem. She’d get deferments until she was done with school altogether, and as a physician, she’d be able to pay off the loans in a reasonable amount of time.
She and her mother said their goodbyes. There was no hug. No handshake, even.
Just a goodbye.
They both seemed okay with that.
The girl drove herself into the city. She’d been there many times before, to meet with agents, but she’d never done the tourist thing.
She wanted to visit the Statue of Liberty, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Ground Zero, the MOMA—so she allotted herself three days in Queens in the only hotel she could afford, and she learned the subway system to see her heart’s desire.
She ate the best bagel she’d ever tasted at a deli. Okay, maybe it was the best because at least five years had passed since she last ate a bagel. Still, it was delicious with the smear of cream cheese and the zing of poppy seeds.
She ate a hot dog from a street vendor. Then a slice of New York-style pizza.
She laughed, knowing what any agent—or her mother—would say about these treats.
Didn’t matter. That was her old life.
This was the new.
She was exhausted after her first day of tourism. She’d walked miles and miles and breathed in all she could of the beautiful culture of New York.
She perused her guidebook and made plans for the next day, and then she snuggled into the lumpy bed in the cheap room filled with cheap seventies furnishings, and fell into a deep sleep.
When she woke up, she was in the fight of her life.
6
Reid
Ni
eves sipped her third martini. I’d ordered another scotch, but each time I brought it to my lips I feigned drinking. Age-old game of getting your adversary drunk so he’d talk. I was good at it.
I’d learned from the best.
Not that I considered Nieves an adversary. Not yet, at least. I still didn’t know how her sister was involved in all this, but tonight I’d find out.
If I had to fuck her to get the intel, I would.
No sweat off my back.
“Tell me about your sister’s doctor,” I said. “Dr. Manfred.”
She rolled her eyes. “Manny? That slimy guy? I wouldn’t let him near my pussy.”
I smiled, holding back a chuckle. “Why?”
“Have you met the man?”
“I have, actually. I’ve checked him out. He’s in good standing with the Montana Medical Board. He was at the top of his class in med school.”
“Where’d he go to med school? Guatemala?”
“University of Virginia, actually. Quite a good school.”
“He couldn’t get into Harvard, huh?”
I laughed this time. “Without connections, it’s almost impossible to get into Harvard Med School. But his undergrad record was excellent. He was a great candidate for any med school.”
“So?”
“So he’s a capable doctor, which doesn’t jibe with your dislike of him.”
“He’s just…slimy.”
“Meaning…” I knew exactly what she meant. He wasn’t tall and good-looking. I wanted her to say it. Why? I wasn’t sure.
“Meaning, my body, my choice. I don’t want him near my pussy.”
Okay, she wasn’t biting. Fair enough. Time to try another tactic. “Apparently your sister only went to him once.”
“Did she?” Nieves stared down at her nearly empty third drink.
“Her previous physician was a Dr. Isabel Caleb.”
“She’s good. I’ve gone to her.”
“If she’s good, why would Leta switch to Dr. Manfred?”
“I don’t know. I’m not my sister’s keeper.” Again, staring into her now-empty martini glass.
“It’s puzzling, don’t you think?” I took another fake drink of my scotch.
Nieves met my gaze. “The only thing puzzling is why we’re not hitting the sheets yet.”
