by Nico Rosso
Dead silence. Except for the scream of Arash’s pulse in his ears. He tried to make the new information fit with the other razor-sharp puzzle pieces he’d been forcing together. He’d stolen from Eddie Shun in order to get into the gang. She must’ve known that. But she still helped him.
And now Olesk was staring at her like she was a cobra spitting venom in the hotel room. Ellie watched Olesk, as if waiting for direction. Hector and Thom gaped and David shifted his gaze between Stephanie and Olesk.
Stephanie continued with unnatural stillness. “David was waiting for just the right moment to tell you. Or maybe he wasn’t going to, depending on whether or not I gave him some intel so he could chisel into my father’s business.”
David surged toward her but held himself back. Arash instinctually angled to put himself between the possible attack and Stephanie. But who was he protecting? Who the hell was Stephanie?
“He was playing angles outside the STR.” Stephanie lit her killing gaze back onto David.
David jutted his jaw and pointed at her with his fist. “What we really need to be asking is what is Eddie Shun’s daughter doing in the STR? Right, Olesk? What is she doing here?”
Olesk faced her, hands open and ready. His flannel shirt was buttoned but untucked and could be hiding his automatic. “Okay. What are you doing here?”
Stephanie’s body language remained unaggressive. He remembered how close they’d been when he discovered she was armed. He’d thought then that he knew her. She spoke now without apology. “I’m driving. I’m fixing up these cars for this gig. I’m making my own name.” She glared at David. “Because I hate it when people only think of me as Eddie Shun’s daughter.”
It was very convincing. As convincing as when she’d told Arash that she’d gotten away from the family business but didn’t say exactly what it was.
“You stole from Eddie Shun’s warehouse.” Olesk shifted to include Arash. “Did she say anything when she was driving you out of there?”
“Nothing about it at all,” Arash admitted. The getaway replayed in his mind with this new lens. He’d originally attributed her concern about shooting at their pursuers to an unusual ethic. It had been one of the things that had first made him regard her as anything other than a criminal. But she could’ve just been trying to not get the security men hurt because they were her father’s employees.
“She didn’t tell you who her father was at any point?” Ellie narrowed her eyes and cocked her head at Arash.
Arash answered with his gaze on Stephanie. “No.” Stephanie blinked, pain in her eyes for a second. Then she was hard again.
Ellie muttered, “Super awkward.”
David’s voice rose. “Who gives a damn what she tells her boyfriend? I’m not comfortable with her in the STR.”
Stephanie shot back, “You would’ve been plenty comfortable if I’d given you the information you wanted.”
David fumed and looked more desperate as he went to Olesk. “You can’t believe anything she tells you. You and I have rolled together through some serious business.” David showed his teeth. “Life and death, remember?”
All of Arash’s chaos cleared for a moment. He knew whose death David was talking about.
Olesk’s face calmed to a stone mask and he asked David, “Did you try to leverage her?”
“No.” David blinked too many times. “I was waiting until we were all here to say something, so she couldn’t worm out of it.”
Stephanie scoffed, “You were waiting so long I had to say it for you.” A more dangerous emotion darkened her voice. “I could be at dinner right now.”
David’s face reddened. “Where you’d be figuring out how to twist things—”
“I got it.” Olesk hovered his hands over his ears as if ready to cover them against the argument. “I got it. Both of you shut the hell up. Shut the hell up and drive. That’s what you’re paid to do. Can you do that?”
“Absolutely.” Stephanie’s expression frosted.
Olesk stared at David while David looked incredulous. After a second he blurted, “Of course,” as if he didn’t have to say it at all.
“Anything else?” Stephanie shifted her balance toward the door.
“You tell me.” Olesk scanned everyone in the room. “Anyone else have a bomb they want to drop?”
Arash did. But it would have to wait until Olesk was lined up in his sights. If he could make it to Los Angeles without being blindsided again by Stephanie.
Thom broke the silence. “Henry Ford is my father.” He chuckled and drank from his beer.
Hector clinked his bottle against Thom’s. “Carlos Chevy is my father.”
Olesk pointed at the door. “Everybody get out of my suite.”
Hector and Thom were the first to go, murmuring to each other and suppressing laughs. Stephanie told Olesk, “We’ll be on the road by 3:30 a.m.”
“Good. Less talking, more driving.” He spoke to Stephanie, Arash and David as if he was addressing children. “We have a big gig tomorrow for big people. We make them happy, we get happy, too. We make them sad, we get dismembered.”
“Understood.” Arash saluted Olesk and headed for the door. Stephanie caught up with him and they stepped into the hallway together. He pulled one of the room keys from his pocket and handed it to her, careful not to touch her skin and test whether or not the heat remained. “810.”
She murmured, “I know there was a better way for you to find out...”
He stopped in the hall to face her. “Damn right—” David stood outside Olesk’s suite, glaring at them from over a dozen yards away. Arash resumed walking to the elevators. Stephanie stayed with him, both silent until the doors closed.
She started quickly, “I understand that this is a complete wreck, but I wasn’t lying to you.”
“About what, about which identity?” He stared at her, this woman he’d been completely naked and exposed with, and didn’t know who she was. “Javier’s downstairs somewhere, and I bet your father’s people are out here, too, ready to put a bullet in me if they found out I was with you.”
“He doesn’t do that kind of thing.” She stood up to him, jaw set.
“Not if his only daughter was caught running around with a car thief?”
“That’s not what you are.”
No, he hadn’t been that for a very long time. And he’d only returned to that world for revenge. But then he met Stephanie. “Who knows who anyone is?”
The elevator stopped two floors down and more people got on. He and Stephanie turned from each other and he swallowed so many words, rage and confusion that they choked his heart. At the ground floor he moved off quickly. It didn’t take long before he spotted Javier pretending to play a slot machine. Stephanie saw him, as well. She turned to Arash, pain shimmering in her eyes. He hated seeing it. He hated feeling the same in himself. And he had no idea how to end it. He tipped his head toward Javier, telling her to go. Then he walked away in the opposite direction.
Chapter Nineteen
The screen on the video slot machine tried desperately to capture her attention. Panthers prowled through a jungle scene, tigers snarled and claw marks slashed out to mark the matches in the indecipherable grid that fell into place each time she pushed the button. But she moved automatically and her divided mind had no space for the game.
Javier sat next to her, both of them angled away from each other so it didn’t look like they were together. She spoke just loud enough to be heard over the din of the machines, but kept her words contained to just the two of them. “3:30 a.m. departure. We have to be somewhere in LA by 8:00 a.m. for the pickup. We’re delivering—”
A cocktail waitress came by and Stephanie declined. Javier stopped her. “Beer, and a lot of luck.”
“I’ll see if we have any left.” The white woman with an Eastern European accent flashed an easy smi
le.
She continued her rounds and Stephanie resumed her debrief, focusing on the details in order to keep her emotions from spiraling her into darkness. “Delivering to an airfield. Wheels up at 11:00 a.m., so have Vincent check registered flight plans for every small airport in the county.”
Javier murmured back, “I got that, but I’m sure he knows his job, being a Fed and all.”
She ignored his correction. “No indication if the Seventh will be there.”
“They’re not going to leave a job this big unsupervised,” Javier exclaimed with disappointment and tried to show people how close he was to a jackpot on the screen, but no one paid attention. When he brought his attention back to the machine, he sassed, “I met your man.”
She choked out, “He’s not my man.”
“He was all puffed up and postured like he was a few minutes ago.”
“Things changed.” She’d known that telling the crew the truth about her father could get David off her back. It was a stick of dynamite, and the blast wrecked the best thing she had with Arash.
The cocktail waitress returned with Javier’s beer and he overtipped her. The woman thanked him and added, “They’re brewing up a fresh batch of luck right now, so it shouldn’t be long.”
“I’m good, thanks.” He toasted her with the beer. “But bring some to this woman here.” He hooked his thumb at Stephanie. “I think she could use it.”
“Coming right up.” The cocktail waitress smiled her way off.
Javier darkened in her peripheral vision. He barely said, “Things always change.” She didn’t know the man that well but had heard from his closer friend Ty that he’d gone through a rough breakup within the last few months.
It would’ve meant the world to get a beer of her own and allow the two of them to pour out their feelings, but the mission was far from over. Her throat was so tight she could only manage to say, “I hadn’t told him who my father was.”
“And he found out?” Javier stood to put more cash in the machine.
“When I told the rest of the gang. I had to get out from under some leverage David Huang was putting on me.” Saved her skin. Paid a huge price.
“Damn...” Javier put his empty beer down and kept playing. “And Arash gets KO’d.” He punched the button on the machine and spun on his stool before returning to the screen.
“Totaled.” She hit the cash-out button and stood to leave. Time was up; she knew to avoid suspicion from any STR members who might see her, she couldn’t sit next to Javier too long. And if she kept talking about how she’d just shattered Arash’s trust, she wouldn’t be able to keep herself composed.
Her machine spit out her ticket and Javier handed it to her. “You won.”
“I lost.” She gave the ticket back to him and disappeared into the noise of the casino.
Frontier Justice knew everything she did. All the intel collected over the course of these grinding, tense days drained out of her. The job wasn’t done yet, though. She had to keep her energy up for at least another sixteen hours. Los Angeles would determine if this mission was a success.
Everything else rang hollow with failure. She drifted through the casino and into an expansive multilayer indoor mall. Artfully crafted displays highlighted expensive purses and clothing. No color was bright enough, no metal shiny enough or matte smooth enough to catch her eye.
The trust between her and Arash had fused under such harsh conditions that it was stronger than she’d known with anyone else. Like he knew her. But he hadn’t, and when he learned, their connection snapped like a bone.
Arash had been focused on his revenge throughout their time in the STR and she didn’t see him wavering now. The mission for both of them would likely move forward. What it meant for the two of them, though, she couldn’t predict.
The last person on earth she wanted to see came striding up the walkway. David wore a fake smile and fury in his eyes. She stood and waited for him to reach her, knowing that there were far too many security guards and cameras for him to try anything physical.
He attacked with a hiss, “You think you’re so smart.”
All emotion drained from her face. “This was all your idea. And now you’ve learned what the few people stupid enough to try have learned.” She sharpened her voice. “No one corners me.”
“But it doesn’t end that easy.” His fists remained at his sides. “Not after you messed with me in front of Olesk.”
“You lit the fuse, David.” She wanted to condemn him for what had happened with Arash, but she knew it was her own fault for not telling Arash about that detail of her history sooner. “Don’t blame me for getting burned.”
David sneered a laugh. “We’ll see who’s still intact after all this.” He leaned close. “If it’s just you and me without your boyfriend...” Trepidation shimmered in his eyes when he looked over her shoulder. He tried to maintain his swagger as he took a step backward. “Watch your rearview,” he warned, but it didn’t have much impact as he was retreating.
After David strutted off into the mall and slipped around a corner, she turned to look where he’d been staring. A flush of heat wrapped around her ribs when she saw Arash standing a few dozen yards away. His hair was down, surrounding a still, dark face. No wonder David turned tail. The menace emanating from Arash could move mountains. The glow in her chest twisted to an ache. He’d been looking out for her, but now that David was gone, Arash turned and joined the masses of people at the edge of the casino. As he disappeared, all the warmth in her body left with him.
* * *
THE MOST EXPENSIVE meal of his life and Arash didn’t taste a bite. He sat at the crowded bar of an Asian–South American fusion restaurant in the hotel while small plates appeared before him. The artfully prepared high-concept food might’ve been delicious. High television screens showed sporting events, but his attention was on the mirror behind the bar, where he could scan the room and a little bit into the casino.
Stephanie was in the restaurant, at a table with her back to the wall. He couldn’t remember if he’d followed her or if she’d appeared after he’d taken his seat. None of the other STR members showed up. He’d kept a specific look out for David, but that man had been a no-show after the brief incident in the mall. The snake had sent this whole situation into a skid. Arash still didn’t know what to think about Stephanie’s latest secret, but he did know that he was a day away from finally getting Olesk and he couldn’t miss this chance.
Arash watched her in the mirror. He didn’t want to. He wanted to be seated across from her at the table, experiencing the food with her. Or they could order room service and spend the night discovering. There was no freedom for that now. Time was in short supply, and he didn’t know how long it would take for him to trust her again. If ever.
He continued to eat, but nothing filled the cold, hollow space in his chest. All the bottles of booze glowing on their lit shelves tempted him with a night of numbness. 3:00 a.m. would come fast, though, and he had to be ready.
It took only a split second of him looking down at the dish of fried plantains and tempura shrimp being delivered to discover that Stephanie had disappeared from her table. She was standing next to him, by the empty seat at the bar. “May I?” The place was busy all around her, and she was so very still.
“Sure.” But what could she say that would change any of this?
“I’m sorry.” She sat next to him. The bartender came by, and she ordered a cocktail and waited for him to leave. She looked at Arash in the mirror. “I should’ve told you. I didn’t want it to be important. I wanted it to just be you and me.”
“And Frontier Justice.” He kept his voice down.
“No.” She turned to him. “Not when we were alone in the dark. That was me.”
“Not all of you.” He stared forward, seeing her straighten her posture in the reflection.
; “You don’t know.” Emotion shook her voice. “You don’t know how much of me you saw. I showed you more than anyone...” She steadied herself and faced the mirror again. “My father isn’t who I am. He doesn’t know about Frontier Justice. He trusts me because he knows that my decisions are my own.” The bartender slid her drink in front of her. She pulled out too much cash for it and laid it on the bar. She edged closer to Arash, sparks of heat arcing between them, and he couldn’t tell if they fed the emptiness inside him or highlighted how deep it was. “I should’ve told you. Now you know.”
The drink remained untouched. She stepped from the bar and left the restaurant.
Arash pushed the plates away from him and settled his bill with cash. It didn’t seem like he’d ever be hungry again. He picked up his backpack and threaded his way from the restaurant and into the casino. Halfway to the elevators he spotted Javier at a bank of video slot machines. The man glanced pointedly at the empty space next to him, then resumed playing. Arash went there and slipped cash into the machine, expecting more tactical information from the shady vigilante group.
Javier asked casually, “What’s the name of the first teacher you had a crush on?”
It took some effort to keep from turning to Javier. Instead, Arash growled back, “I’m not telling you that.”
“So you have secrets, too, like Stephanie.” Javier didn’t take his gaze from the machine in front of him. “Some things aren’t easy to bring up, right? I mean, I could tell you all about Mrs. Dominguez and the way she looked when she sat on the edge of her desk, but you don’t want to tell me your stories.”
“I get it.” Great, now he was getting schooled by a guy he barely knew. Even if Javier was right.
“Then don’t screw it up.” Javier revealed the skull tattooed on the back of his right hand when he slipped another bill into the machine. “Remember who the bad guys are.”
“I know who they are.” Their grinning, heartless faces had been burned into his mind as soon as he’d met them. “I didn’t know who she was.”