by Cara Dee
I sighed and killed the music, then stepped out of my car. “Usually not in front of people.”
He snorted and averted his gaze, taking in the closest surroundings. He’d parked a little too close to my mailbox. Fucker. “I guess that sucks for your boyfriend.”
Huh? “I don’t have one, so…” I climbed up my porch, where I wanted to spend many future evenings with Ace, and retrieved my keys. The porch was gonna get painted on Tuesday, after which I could finally put out the grill I’d bought. It was waiting in the carport, along with a table and four chairs. Ace had made plans for us to have game nights.
“If you wanna keep it private, fine, no need to bullshit,” he muttered behind me. “I saw you getting pizza together at our place ’bout a year ago—then again a couple months after at a gas station.”
What the hell was he— Oh. He must’ve seen me with Dave. “We went out a few times, that’s all.” I unlocked the door and went inside to crank up the AC. “Why would I wanna keep that private?”
“Uh, I don’t know, maybe because you’ve never brought anyone home before?” he argued. “There’s also that one time you told me not to show my face near you if I was with a woman, and when that happened, you cut me outta your life.”
That one time? One fucking time?
Embarrassment and anger burned hotly, and in a split second, I regretted everything that’d led up to him being at my goddamn house right now. This wasn’t gonna work.
I threw my keys on the table next to the door and crossed the living room, went into the kitchen, and grabbed my vodka from the freezer.
“Jesus Christ, this place is tiny.” I heard him say.
Feel free to fuck off, asshole.
It wasn’t tiny. It was…compact. Ace and I didn’t need more. The kitchen was a little crowded when she and I prepared dinner together, and only my daughter would call the bathroom spacious, but the rest was okay. She had her own room in the back, I slept in the living room, and I’d turned the closet space across from the bathroom into my restricted zone. It was where I kept all my work shit, equipment, my safe, all the valuables.
“At least I’m not acting like a child and sleeping on Mom’s couch,” I called back.
“Okay, trailer trash.”
Wait—he’d said something before. It just registered. I poked my head out of the kitchen and frowned. “What the fuck is our place, anyway? You said you saw me get pizza with someone at our place.”
He waved it off dismissively and stared at the pullout couch I hadn’t made this morning. “I didn’t mean it like that. Giordano’s—we used to get pizza there after a gig.”
Oh. I laughed at the fucker, even as nausea crawled up my throat because it brought me back. Boone had always been sweet. Protective, nostalgic, sentimental. He loved traditions and holidays and birthdays. He loved showing others how much he cared. And at one point, I had been at the center of his attention.
It was all his fault that I’d gotten confused at an early age. His fault that I’d always struggled to connect with other guys. His motherfucking fault I’d realized, at the age of twenty, that I was in love with my own brother.
I hadn’t told him never to date or be with women; I’d asked him pleadingly, that when we worked together, he didn’t bring any women around me, because it fucking hurt to watch. It’d killed a part of me every goddamn time I’d seen him flirt with women. Only for him to get back to treating me like I was the best thing since sliced bread as soon as the bitches left the room.
I couldn’t go down that road again. My twenties had consisted of daily heartbreak, being pulled in, pushed aside, burning jealousy, anger, fantasies, and dejection. And he’d never know.
I poured myself a glass of vodka and took a big gulp.
“Let’s just do this job together so we can go back to not speaking to each other again,” he said.
“Fine by me.” I took another long swig of vodka, emptying my glass, before I left the kitchen. After punching in the four-digit code, I opened the closet and grabbed the laptop I never hooked up to the internet. It was one of four that I used, and any data was transferred through USB sticks or other safe channels. The encrypted file Willow had sent me had gone straight to the one where I never used my own name.
Ace once asked me why I needed so many laptops, and I’d given her a long-ass harangue about privacy and Big Brother watching. Of course, then I’d gotten a call from Ace’s school because my girl had gotten on her own soapbox to tell her classmates that people in general were government-owned sheep.
Kids said the craziest things.
Boone had turned the pullout into a couch by the time I rejoined him. We sat down together, and I booted up the laptop on the coffee table.
“You got anything to drink?” he asked.
“Help yourself.” I inserted my password. “Grab me a beer while you’re at it.”
He rose without a word, and I watched him trail into the kitchen.
If he were me, he’d only get something for himself. I was the catty one when I was pissed or hurt. He became silent and possibly depressed. That’s what I had to figure out. And if he was depressed, I had to do something.
I’d pulled up all the documents from Willow’s file when Boone returned with beer for both of us.
“All right, so the target is an Alfred Lange and his crime organization,” I said. “At the end of October, there’s a reservation at the Venetian traced back to Lange, and it includes a party venue and a block of suites. Darius wants us to find out as much as possible about their stay, their plans, their reservations, and, more importantly, about Lange’s son who lives here in town. His name is AJ Lange, and he works for the Gaming Commission.”
I angled the laptop closer to Boone so he could see the information I had. Which wasn’t much—not even the complete hotel reservation, just a date and some minor details.
Lange dealt in coke, diamonds, and human trafficking. He was based outta Florida, was presumed to travel with heavy security, and Willow had no idea just how many shell corporations he sat behind. So far, she’d dug up seven.
Boone and I rarely asked questions when we got gigs like this one, but I couldn’t deny that I was curious about our cousin’s motives. If this was a contract from whatever PMC he’d worked at, he wouldn’t come to us. We worked under the radar for obvious reasons.
“This has got to be related to the human trafficking operation that was on the news last winter,” Boone said pensively.
I didn’t watch the news, so I wouldn’t know. “Why?” Human trafficking was as common as chlamydia, especially in Vegas.
“Because Darius was working that case,” Boone replied. “I heard Ma and Aunt Mary talkin’. I didn’t think about it, though. He’s always off being a superhero somewhere.”
Truth. Okay, so that explained that. We had no reason to dig further. A job was a job.
“Where do you wanna start?” I twisted my body to reach the side table next to the couch—or my makeshift nightstand, I guessed. I kept my weed in there.
“We need a list of priorities,” he answered. Then he turned around to pop the window behind us. “Where does AJ live?”
“Up in Summerlin, of course.” Where most of the rich fuckers lived. “He’s got an estate in The Arbors. It’s not gated, thankfully.”
“So we’ll get a tracker on his car…?”
I nodded and lit up a joint. “Who’s— Fuck.” I coughed at the first drag. Shit, way too dry. That’s what I got for not smoking often anymore. The weed dried out. “Who’s your best source at the Venetian?” Because we needed to see the reservation.
Combined with the Palazzo, the Venetian was the largest hotel complex on the Strip, so we had plenty of friends working there. I’d worked there myself too.
“I don’t have anyone working the front desk at the moment,” he replied with a frown. “I got Geoff in maintenance.”
That was good. We might need him. “I’ll call Laney.” She worked behind the scenes
in administration but had access.
After taking another drag, a more careful one, I held it in my lungs and handed over the joint to Boone.
He coughed a little too.
The sweet, pungent smell filled my senses, and my muscle memory kicked in before the weed did. Things slowed down a bit, shit was chill, and I didn’t feel that underlying current that shot sparks of pain through me as soon as I laid eyes on my brother.
I exhaled and switched to an empty document.
“Soon as we get our hands on the reservation, we can start connecting the dots and see if they’ve booked shit under other names, too.” I began typing out some keywords and places where we could pick up clues. If they’d booked a whole block, they were gonna host quite the party. “I’ll ask Willow if she can dig around to find airline tickets somewhere.” The end of October was about six weeks away, meaning tickets should be booked already. If not for Lange himself, then at least the ones he wouldn’t spring for private flights for. “Private airlines, car services,” I mumbled to myself as I jotted it down. “See what kinds of comps they’re looking at from the hotel. Dinner reservations, catering for the party venue, bar service…”
“We need a detailed floor plan too,” Boone added.
I nodded along and added it to the list.
“Figure out the route between hotel block and venue,” I muttered. “Get into AJ’s house, map out his daily routine, look into his finances—maybe I’ll ask Willow about that, too—and connect early arrivals linked to the family.”
“Early arrivals?” Boone asked.
“If Alfred’s traveling with heavy security, I’m banking on a crew arriving ahead of time to make sure everything’s running smoothly.”
“Ah. Yeah. Maybe you should sit down with TJ and get some ideas too. He’d know how these people get around.”
He had a point. I made a mental note to call him later.
“Why’s it always an AJ or TJ with these guys?” he mused.
I chuckled. “Right? Maybe it’s some rule in organized crime—gotta have a bunch of juniors around.”
We knew a DJ too, just as connected as TJ. They were cousins.
“Anyway,” he drawled. “We do all this… What’s in it for us?”
“I assume diamonds.” I furrowed my brow in concentration as I finished my list for now. “Darius said there’d be plenty of opportunities to get what we want from the target.”
Boone let out a low whistle. “We like diamonds.”
We sure did.
It was why I was extra keen on getting inside AJ Lange’s estate. Alfred and his posse wouldn’t travel with an abundance of valuables that weren’t guarded day and night, but AJ would definitely keep some shit at home. Even if it wasn’t diamonds or cash. We rarely went near art, because it was generally easy to trace, not to mention harder to sell. A woman’s $500 shoes, though? The diamond studs in her jewelry box? The gold necklaces? A rich man’s collection of golf clubs? Count us in. An estate like that—fucking gold mine. We weren’t picky.
Just last year, a buddy and I made fifteen Gs selling stolen designer bags and suits.
“Here.”
I glanced over my shoulder and accepted the joint he’d almost finished. Yeah, no wonder he looked high already. He’d been sucking that thing like a dick. Christ.
I pinched the joint between my index finger and thumb, and I took three quick hits before I had to put it out. “Let’s talk gear,” I croaked, holding my breath. “Do you have any fake identities you can still use in this town?”
Boone squinted and scratched his beard. “Uh, maybe three? Only one linked to a credit card—if you’re thinking we gotta get a room at the Venetian.”
I hadn’t come that far, but good to know. “We’ll circle back to that. I was more thinking it shouldn’t be hard to get inside AJ’s house through his cleaning service.” And all rich folk had someone else doing their dirty work. “We’d get access if one of us took a job there.”
He hummed. “Probably smarter to bribe someone who already works there, innit?”
He was right. I didn’t know what I’d been thinking. “Good call.” We didn’t want cops around asking questions, which they would once Lange’s estate had been robbed.
“I know. I’ve always told you, Case. You’re the beauty, I’m the brains.”
I barked out a laugh and opened my beer. “I’m the beauty and the brains. You’re just the brawn.”
He punched me in the arm, harder than he probably intended, and I hissed and rubbed the sore spot.
“Fuck you, I was trying to have a moment with you,” he chuckled.
I took a swig of my beer, then smiled back at him. He was comfortable now, that was easy to see, all lounged back in his seat, one arm along the top of the couch, eyes a little glazed over.
I missed him.
How could I not? We’d always been there for each other. I’d been two or three when Mom adopted me. She and my biological mother had been childhood friends, having met in Sunday school or something else related to church back in the day. Aunt Mary had been there too, though she’d chosen another path. She’d met her soldier, Uncle James, and my mothers had left their little Irish Catholic bubble on the East Coast and decided to try their luck in Vegas.
They’d drifted apart when my biological mother went from being an average weekend warrior to getting into heavier drugs that she couldn’t handle. Around the same time, Mom had given birth to Boone, and she couldn’t cope with being a single mom, full-time worker, and making sure my biological mother didn’t end up in a ditch somewhere.
She never did end up in a ditch. Instead, she dropped me off with Mom and Boone one day for a sleepover—I was about two, Boone had just turned three—and I was never gonna see the woman who’d given birth to me again. She overdosed that night. I obviously had no recollection of it, but throughout my childhood, Boone told me, “You’re my brother now. I got you.”
Toward the end of my twenties, we went through something similar again, and we were the ones who’d ended up with a toddler.
“Sometimes it feels like we’ve lived a thousand lifetimes together,” I heard myself murmur.
Way too unfiltered. I hadn’t meant to say that out loud. I cleared my throat and went for my beer again.
Fuck.
“Yeah,” he responded quietly. “I just… I guess I didn’t expect to wake up after my own funeral.”
I swallowed and kept my gaze fixed straight ahead.
I supposed that was where we were now. Post-funeral. Two guys, two living dead, carefully testing the waters of a brotherhood that hadn’t been resurrected.
“Fuck.” I scrubbed a hand over my face. “I forgot how nostalgic weed makes me.” It was just one of those things that’d gotten stuck. When we took on a new gig, we sat down and talked, smoked a joint, and made plans. “You wanna go get somethin’ to eat?”
“Sure.”
Four
“Time for bed, Aisley Paisley.” I dove for her on our bed and peppered her face with kisses. “You’re going to Gramma tomorrow.”
“Yay!” she squealed.
It’d been a rough day. As if losing her mother hadn’t dealt her the shittiest hand already, we’d said goodbye to her maternal grandfather today. Thankfully, our mother knew how to brighten Paisley’s spirit with board games and too much sugar. She was good at explaining to a three-year-old about death, too.
“Are you ready to say goodnight?” I asked.
She yawned and crawled over to Case’s side of the bed where we’d placed a photo of Tia. Paisley kissed two fingers and brushed them against the picture, like we’d shown her, then crawled back to me.
“Pop-Pop’s gonna sleep in heaven now?” she wondered. “Next to Nana?”
I nodded and pulled up the covers to her chin. “That’s right. You can still see each other in your dreams.”
“Hmm. Okay.” She cuddled up next to me, and I took my cue and ran my fingers through her hair. “I don’t r
emember Nana.”
No, she’d died before Paisley was born. “Pop-Pop will introduce you,” I murmured.
I caught Case standing in the doorway with a faint smile on his face.
Something settled within me, something I hadn’t even known was shaky.
“Can you two sit still back there?” Boone asked exasperatedly. “The whole fuckin’ van’s shakin’.”
Ace and I froze mid-dance move and shared a “Shit, we’ve been caught” look.
In our defense, stakeouts were boring.
“One more time, but we’ll be still.” Ace was ready to bargain.
“Can I be Barbie girl now?” I asked.
Boone snorted.
Ace hesitated. “I’mma be frank, Daddy. I don’t think you can pull it off.”
What the fuck?
“Sometimes you’re not nice.” I stole her soda bottle, which made for a much better microphone than the Slim Jim I’d been forced to use. “Boone, push play again.”
“Hold on. I think AJ’s down for the night. Lights just went out.”
Finally. We’d only been camped out down here on the street for two hours already. But at least we’d filled our bellies with pizza, and we were pretty comfortable in the back of the van. Plus, we had a cute dog wagging her tail whenever Ace and I goofed off.
It was probably a good thing we got this shit started soon. An unmarked van could only sit parked on a street lined with two-million-dollar homes for so long before someone became suspicious.
While Boone gave Ace her instructions again, I sang Aqua’s “Barbie Girl” under my breath and moved to the beat in my head as I put the leash on the dog. When Ace had asked Mom’s neighbor if she could watch their dog for a night, I bet they hadn’t thought their shaggy little pup would be part of a master scheme. Ace had sounded so sincere too, claiming she wanted to use the dog to convince her daddies to get her one. And the elderly couple who lived in the house next to Ma’s hadn’t been able to resist her. They adored our girl, and who could blame them.
Speaking of neighbors… “How are we on the other houses?” I asked. Because it would look hella weird if, after being parked here for two hours, we were caught by a nosy neighbor watching us climb out to walk a dog.