Carlos and Locke joined him while Max positioned himself near Nico.
“Keep your mics on,” Max said.
Farrell’s team would make their way down the service stairs leading from the top floor to the roof, while Max and Nico eased their way through the air shafts toward the suite. They would wait to drop into the suite until a fight was under way in the hall. If everything went according to plan and Farrell’s team was able to make their move before Jason’s men started shooting, the only way Nico and Max would know it was time would be by the sound of Jason’s guards getting the shit kicked out of them.
Farrell reached into his pack and pulled out a pair of bolt cutters, snapping the chain on the door leading to the stairwell before tossing them aside.
“You sure those are clean?” Max asked, glancing at the bolt cutters.
Farrell’s eyes flashed through his ski mask. “They’re clean.”
They’d been careful, covering every square inch of skin with clothing and tactical gear, tucking every strand of hair into the ski masks, covering their hands with leather gloves. If all went well, they’d be gone without a trace by the time the Feds arrived.
“Good luck.” Locke shifted his pack on his shoulders and started down the stairs.
Max bent to remove the grate from the air shaft. By the time he tossed it aside, the other two men had disappeared into the rooftop stairwell.
Max looked at Nico. “You ready for this?”
Nico nodded. “Let’s do it.”
Max fed his head into the grate and started crawling.
Sweat dripped from Max’s hairline onto the metal air shaft as he inched along, his weapon out in front of him. It was hotter than hell, something he’d realized within two minutes of entering the shaft. Nico crawled behind him, nearly silent, the soft shuffle of his clothing against the shaft and his breathing the only indication Max wasn’t alone, trapped in a hell made of labyrinthine metal tubes leading nowhere.
He’d made his moves carefully, pausing at every fork in the shaft, imagining the layout on the blueprint, a layout he’d committed to memory for exactly this moment.
“We should have two more right turns before we come to the fork over the living room,” Max said softly.
There were two ventilation panels in the ceiling of the suite’s living room. Nico would take one while Max took the other, mitigating the risk of both dropping from the same place when they had no idea what awaited them.
Max had no idea how long they’d been crawling when he heard the first muffled whoosh of a silencer through the comms system in his ear.
The games were under way in the hall outside the suite, which meant the clock was ticking on the Tangier’s guards getting to the top floor.
“Ten minutes tops,” Max said softly.
He eased around the first turn as quickly as possible, his sense of urgency increasing when he heard another shot followed by the telltale sound of grunting and thudding that indicated men fighting hand to hand.
He was relieved to see that the second turn was right after the first. He twisted his body to get around it and spilled out into a slightly larger area.
“See you in the living room,” Max said, continuing to the right as Nico headed left.
He knew when he was above the living room both because he came to the hinged access panel and because Jason’s voice drifted to him from the suite below.
“I don’t care,” Jason said, his voice muffled by the layers of building materials that separated them. “Just get it done. I’ll send Frazier to help if you need it.”
Max hesitated over the access panel. Fighting was still happening in the hall, as evidenced by the occasional thud, the heavy breathing in Max’s earpiece, the distinct sound of silencers whenever Max’s team got off a shot.
But so far, no shots fired from the guns carried by Jason’s men, not unless they had silencers too, and the visuals that had come in from the surveillance didn’t indicate that.
“You in position, Nico?” Max whispered into his mic. His gun was slick with sweat.
“Ready when you are.”
Max wasn’t looking forward to diving headfirst into Jason’s living room, but it was the quickest way in through the narrow air shaft. If they’d tried to use their legs, there was too great a chance that they’d announce their impending arrival before they actually made it into the suite.
Their best shot was to dive and roll and hope that the shock of their arrival bought them the few seconds they would need to get to their feet.
“Let’s do it,” Max said, aware of the ticking clock. “Three… two… one.”
He punched on the access panel and was almost surprised when it dropped away beneath him. There was a split second when he was falling, the suite’s living room a blur of color and motion as he tucked and rolled, springing to his feet with his weapon drawn.
He didn’t have time to take inventory of the situation. A gunshot popped through the air to Max’s right. In his periphery, Nico raised his weapon and fired.
A black-clad figure Max assumed was Bruce Frazier slumped to the floor — an assumption because Max had his eyes on Jason, standing fifteen feet away with a gun pointed at Max’s head.
“You need better security,” Nico said behind him.
Max caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eyes. Nico moving for the hall?
“Stop moving,” Jason barked, his gun pointed at Max. “Or I’m going to kill your new best friend.”
Nico stilled.
Max met Jason’s eyes. “What’s your play here, Jason? Because it looks like you’re outgunned, and that’s not including the men slaughtering your guards in the hall.”
Jason laughed. “My play? That one’s easy. Even before I realized it, my play has always been to ruin you.”
“And Abby?”
“Abby chose a side,” Jason said. “She has no one but herself to blame for that.”
The sweat had evaporated from Max’s skin. He didn’t know if it was because the suite was cooler than the air shaft or because of the cold rage sweeping through his body.
“You chose a side too,” Max said. “You should remember that.”
“I remember everything,” Jason said. “What do you think’s driven me all these years?”
“Greed,” Max said. “Hatred. Insanity.”
Jason shook his head. “Don’t do that, Max. Don’t you do that.”
“Do what?”
Jason’s face contorted in anger. “Don’t paint me as some crazy in need of help. I know exactly what I’m doing. I’ve always known exactly what I’m doing.”
“Then you’ll know what comes next,” Max said, tightening his finger on the weapon in his hand, staring down the site of the gun at Jason.
“What makes you sure you can kill me before I kill you?” Jason asked, his own gun leveled at Max.
“I’m not, but I’m willing to give it a try.” Noise erupted in the direction of the suite’s door. Something thudded against the walls, and Max wondered how far Farrell and the others had gotten in taking out Jason’s security. “Sounds like we’re going to have company soon,and I don’t think they’re going to be on your side.”
If Jason’s men were coming out ahead, there would be more noise, more gunfire not muffled by the military-grade silencers Farrell had outfitted on their weapons before they’d left Max’s house.
Jason’s eyes flickered to the foyer as something slammed against the door, murmured conversation drifting through the wood and plaster of the suite, making it clear the fighting outside was over.
Jason was moving chess pieces in his mind. Max could see it in the way he’d gone still, the blank expression on his face that said he’d moved into a place of pure calculation.
Checkmate, motherfucker.
Jason lowered his gun and let it drop to the floor, then lifted his arms at his sides. “Go ahead and do it, if you think you can… brother.”
Max thought he might see Jason as he�
�d been. That he might recall the scrawny kid with wide eyes and big plans, a mind like a greedy sponge, desperate to prove he was good enough.
But in the end all he saw was the man — flawed, dangerous, even evil.
He pointed the gun at Jason’s head and fired.
Thirty-One
Abby held onto the car door as they hurtled through the darkness, trying to settle into the disorientation that came with being blindfolded.
Max squeezed her hand from the driver’s seat. “You sure you’re okay? You can uncover your eyes if you promise not to peek.”
She smiled. “I’m okay. I don’t want to ruin your surprise.”
“We’re almost there anyway,” Max said.
She laughed. “Where are you taking me?”
She could hear the answering smile in his voice. “You’ll see.”
It was the first time they’d been out in the week since Jason’s death. Abby had been so happy to see Max — whole and unharmed — when he’d walked through the door that night she’d almost collapsed with relief.
She’d insisted on every detail, marveling at the zip-line above the city, the painful crawl through the Tangier’s air shafts, the disarming and disabling of Jason’s men with only a single unsilenced shot fired by Bruce Frazier before Nico killed him.
She had seen it all as Max described it to her, but it was the image of Jason, standing with his arms open, acknowledging that Max had him, that stayed with her.
What had he thought about in the end? Was it worth it? Did he have any regrets? Was he relieved to finally stop fighting?
The questions had haunted her, until she’d finally forced herself to let them go.
Jason could never hurt them again.
Max was alive.
It was all she cared about.
Max and Nico had left Jason’s body in the suite with Bruce Frazier’s. Abby tried not to think too hard about what it meant that she was glad to know he was gone for good.
The Syndicate’s team had removed their tactical gear, donning the extra Tangier uniforms Locke had stolen when he’d taken the cleaning staff uniforms to plant the surveillance equipment.
They’d split up and exited the suite dressed like members of the Tangier’s staff, melting into the crowds at the casino level as an alarm shrieked inside the hotel and guards rushed for the elevators. Then they returned to the Drew to make sure they’d retrieved all their equipment.
The news had been full of the story, the headlines screaming.
Financial Wunderkind Dead.
Investigation Reveals Casino Owner’s Ties to Vegas Mob.
Was Murder of Jason Draper Mob-Related Assassination?
Five days later, the world had moved onto something new.
“Here we are.” Max’s voice pulled her back to the present. Gravel crunched under the Porsche’s tires before they came to a stop. He shut off the car. “Hang tight and I’ll help you out.”
A few seconds later, he opened her car door and she felt his hand on hers.
He pulled her to her feet. “Almost time to take off the blindfold. Just hold onto my arm.”
He led her along a gravel path, then onto something spongy that might have been grass. She felt the October wind on her face, smelled sage and eucalyptus. Even with the blindfold on, she sensed the stillness of the desert all around.
They came to a stop. “You ready?”
She laughed at the excitement in his voice. “I’ve been ready.”
“Here we go.”
She felt his hands fumble at the scarf he’d wrapped around her eyes before leaving the house. When it dropped away, she had to blink against the sun to take in the structure in front of her.
It was a mess — a Spanish Revival house, probably original to the area, with peeling stucco and a crumbling red tile roof. A plethora of greenery climbed up its walls, making it look like a forbidding Spanish castle from some kind of twisted storybook.
But beyond the mess, she could already see its beauty: the giant windows that must stretch floor to ceiling inside, the turret that probably let in glorious light in the afternoon, the kind of mature landscape that people paid thousands to replicate and still never got quite right.
She looked up at Max. “What is this?”
He drew in a breath. “It’s a house. For you.”
“What do you mean for me?”
He shook his head and turned away from her, running a hand through his hair and muttering something before turning back to her.
“I’m doing this all wrong.” He reached into his pocket and knelt on one knee.
She clasped her hand to her mouth, tears springing to her eyes.
“Abby Sterling, I loved you when you were a little girl, full of fire. I loved you when you were a teenager, even though you were a pain in my ass. I loved you when you took the world by storm, shrugging off all your pain to conquer it. I’ve loved you my whole fucking life, Abby, and my only regret is waiting so long to tell you. What can I say? I’ve always been a fool for you.”
“Max — ”
“Just… let me finish. Please.”
He looked like he was in pain. She nodded.
“You’ve proven you can do it alone. No one who knows you could ever doubt it. But now… well, now, I’m hoping you’ll let me help. I’m hoping you’ll let me keep holding your hand and kissing your lips and laughing and holding you when you cry and being by your side no matter what else this life decides to throw our way. And I’m hoping we can do it in this mess of a house, because turning messes around, that’s your specialty, Abby. There’s no bigger proof than me."
He opened the box in his hand to reveal a ruby on a bed of midnight velvet, crystalline diamonds winking on each side.
“Will you put me out of my misery once and for all and marry me? Will you make me the happiest man alive and marry me? Will you tell me how the hell we’re going to fix up this mess of a house?” She laughed, choking back a sob. “Will you marry me, Abby?”
He shimmered through her tears as she gave him her answer. “Finally!”
He let out a whoop and stood, lifting her into the air and swinging her around.
The world spun, the house and the desert landscape a happy blur of color as Max’s arms folded around her.
He set her down and held her face in his hands, his smile lighting up her world in the moment before he lowered his mouth to hers.
They had come so far together. Their paths had sometimes diverged along the way, but in the end, they’d returned to the beginning, to the place they were meant to be all along.
And now, finally, they were home.
The End
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Also by Michelle St. James
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Surrender to Sin (Las Vegas Syndicate Book 3) Page 15