Wages of Sin: Las Vegas Syndicate Book Two

by Michelle St. James

  And as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t argue with her reasoning.

  Now he just wanted to wrap up the whole thing as quickly as possible so he could start sleeping at night instead of fighting images of something terrible happening to Abby.

  Farrell turned around and ambled back to the table. He lowered his significant frame into one of the chairs and finished off his drink. “I agree that intercepting it in transit makes it too easy to draw attention to ourselves. I say we move on the money at the storage facility.”

  Max nodded. “And we’re sure there’s a six hour lull between the drop-off and pickup?”

  “We’re sure,” Nico said.

  Christophe’s cyber lab had hacked into the security footage from the storage facility as soon as Abby realized the money was being moved out in boxes along with the rest of the returned goods from the casino. All of the shipments were bound for warehouses belonging to wholesalers — all except one.

  For the past three months, a series of boxes had been unloaded at the storage facility on the last Friday of the month at six p.m. from a truck originating at the Tangier. The boxes were picked up at midnight on the same evening by a group of men in a truck registered to Desert Restaurant Supply — a shell company with murky ownership and no record of providing goods to any casino in Vegas.

  “Six hours is more than enough time to move the boxes out,” Luca said.

  “What do we do with the money once we have it?” Max asked.

  “We don’t do anything with it,” Farrell said. “The Syndicate will move the money.”

  “Fine with me,” Max said. He wasn’t interested in the money. In fact, the less he had to do with the whole thing, the better. “Then what?”

  “Then we wait,” Nico said. “See what kind of breakdown occurs between Jason and DeLuca. With any luck, their relationship will deteriorate quickly. When it does, we’ll set up a meeting with Fredo and offer to step in and clean up the mess.”

  “And Jason just goes free?” Max could hardly get the words out.

  Farrell’s laugh was short. “Jason Draper isn’t going anywhere.”

  Max heard the implication in Farrell’s words — that Jason would be killed — and felt nothing. He didn’t have time to analyze it. To wonder what it said about him. Jason wasn’t his concern. Not anymore. Max’s only concern was Abby’s safety, and Abby couldn’t be safe in Vegas as long as Jason was running the show with the DeLucas.

  “What if DeLuca isn’t interested in a new partner?” Max asked.

  “That’s our problem,” Farrell said.

  “Not just yours,” Max said. “Abby and I have to live here when this is all over.”

  “DeLuca won’t have a choice,” Nico said quietly. “His riff with Jason — and the loss of his money — will represent a tremendous concession of power, of control. You don’t stay the head of a family when your men think you don’t have control. When they don’t respect you.”

  Max was willing to bet Nico Vitale had never experienced a similar loss of confidence or respect from his men. Nico was perfectly controlled, almost reserved, but the quietness of his voice, the stillness in his movements, was that of a predatory animal prepared to strike.

  Max had faced many dangerous men in Afghanistan, on the other side and on his — none of them had created the unsettling mixture of respect and fear he felt in Nico’s presence.

  “Nico’s right,” Farrell said. “DeLuca will be forced to partner with us when his gaffe with Draper comes to light. He’ll need the additional show of power to hold off any of his men who might be thinking about a coup.”

  “Can we pull this off in two days?” Max asked.

  “We can pull it off,” Nico said.

  “Don’t you have men who can do this?” Max asked, finally voicing a question that had lurked at the back of his mind for weeks. “Seems a little low-level.”

  “We have men,” Luca said. “I can bring a few in from Miami, or we can ask Damian to send us a couple from New York.”

  “We’re not asking the other bosses to sacrifice men to the Vegas territory,” Nico said. “Not unless it becomes critical to the survival of the Syndicate as an organization, and we’re not there yet.”

  An increasingly familiar admiration sprang to life inside Max. It wasn’t just Nico. It was the strong and unpretentious running of the Syndicate as a whole, the honor code that while mostly unspoken, was obviously critical to their operations.

  Max had seen behind the curtain enough to know that the men seated at his table were wealthy and powerful. They were men accustomed to their authority, men who carried themselves with the kind of quiet — or in the case of Farrell, not so quiet — confidence that only came from absolute power.

  They could have pulled men from the other territories and left the whole situation to Max, knowing Max had enough invested in Abby’s safety that he would do everything in his power to get the job done.

  Instead, they were here.

  Here and ready to fight alongside Max.

  “We won’t need extra men anyway,” Farrell said, interrupting Max’s thoughts. “There’s four of us, and that’s if Christophe doesn’t make it. We’re not looking at any resistance. We might as well be moving bloody furniture.”

  “Five million dollars isn’t furniture,” Max said.

  Farrell looked at him. “Might as well be. For all intents and purposes, it’s just a bunch of boxes."

  Max wanted to argue on principle, but Farrell had a point. The money would be dropped off at six p.m. and loaded into the storage facility. All the Syndicate had to do — and Max along with them — was subvert the security cameras and load the boxes full of money into a truck sometime before DeLuca’s men arrived six hours later.

  It sounded easy. On the other hand, things that sounded easy usually carried a hidden cost.

  Nico looked at Luca. “Can you secure us a truck before Friday?”

  Luca nodded. “No problem.”

  “Weapons?” Nico asked Farrell.

  “Done.”

  “We can stage here,” Max said.

  Farrell raised his nearly-empty glass. “To staging. And to detonating a bomb between DeLuca and that bastard Draper."

  Eighteen

  Abby reached the bottom of the spreadsheet tracking the month’s revenue and leaned back in her chair. She’d been so preoccupied tracking the flow of DeLuca’s money at the Tangier that it had been a challenge to stay on top of her regular work, something that was critical if she wanted to avoid additional scrutiny from Jason — not to mention Bruce Frazier.

  She’d taken to coming in even earlier and staying late, determined to act the part of responsible employee while Max worked behind the scenes with the Syndicate to arrange for the theft of DeLuca’s money.

  It was easy enough to pass off; she’d been out of town for over a month. Catching up was inevitable.

  Still, she couldn’t help being nervous. As far as she knew, Jason had no idea what she’d been up to — and no idea what was coming.

  In less than twelve hours, Max, Nico, and a handful of other men Abby hadn’t met would intercept the money. By tomorrow at this time, DeLuca would know his money was missing.

  Max had assured her that Fredo DeLuca wouldn’t know who’d taken it. He’d even gone so far as to suggest DeLuca wouldn’t care. According to Max, Jason was responsible for the money until it was back in DeLuca’s hands. The theft would be seen as Jason’s responsibility. That’s how it worked.

  It didn’t matter if it was fair.

  Jason’s money had been a concern, one she’d brought up to Max when they’d first discussed stealing the money; wouldn’t Jason just pay off Deluca’s loss and continue business a usual?

  According to Max, it would’t work that way. No one was going to kiss off five million dollars with a hug and a handshake. Fredo DeLuca might take Jason’s payoff once, but the damage would be done. He wouldn’t trust Jason to move his money anymore, wouldn’t trust Jason to be
his partner. He would suspect the information breach had come from somewhere inside the casino.

  And that was the point.

  Distrust was all the Syndicate needed to make a move on Jason’s half of the Vegas territory, to make the point to Fredo DeLuca that any loss of revenue they might experience from partnering with the Syndicate and playing by their rules would be offset by their confidence in the Syndicate’s ability to get the job done without the kind of mistakes that resulted in a five million dollar loss.

  She tabbed through the casino’s files and opened the inventory manifest for that month’s returns. It only took a minute to locate the boxes destined for return to Desert Restaurant Supply — the boxes loaded with DeLuca’s cash.

  According to the system, twenty boxes were earmarked for return, all listed as “consignment returns”.

  It was a smart move on Jason’s part. If the boxes had been marked as regular returns, there would’ve been a discrepancy in the books. Why would the Tangier return merchandise to a company that had never sold anything to the casino? To a company that would never compensate them for the loss?

  But a consignment meant there was no record of incoming merchandise to balance against a return. It was like a loan from a company willing to split profits, if and only if the merchandise was eventually sold. Should Jason ever be audited, he would only have to shrug and say the casino sometimes took consignments as a way to test new merchandise without making an investment, then explain the merchandise hadn’t sold and had been returned to the vendor.

  “Early again?”

  Abby looked up, startled by the sound of Jason’s voice. He was standing in her doorway with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

  Abby laughed. “Always these days. Still trying to catch up.”

  He nodded and entered her office, dropping into one of the chairs opposite her desk. It shouldn’t have made her uneasy. Jason had frequently stopped in to chat in the past.

  But now every nerve in her body was on high alert, the knowledge of what she’d done — of what she was doing — threatening to make her flush with guilt.

  “How have you been?” she asked, hoping to take the focus off her. “We haven’t had much of a chance to talk since I’ve been back.”

  “I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about me,” he said. “Given that I was the bearer of bad news.”

  The tension was suddenly thick in the room, like a sudden drop in temperature that sent a shiver up her spine. He was fishing, fishing for information about her and Max.

  “No point killing the messenger.” She smiled sadly. “And I suppose I should tell you that I haven’t quite figured out what to do about Max long-term.”

  “Oh?”

  He sounded only mildly surprised, and she thought of the man who had been following her up until the week before. She could only assume he’d been hired by Jason and had reported back that Abby had been seeing Max since her return from Mexico.

  Lying would only make Jason distrust her.

  She picked up a pen and tapped it lightly on her desk. “It’s… complicated.”

  “Love usually is.”

  His voice was flat, and she looked at him, forcing herself to utter words that would pacify him for the time being. “I think I’m still trying to figure out how much of it is history and how much of it is real, you know?”

  She wanted to scream.

  It’s not true, it’s not true, it’s not true.

  She loved Max with her whole being. Had loved him as long as she could remember. Would love him until the day she died.

  But that was too dangerous a truth to speak to Jason.

  “I only want what’s best for you,” he said.

  She wondered if he believed it.“I know, and I appreciate it.”

  He stood to leave. “If you ever want to talk, you know where to find me.”

  She forced a smile. “Thank you. I may take you up on that sometime.”

  When hell freezes over.

  “Have a nice weekend, Abby. You’ve been working hard. You deserve it.”

  She watched him leave, her blood boiling in the wake of his patronizing tone, in his belief that she was stupid enough to come back here without knowing the truth about Max.

  That Max was weak enough to just let her go.

  Outside in the hall, Jason called Frazier over. Abby watched as they conferred in low tones, and a moment later, Jason headed toward his office with Frazier on his heels.

  The bodyguard caught her eye through the glass wall of her office on his way down the hall. She tried to hold his gaze on principle and found she couldn’t.

  She picked up her phone instead, looking at the time: 5:05 p.m.

  The money would be on its way to the storage facility any minute.

  Nineteen

  Max rode shotgun as Farrell navigated the truck through the streets of Vegas. Behind them, Nico and Luca drove a black SUV. Christophe hadn’t come after all. Nico hadn’t thought it necessary. They weren’t expecting trouble.

  Max had tried to get Abby to stay home from work, but she’d repeated the argument that it would only draw attention to her on the day of the theft. He hated that he was so preoccupied with her safety that she had to point out something so simple, but he was worried to the point of distraction. Every day she went to work at the Tangier felt like a day she spent at the circus, circling a hungry lion with nothing more than a feather and a chair as distraction.

  But it was almost over. They would take DeLuca’s money and with any luck, the partnership between the DeLuca family and Jason would deteriorate quickly thereafter.

  The sooner the better as far as Max was concerned.

  He didn’t care about DeLuca. Fredo DeLuca was a business man. Nothing more. He would have to agree to the Syndicate’s rules to operate in the city, and Max would make sure a provision for Abby’s safety was included in any agreement between the two organizations.

  Jason was different. He was nursing a grudge, looking to grind his ax on Max and Abby for the crime of being in love. He was an expert at the long game, quietly fanning the flames of his plans to steal Cartwright Holdings through all the years Donald Cartwright had spent mentoring him, chipping away at Abby’s armor by giving her the job at the Tangier.

  Abby wouldn’t be safe until Jason was in prison or dead. Max didn’t have the luxury of caring or not caring. It was a fact, one he kept at the forefront of his mind as he worked the most important mission of his life — protecting Abby.

  “Not getting nervous on me, are you?” Farrell asked.

  “No,” Max said.

  Farrell let the silence sit for a full minute before speaking again. “You don’t like me much, do you, mate?”

  “I imagine you don’t give two shits whether I like you or not.”

  Farrell laughed. “You’re not wrong.”

  “Then why ask?”

  “Curiosity, more than anything else,” Farrell said.

  “I don’t have strong feelings about you either way,” Max said. “Other than the fact that you’re a dick most of the time.”

  Farrell looked over at him with a grin. “One of my better qualities.”

  Max wasn’t amused. He tried to imagine Farrell’s wife, tried to picture the kind of woman who would put up with his shit. Then again, it was entirely possible Farrell Black was a different animal altogether with the woman he loved.

  Max wasn’t exactly warm and fuzzy with anyone but Abby.

  A fresh sense of resolution came with the thought of her. Farrell Black wasn’t the only one who didn’t give two shits what anyone thought — Max was solidly in the not-giving-two-shits camp with Farrell Black.

  It didn’t matter if Farrell liked him. Didn’t matter if Farrell was nice to his wife, if he had a hidden sensitive side. Once the partnership between DeLuca and Jason was terminated and the Syndicate brought the DeLuca family into the fold, Max was out. With any luck, he’d never see any of the men from the Syndicate again — and that w
ent double for Farrell Black.

  “Think we’ll run into trouble?” Max asked.

  “Don’t know,” Farrell said.

  He sounded almost cheerful, and Max turned to look at him. “I’m glad someone’s enjoying themselves.”

  “Not knowing is part of the fun, mate.”

  The words did nothing to reassure Max. Instinct told him Farrell Black was always looking for a fight, and in Max’s experience, those kinds of men were rarely disciplined in a confrontation.

  Max wasn’t expecting a confrontation, but he wanted to know he could count on Farrell to be coolheaded if the situation arose.

  And cool-headed didn’t strike him as Farrell’s forte.

  Farrell slowed down as they approached the gate to the storage facility and reached for his phone. A few seconds later, he spoke into it.

  “Is the loop running?” Max waited as Farrell listened to the voice on the other end of the phone. “How long do we have?” Another pause. “Good. Call if there’s a problem.”

  “We good?” Max asked.

  “We’re good.”

  “You have the code?” Max asked when they came to a stop next to a keypad.

  “Wouldn’t be here with my dick out if I didn’t.”

  Farrell had rented a unit at the storage facility the day before in order to gain an access code to the lot. That would get them inside: a lock pick would take care of the storage unit itself.

  Max had been worried about the security cameras that undoubtedly kept an eye on the facility, but according to Nico, the system was old and easily hacked by the Syndicate’s cyber lab. The lab would run a loop on the cameras, insuring they had plenty of time to break into it and unload the cash without being seen.

  Later, when the DeLucas demanded to see the tapes, it would look like the money had disappeared like magic from inside the unit.

  Farrell keyed in the code and the gate opened. Max watched in the side mirror as the SUV driven by Luca rolled through behind them.

  So far, so good.