Wages of Sin: Las Vegas Syndicate Book Two

by Michelle St. James

  Farrell navigated the truck through the maze of narrow roads that ran between the storage units. A minute later, they stopped in front of one of the nondescript units marked with the number 234.

  Max reached for the door, then waited while Farrell backed the truck up to the unit. The maneuver would serve the dual-purpose of putting the truck in position to easily load the money and hiding their activity while they broke in.

  Farrell turned off the engine. “Let’s do this.”

  Max opened the door and stepped out onto the pavement, watching as Luca pulled the SUV to a stop next to the truck.

  Nico stepped out of the car. “Did you confirm with Damian?” he asked Farrell.

  “Confirmed,” Farrell said.

  “How long do we have?” Nico asked.

  Farrell laughed. “We could probably still be unloading at midnight and be fine. Damian said the system’s low-tech, the guard even more so. Odds of him noticing they’re on a loop in the next two hours is slim, but he’ll let us know if they see anything in the feed that makes them nervous.”

  “Good.” Nico looked at Luca. “You want to do the honors?”

  Luca pulled a small, black leather case from his pocket. Max caught the shimmer of metal in the dying sunlight as he approached the roll-up door of the storage unit.

  “Why don’t you take that corner,” Nico said to Max, tipping his head at the end of the row. “I’ll take the other one. Stay out of sight, speak up if you see anything that could be a problem.”

  Max nodded and headed to the end of the row. They’d staged at his place, each of them arming themselves with two weapons and plenty of ammo, just in case.

  They’d opted against comms equipment. They would be working in close proximity to each other. If there was a problem, they’d all know about it more or less at the same time.

  The storage facility was made up of row upon row of identical metal units: a maze of metal garage doors, ten to a row. Max got into position at the end of their row and looked back at Nico, standing at the other end.

  At unit number 234, Luca was bent to the lock, his hands working the pick set while Farrell stood nearby, his hand inside his jacket, ready to reach for his weapon if it became necessary.

  Max checked his phone: 7:12 p.m.

  Less than five hours until the DeLucas arrived to pick up their money.

  The storage lot was strangely serene, the evening sun baking the pavement, sending a trickle of sweat down Max’s spine. The facility was just outside the city, in the no man’s land between downtown and the Vegas suburbs where people engaged in activities like Little League and family pizza nights out of reach of the casinos and strip clubs.

  Traffic was muffled beyond the gates, and for a minute, Max could almost imagine he was back in Afghanistan, pulling guard duty against some crumbling building in some forgotten town.

  “Got it,” Luca said from the storage unit.

  Max looked over to see him moving to the center of the door. He grabbed ahold of the handle and it raised with a clatter.

  Max glanced down the path between units to make sure no one was coming before he looked back at Farrell and Luca.

  Farrell disappeared inside the unit for a couple minutes, then emerged to call out to Nico. “We’re good.”

  “How many boxes are we looking at?” Nico asked.

  “A lot.”

  Nico looked down the aisle he was guarding and started toward the unit. He ducked inside for a look and then started toward Max as Luca appeared at the back of the truck with a box in his arms.

  “You should help them load,” Nico said to Max. “It’s dead out here. I can cover it.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure.” Nico clapped him on the shoulder, and Max was surprised to feel camaraderie rise between them. It was something he’d found with his COs in Afghanistan, something he hadn’t realized he’d been missing since his father had died, and now, since he’d left the military.

  Nico was only older than him by a few years, but he had a slightly paternal air about him, one Max wasn’t as opposed to as he might have expected.

  Max holstered his weapon and headed for the storage unit. He didn’t know what he’d expected, but it wasn’t columns of plain, corrugated boxes stacked almost to the ceiling at the front of the unit.

  Farrell and Luca moved quickly, loading boxes into the back of the truck in perfect coordination, navigating around each other by instinct, neither of them breathing heavy or showing any other signs of exertion.

  Max bent to one of the boxes and used his keys to slice open the tape. At first all he saw was a black trash bag, but when he popped a hole in it, he was rewarded with stacks of cash bound together in ten thousand dollar bundles.

  “You going to ogle that money or are you going to help us out?” Farrell asked.

  Max dropped the money back into the box and folded the top. He straightened, taking in what was left in the storage unit, estimating there were at least seventy-five more boxes to load.

  He picked up the box he’d just unsealed and headed for the back of the truck.

  They worked in silent synchronicity, each of them picking up a box, loading it onto the truck.

  Lather, rinse, repeat.

  After awhile Max stopped expecting someone to interrupt them. He lost track of time in the rhythm of moving the boxes, the slowly shrinking stacks inside the storage unit, which is why he was so shocked when he heard Farrell’s voice at the back of the truck, talking to someone who obviously wasn’t one of them.

  Max picked up another box, keeping his expression impassive on his way to the truck.

  “Just loading up,” Farrell said to a squat young man wearing a rent-a-cop uniform.

  Beyond them, Nico was leaning casually on the wall of the unit next door, affecting the attitude of someone taking a smoke break, although there was no cigarette in sight.

  “Didn’t see you come in through the gates,” the security guard said, leaning in to look at the contents of the unit.

  “No offense, but your shitty camera system isn’t my problem, mate.” Farrell’s voice was friendly, one man giving another a little good-natured shit.

  Max focused on the boxes, just an average man wanting to get his work done so he could head out for an end-of-week beer. He glanced at Luca, noting the awareness in Luca’s eyes. The gun in Max’s holster suddenly felt heavier.

  “Man, you don’t even know,” the guard said. “Guy that owns this place doesn’t pay shit.”

  Farrell chuckled. “The rich get richer…”

  The guard shook his head. “You said it.” There was a pause as Max picked up another box. “So what you got in there?”

  Max glanced at Farrell and the guard, who had leaned in to look inside the storage unit. He was on alert as he slid the box into the truck, ready to reach for his weapon, although less sure what he would do with it.

  He wasn’t going to shoot some poor schmuck trying to make an honest living.

  “No offense,” Farrell said, his voice weary. “But we’ve got two more pick-ups after this. Mind if I get back to it?”

  “Oh… yeah! Definitely.” The guy chuckled and held out a hand. “Sorry. Gets a little lonely out here.”

  “No worries, mate.” Farrell shook his hand. “Have a good one.”

  Farrell turned away, a silent dismissal, and headed back inside the unit. He looked at Max as he bent to pick up one of the boxes. When Max returned to the truck, the guard was disappearing around the corner.

  “Fuck,” Luca said.

  “Nothing to worry about,” Farrell said.

  “He saw our faces,” Max said.

  “Doesn’t matter.” Farrell’s response was short. “There won’t be any cops, and once DeLuca is reimbursed for the loss by Jason, he won’t care who took the money — only that Jason was responsible for it when it was stolen.”

  It made sense, but the run-in with the guard still left a bad taste in Max’s mouth. He picked up the
pace, more anxious than ever to get out of there.

  By the time they loaded the last box onto the truck, the sun had set behind the mountains in the distance. The lights had come on around the storage facility, somehow making it look even more seedy than it had in the daylight.

  Max checked his phone: 9:52 p.m.

  Still plenty of time, but close enough that he wasn’t looking to stand around.

  “That’s it,” he said. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  He wanted to get back to Abby, reassure himself that she was safe by holding her in his arms, prepare himself for the eventuality of her return to work on Monday and the uncertainty of the conditions at the Tangier.

  “No complaints from me,” Luca said. “This place got creepy real fast.”

  “Lucky for us, we don’t have to wipe our prints,” Farrell said.

  Max laughed in spite of himself. It’s not like the DeLucas were going to call the police when they realized their laundered money was missing.

  They exited the unit and Luca bent to lower the rolling metal door. Max stood back, marveling at how normal it looked, no sign of their tampering with the lock or the fact that they’d just loaded up five million dollars belonging to Vegas’s reigning Mob boss.

  “We’ll see you at the warehouse,” Nico said to Farrell before turning to shake Max’s hand. “Max, thank you.”

  “I didn’t do it for you,” Max said.

  Nico nodded. “I know, but thank you anyway.”

  Nico and Luca headed for the SUV while Max climbed into the passenger side of the truck. He couldn’t help wondering what the Syndicate’s plan was for the money now that they had it. He had a sudden urge to tell Farrell he wanted to come along, then tamped it down.

  He didn’t want to know, didn’t want to be part of the Syndicate. Farrell would drop him off at home and that would be the end of it for Max, at least for tonight.

  It was the way he wanted it.

  Farrell pulled out his phone and held it to his ear as he started the truck. “Leaving now. You can drop the camera loop.”

  He hung up, put the truck in gear, and didn’t speak again until they’d pulled through the gates of the storage lot.

  “Well, that was easy.”

  Max fought against the superstition that it was a kind of jinx. That while taking the money had been surprisingly easy, the worst was still in front of them.

  Twenty

  Abby took a deep breath as she entered the elevator, steeling herself for whatever was to come. She’d spent the weekend with Max, holed up at her house and his, eating and making love and watching movies, pretending that this moment wasn’t coming.

  But it had always been coming. It was a moment that had been set in motion long before Max had gotten involved with the Syndicate. Long before Abby knew Jason was involved with the DeLucas.

  It was what she’d signed up for when she’d insisted on keeping her job at the Tangier, on betraying Jason to feed information to Max and the Syndicate.

  She would make the same choice again if it meant taking down Jason, but the knowledge didn’t prevent her heart from hammering in her chest as the elevator rose to the top floor.

  She almost held her breath when the doors opened, half-expecting all hell to be breaking loose inside the executive offices.

  But it was just like always — Samantha not yet at the reception desk, the office quiet and empty until she got to the hall leading to her office where Bruce Frazier was already at his post, his black boots crossed on the desk.

  “Good morning,” she said crisply as she passed.

  He glanced up from his paper but didn’t answer. She didn’t take it as any kind of sign. The man hadn’t said five words to her in the three weeks she’d been back.

  She entered her offices and unpacked her stuff, then went to the break room to get coffee. She was glad she didn’t run into Jason. He knew her, really knew her. She wasn’t sure she would have been able to maintain her mask of nonchalance.

  She returned to her desk and got to work, looking up every now and then as the office slowly filled with employees, the hum growing louder with the sound of tapping on keyboards, murmured conversation, the ring of the company phones.

  It was nearly ten a.m. when a burst of noise came from the lobby. Abby froze, her hands hovering over her keyboard. Voices erupted from the part of the hall she couldn’t see, the part connecting the lobby with the executive office suite.

  She wanted to hide, to shut her door and ignore what was happening, let it play out. But that’s not what she would have done if she’d been oblivious to Jason’s dealings with the DeLuca family.

  And it was important that she appear oblivious.

  She hurried around her desk and reached the door of her office in time to see Bruce Frazier plant his legs wide, blocking the hall, his weapon drawn. Beyond him, Abby could see other men gathered, although she only had a view of pieces — a leather jacket, a broad face, a balding pate.

  “I’m sorry, I told them they couldn’t…” Samantha’s voice trailed off somewhere beyond Frazier's hulking figure.

  Abby’s staff was standing beside their desks and at the doors of their offices, staring wide-eyed at the gun in Frazier’s hand.

  She stepped into the hall and headed purposefully toward him. “What is going on out here? And what the hell are you doing with a gun drawn in this office?”

  He didn’t speak, didn’t turn to look at her, didn’t acknowledge her presence in any way as he continued staring down the men beyond her line of sight.

  “You must be Miss Sterling.”

  She stepped around Frazier to find that the statement had come from the man at the front of the group — a man she recognized from the news.

  Fredo DeLuca.

  He had a wide face and nose, his dark hair thinning and slicked back. He was shorter than he appeared on TV, but his stature did nothing to detract from the ominous contrast of the smile on his face and the cruelty in his dark eyes. He was older than she’d expected, but his suited figure was trim, his posture communicating the confidence of someone who’d gotten his way for a very long time.

  She forced herself to maintain an expression of annoyance, trying to stay in character: the shocked and indignant employee who had no idea what was going on.

  “I don’t know who you are, but you can’t just barge in here like this.” She turned to Bruce Frazier. “Are you insane? We have employees here.” She looked at the gun. “Put that away.”

  “These men aren’t going any further,” he said, his eyes still on the group in front of him.

  She looked beyond DeLuca at the three men standing slightly behind him. They were obviously DeLuca’s muscle — younger than DeLuca himself and plenty imposing. Two of them had guns drawn on Frazier.

  Abby drew in a breath and looked at DeLuca. “I’m not sure what this is about, but if you’d like to step back into the lobby, I’m sure we can arrange for a more civilized way of dealing with it. You’re frightening our employees.”

  Fredo DeLuca’s smirk caught her off-guard. It was the smile of someone who knew things you didn’t want him to know, the smile of someone who held a royal flush while everyone else at the table was going all in on two pair.

  He didn’t get a chance to respond. Instead, Jason’s voice sounded from behind Abby in the hall.

  “It’s all right. Let them in.”

  DeLuca smiled at her, and she had to resist the urge to shiver. She’d never met Nico Vitale, had never met any of the men Max was working with at the Syndicate, but it was hard to imagine they were anything like this man. DeLuca was every bit the old world mobster, a man Abby could easily see ordering death and destruction in response to any number of grievances.

  Against all reason, she was suddenly afraid for Jason.

  “You sure?” Bruce Frazier asked, his gun still on DeLuca.

  “Of course,” Jason said. He was unusually pale, but other than that, he looked oddly calm.

 
Rosie, on the other hand, looked anything but calm. She stood beyond Jason’s shoulder, her face a mask of shock, her eyes bright with fear.

  Frazier lowered his weapon and moved over just far enough to allow DeLuca and his men into the hall. Abby stepped aside as they passed, forcing herself to meet DeLuca’s knowing gaze as he continued to Jason’s office.

  Bruce Frazier stepped in line behind them. The office seemed to hold its breath in the moment before Jason closed his office door.

  A collective sigh of relief was followed by a burst of chatter and quiet exclamation.

  Abby looked at the people around her. She thought about Sarah’s new baby, born only four months earlier, about Robert’s fiancé and the wedding they were planning for later that year, about Carol’s granddaughter who was graduating from Yale next month, a trip Carol had talked about nonstop since last fall.

  Jason had put them all at risk, had endangered their lives for money.

  For power.

  “It’s all right, everyone,” Abby said, forcing herself to smile. “You know how annoyed suppliers get when we’re past due on an invoice.”

  The joke fell flat, but it seemed to break up some of the tension. She wanted to tell them to get their things and go. To get out of the office as quickly as they could and never look back.

  But that wouldn’t do.

  “Let’s get back to work, guys,” she said. “Everything’s fine.”

  They turned away from her, but not before she caught their expressions of disbelief and fear.

  They didn’t buy it. Not for a minute.

  This was Vegas. Anyone who’d lived here longer than three months knew it was a town built on corruption — and anyone who watched or read the news knew Fredo DeLuca was the purported head of the Vegas Mob.

  Still, it got them out of the hall, some of them heading to the break room for more coffee and a chance to gossip while others sat at their desks and tried to get back to work.

  Abby returned to her office, leaving her door open, and sat at her desk. Her hand shook as she took a sip of cold coffee, forcing her eyes on her computer screen even though there was no hope of her concentrating.

  She wanted to pick up her phone, tell Max it was beginning.