“Funny?”
She looked around, then leaned over the table. “There’s this guy on the payroll, George?”
Max nodded.
“He’s making a six-figure salary as an appraiser.”
Max shrugged. “So? Maybe Jason’s buying art for the casino.”
“So,” Abby said, “the guy is huge. At least as tall as you and probably three hundred pounds. He wears a leather jacket and carries a briefcase everywhere.”
“I’m still not following,” Max said.
She leaned back as Amanda returned with their drinks. Abby smiled up at her.
“Thanks.”
She waited for Amanda to leave to speak again. “If you saw him, you’d know what I mean.”
Max tried to order the pieces in his mind. Tried to make them fit with what Nico Vitale had told him.
“So what are you saying?” he asked.
“I’m not saying anything,” Abby said. “You asked if I’d ever noticed anything weird.”
“And you think this guy, George, is weird?”
“Believe me, you would, too. Plus there’s an off-the-books account somewhere.”
That got Max’s attention. “What kind of account?”
“I don’t know,” Abby said. “Actually, I don’t even know it exists, but I assume it does because every week there’s a big deposit into one of the casino’s accounts, and a few days later, it’s empty, so I assume it’s being transferred to another account I can’t see.”
“How do you know it’s not connected to the casino?” Max asked.
“Jason told me it was personal.”
Max was fighting the worry seeping through his body when Amanda appeared with their food. Could the account Abby was talking about be the one Jason used to move the money from the poker games Vitale had mentioned? And what about the appraiser? Was he really some kind of muscle employed to keep everyone in line? To move the cash?
“I’m starving,” Abby said, biting into her burger after Amanda had gone. She closed her eyes and moaned with pleasure, threatening to revive Max’s hard-on.
What the fuck was the matter with him? He was all over the place.
“So Jason told you not to run the numbers on the one account?” Max asked right before taking a bite of his own burger.
She nodded as she finished chewing. “And I couldn’t run them anyway, since I have no idea where the money comes from or where it goes. It’s just a number in the software. There’s not enough context to run anything.”
He watched as she tackled her onion rings. Her appetite was one of the things he loved about her. In a town where practically every woman’s job was dependent on the scale, Abby couldn’t have cared less. He knew she did yoga from time to time, but she’d never been one for the gym.
It’s not like it hurt her. She was lush and soft, her body swelling in all the right places. He could imagine her in bed, her body splayed across satin sheets, her —
His cock lurched to attention and he forced his thoughts back to their conversation. He could not be thinking about Abby in bed. It was one of the cardinal rules of their friendship. He’d obviously been thrown by the visit from Nico Vitale, by the reminder of his friendship with Jason and his long history with Abby, his instinct to protect her.
He was confusing that instinct with lust. That was all.
Seven
Abby looked at Max from across the table and took in the concern in his eyes, the furrow on the bridge of his nose. She knew Max Cartwright. Something was bothering him.
She just didn’t know what it was.
“Max…” she finally said. “What is this about?”
He shrugged, his blue eyes darkening. “It’s been awhile since we’ve talked about Jason, and the casino business is a dirty one. I worry about you.”
“You don’t have to worry about me.” She traced drops of moisture from her glass on the table. “You could call him, you know. He’d be happy to hear from you.”
His laugh was short and bitter. “I’m not going to call Jason Draper.”
It hurt her to hear Max use Jason’s full name. As if they were strangers. As if they hadn’t grown up together. As if they hadn’t spent hours laughing and talking.
As if they hadn’t cried together.
“But you could,” Abby said gently.
She knew how much Jason had hurt him. Knew it was at the heart of the bitterness that was eating Max alive. His father’s death, random though it was, hadn’t helped.
Afghanistan definitely hadn’t helped.
But it had to end eventually, didn’t it? As much as she joked about Max’s lifestyle, deep down she was worried that one day, it would kill him. Worried it was ruining him little by little, rotting him from the inside out, eclipsing the kindhearted boy he’d once been.
Max met her eyes. “I won’t.”
She reached across the table for his hand, was unsurprised by the heat that sparked between their palms. By the lick of electricity that ran through her body.
She’d never fooled herself into believing she wasn’t attracted to him. Had never tried to sell herself on the idea that she thought of him as a brother. She’d learned a long time ago that lying to herself was the one sin that had the power to destroy her. She could deal with anything, overcome anything, if she was honest about it, if she knew what she was up against.
And she’d always been up against her feelings for Max Cartwright.
They were feelings she could never, ever indulge. Not if she wanted him to remain her best friend. Not if she didn’t want to be another one of those notches in his bedpost.
And she would never be that. Not for anyone. Not even him.
She squeezed his hand and let go, pulling her arm back across the table to the safety of her lap. “If you say so.”
“I do.” He hesitated. “Would you tell me?”
“Tell you what?” she asked.
“If anything went bad at the Tangier. With Jason.”
She drew in a breath. “If it was… material.”
“Material?” She heard the note of disbelief in his voice. “Your safety is always material to me, Abby.”
She shook her head. “I signed an NDA when I went to work for Jason,” she said. “Even if I wanted to betray his trust — and I don’t — I have to honor the terms of the agreement if I don’t want to be sued, to say nothing of my career. A violation of my NDA would finish me in the financial world.”
“I would never ask you to compromise your career, Abby. You know that.”
“Why do I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me?" she asked.
He finished his drink. “I’m just looking out for you.”
She smiled. “I know. And I appreciate it. Always.”
It was what he’d always done. Standing between her and schoolyard bullies, letting her hide out at his house when going home was unbearable.
When it was dangerous.
Not asking questions when she saw them lurking in his eyes. Just being quiet and holding her hand when it was what she needed most.
“Want another drink?” he asked, nodding at her empty glass.
“I shouldn’t. I have to drive.” She looked pointedly at him. “And so do you.”
He extended his arms and grinned. “We live in Vegas. There are cabs aplenty.”
She smiled, but she already missed the old Max, the one who’d said he was looking out for her. This was the new Max — arms spread, roguish grin, party boy on the loose.
She loved him, but she didn’t love him nearly as much as she loved her Max.
“Maybe another time.”
She didn’t bother leaving money as she gathered her things. She and Max had argued every Friday night for months over who would pay when they’d first started meeting for drinks at Herbs & Rye. She always lost, and Max had finally implored her to let him do this one thing for her.
He threw cash on the table. “I’ll walk you to your car.”
They
scooted out of the booth and started for the door.
“See you next week,” Amanda said from the bar.
“Only if I’m lucky,” Max replied.
Abby rolled her eyes.
They stepped out into the mild spring air, a warm wind blowing out of the desert. She caught the scent of eucalyptus and sage, hot sand and clean air.
The city’s lights glimmered around them, the strip beckoning like a neon oasis. But here, the parking lot was dark and quiet, Herbs & Rye known mostly to locals.
They made their way to Abby’s car and she pushed the button on her keychain to unlock it.
“How is it?” Max asked, touching the car’s roof.
“It’s perfect,” she said. “I love it.”
“So…”
“So… you were right,” she said. “It’s the best thing I could have done for myself.”
He reached up, tucked a windblown piece of hair behind her ear, his face suddenly serious. “You deserve everything, Abby. Don’t you know that yet?”
She swallowed the emotion that clogged her throat. “I’m working on it.”
He nodded, his hand lingering on her cheek. “Good. I’ll keep reminding you.”
She was rooted in place, her feet glued to the concrete. She should get in the car, but Max was looking at her. Really looking at her, the way he only seemed to look at her when he was drunk, when his guard was down, when he wasn’t playing Max the Playboy, Max the Rogue, Max the Trust Fund Baby.
She wanted to freeze time. To hold onto this moment when it seemed like he was really here with her. When maybe he was on the verge of saying something important.
Something that would change everything.
“Max…”
He dropped his hand and leaned in to kiss her cheek, then wrapped her in an embrace. Was it her imagination that he held on longer than usual?
“Got to go,” he said into her hair before pulling away. He started walking backwards, arms outstretched to the city. “The night is young!”
She smiled and got in her car. When she shut the door and looked in her side mirror, he was still walking backwards, still watching the place where they’d stood a moment before.
Eight
Max unlocked the door to the house as the woman (Kelly? Katie?) ran her hands over his thigh, between his legs. She was giggling, drunker than he was, although he wouldn’t hold that against her. He’d gotten good at holding his liquor.
He’d met her at the bar at Caesar’s Palace, where he’d gone to nurse his twenty-two thousand dollar loss at the roulette table. He’d been off all night, his usual moves and pick-up lines forced and unnatural until he got a few more drinks in him. Then he’d met the platinum blonde now stumbling after him into the foyer, and the rest, as they say, was history.
“Is this your house?” she slurred, looking around. “It’s so pretty!”
He took her hand and pulled her into the living room. He slipped the dimmer to turn the lights on low, then hit the remote for music.
“Want another drink?”
“No more drinks,” she said.
“Fine with me.” He took her hand and led her to the sofa, pulling her down next to him.
“You don’t want to go to the bedroom?” she asked.
“No.”
He leaned in to kiss her, slid his hand into her hair. Her mouth was warm and willing, but his earlier unease had returned. The kiss felt mechanical, cold. So did he, for that matter. He wasn’t even hard.
She ran a hand along his thigh and reached for the button on his pants. “Let’s see what we’ve got in here,” she cooed.
She was sliding her hand into his pants when something snapped in him. He wasn’t even aware of deciding to stop her. There was just his hand around her wrist, her mouth open in surprise.
“Something wrong?” she asked.
He scooted away from her. “No, I just… I’m suddenly not feeling well. I should call you a car.”
He stood to fish his phone out of his pocket and she put a hand on his shoulder. “Is there anything I can do?”
He shook his head, the question causing a strange swell in his chest.
Was there anything she could do?
No, there was nothing anyone could do. He was fucked up, broken. He had more than most people and all he could do was drink and fuck to keep himself from feeling anything.
He turned to meet her eyes. It was the least she deserved. “No, but thank you for asking. I’m sorry.”
She smiled, but he thought he caught a quiver in her lip. “It’s all right.”
He made her a cup of tea while they waited for the car. He learned she’d come to Vegas hoping to model and had instead ended up working at one of the restaurants at Caesar’s. It was a better gig than a lot of girls who came to Vegas with the same dreams, but he could see the disappointment in her eyes, in the slope of her shoulders.
By the time the car arrived he was actually glad he hadn’t fucked her. He would never have remembered her then. He would have taken her on the sofa. They would have fallen asleep and he would have made her the usual perfunctory breakfast in the morning, then shuffled her off into the desert sun, hoping to never see her again.
He’d probably never see her again, but he might remember her now. Might remember that she was Katie from St. Louis. That she was out there in the city, trying to find a little joy like the rest of them.
She gave him a hug when she left and he stood watching the car make its way down the darkened drive. He hoped the city would be good to her. She’d been better to him than he deserved, like most of the women he’d met.
When the taillights of the car had been swallowed by the desert, he closed the door and started a pot of coffee, pacing the living room while it brewed, trying to trace the change in his mood.
It didn’t take him long to realize it was because of his dinner with Abby. Something had shifted inside of him at the thought of her in danger.
At the thought of Jason putting her in danger.
It had started earlier in the day with the visit from Nico Vitale, but it had only gotten worse when he’d sat across from Abby, looking into the alchemy of her eyes, feeling the warmth of her hand around his, the press of her body when he’d walked her to her car.
Everything had suddenly felt more urgent. Nico Vitale hadn’t been talking about an abstract danger — he’d been talking about danger to Abby.
His Abby.
The old protective urge had reared its head with a vengeance. It had never been easy to ignore Abby’s beauty, the light that seemed to shine from her eyes. But he’d forced himself to get used to it, to overlook it. It was a form of self-preservation. He could never be more than her friend. Thinking about how special she was didn’t change anything.
Vitale’s visit had reminded him of her rarity. Like being told there were only a limited number of spots in the high-roller room, it made him want her in a way that was dangerous.
In a way that compromised his reason.
He couldn’t have her — but he could protect her.
He walked into the study and opened his computer, then typed Nico Vitale into the search engine. There wasn’t as much as he’d expected — mentions of a company in New York called MediaComm, some press releases related to the business, an old news article reporting the death of Nico’s parents in an execution-style killing years before. There were only two images. The first was a picture of Nico leaving a restaurant in Rome with a beautiful blonde. The caption was in Italian.
He clicked on the translator.
Reclusive billionaire Nico Vitale leaving Luna with his wife Angelica.
The second photograph had been taken from a distance and showed Vitale dressed in a suit, leaving a cemetery with the same blonde on his arm. The caption described him as leaving the funeral of someone named Raneiro Donati.
Interesting.
He thought for a minute about his meeting with Vitale, then did a search on the Syndicate and organized crime.
This time there was more. He started at the beginning, with articles about the FBI’s repeated attempts to shut down the Syndicate ten years earlier. There were more mentions of Raneiro Donati, who seemed to be in charge of the Syndicate at that time. Donati had eventually been taken into custody and sent to prison, but in a strange twist, had turned State’s witness and was released, only to be murdered in New York.
Max returned to the picture of Nico leaving the funeral. He tried to decipher Vitale’s mood from his straight posture, the bow of his head. He couldn’t. The man was as unreadable in the photograph as he’d been in person.
Max combed the articles for other names. There were a handful that came up over and over — Farrell Black and Christophe Marchand, plus an FBI agent named Braden Kane who had left the agency a couple years before. He followed those names through the search engines, too, gathering information as he went, his mind processing everything Nico Vitale had told him, putting it together with the new pieces he’d uncovered online.
It was nearly three a.m. when he finished, and he sat back in his chair and stared at the screen. The room was dark around him, lit only by the blue light from his laptop.
The details he’d gathered didn’t necessarily support Vitale’s assertions about Jason. A search on Jason Draper — something Max had avoided for years — turned up the usual stuff: an article in Forbes, including two years in their Thirty Under Thirty feature and one in Fortune’s Forty Under Forty after Jason turned thirty-one. There were plentiful articles from Vegas papers about the Tangier, both when it had been under construction and now that it was complete, plus a few photos from fundraisers and VIP parties.
But nothing that indicated the DarkNet poker games alleged by Vitale.
Still, Max’s research lent weight to the things Nico had told him, connecting Nico — however tenuously — to the Syndicate and verifying the Syndicate as a major force in the world of organized crime. The lack of news after Raneiro Donati’s death could mean the Syndicate had been dismantled, or it could mean that the new Syndicate was very, very good at keeping their name out of the papers.
King of Sin: Las Vegas Syndicate Book One Page 5