The cop met his eyes. “No.”
The door buzzed and Max reached for the knob and stepped into the lobby. He looked around, but no one was there, and he wondered who’d sprung him, if Abby had somehow heard about what happened and posted his bail but was too pissed to come to the station.
He wouldn’t blame her.
He passed through the lobby and stepped out into the hot Vegas sun. He was almost to the sidewalk, removing his phone from the bag to call a car, when he noticed a black Town Car idling at the curb.
The rear window retracted and Nico’s face appeared in its frame. “Get in.”
Max opened his mouth to speak, then closed it and walked around to the other side of the car.
He got in, and the driver pulled away from the curb and started through the city.
Max turned to Nico, sitting calmly next to him, his face as impassive as ever.
“Do you mind telling me what the fuck happened?”
“Later,” Nico said. He hesitated, and Max felt the weight of his pause, knew whatever was coming next would change everything. “You have a bigger problem right now.”
Twenty-Nine
He knew where they were going even before the car stopped at the curb outside Abby’s house. He didn’t know why they were there, but he knew he wouldn’t like it.
He looked at the house through the window, noted the fact that Abby’s car was gone.
“Key’s under the plant by the front door.” Nico’s voice was surprisingly quiet. Was Max imagining the note of regret there? “I’ll wait for you here. Then we’ll talk.”
Max opened the door and made his way slowly up Abby’s walk. Whatever had happened was done. He had a feeling he would remember this moment — the moment between the way he remembered him and Abby together and a new truth that would decimate his world.
He was in no hurry to leave his old truth behind.
The key was right where Nico said it would be. Max used it to open Abby’s front door. He stepped into the foyer and looked around, but he didn’t need to go any farther to know the house was empty.
To know she was gone.
He glanced around, not sure what he was looking for but knowing Nico wouldn’t have brought him here unless he knew there was something for Max to find.
He stopped looking when his gaze came to rest on a flash drive sitting on a folded piece of paper. He picked them up, hesitating before he opened the piece of paper.
It was the list of assets that had been traded at the first poker game Max had attended on Echo Peak Lane.
He could guess what was on the flash drive, could guess who had given it to Abby.
He remembered the day he’d gone to the Tangier with her, the man he thought he’d seen in the crowd as he’d bent to kiss her.
The man he’d been sure was Jason.
Max should have known then. He should have known.
He refolded the piece of paper and slipped it into his pocket along with the flash drive. His eyes were pulled through the hall to the living room, to the sofa where he’d held Abby as she’d become sleepy and heavy against his body.
They hadn’t had long enough together, not even close, but it had been enough to give him a glimpse of what he wanted. It was a glimpse he would hold onto.
He would remember Abby not as the child she’d been, but as the woman she’d become. A woman who was strong and principled and more beautiful than anything he’d ever seen.
A woman who belonged with him.
It would be his mission to prove it to her, but first, he would destroy the man who had done this to them. Who had manipulated Abby into thinking Max was a monster.
Who had made her run from him.
Jason was a fool. Hurting Abby was a crime that demanded punishment — and the punishment Max meted out would make Jason wish his only problem was the FBI.
The blood moved through his veins, his heart beating again at the prospect.
He looked around Abby’s house one last time, trying to send a message to her on the desert wind, hoping she might feel it in her bones.
Nothing has ever kept us apart, Abby. Nothing ever will.
He stepped onto the porch and closed the door behind him.
The End
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Wages of Sin
King of Sin: Las Vegas Syndicate Book One Page 17