by Lara Adrian
But he’d take her either way. He wasn’t leaving Vegas without her safely in hand.
As he stood in wait, another few minutes went by. Followed by a few more. Foot traffic in and out of the ladies’ room continued in a steady stream, but Naomi was nowhere to be seen.
Son of a bitch.
She’d ghosted him.
He wasn’t sure if it had been pure luck that she’d slipped out of the bathroom in those few seconds he’d been in conversation with the other man, or if she’d somehow sensed him at her heels and successfully dodged him. All he knew in his gut was that Naomi was not that bathroom anymore.
He bit back a string of curses, if only barely.
She couldn’t run far. Not this time. He’d found her once—or at least he thought he had—and he’d find her again. She was cagey and clever, but he was relentless. And if he had to tear the whole place apart tonight in order to save her from herself, he damned well would.
Because whether Naomi realized it or not, she was his.
To protect, he reminded himself sternly.
Even as a possessiveness unlike he’d ever felt spurred his body into motion across the casino floor.
CHAPTER 8
“Thanks for letting me have your jacket,” Naomi told one of the club of five women she’d encountered in the ladies’ room. She’d gone in behind them, feeling uneasy and jittery, as though Moda’s eye in the sky was following her every move inside the casino. Or worse, as if someone stationed somewhere on the floor had her trained in his sights.
Naomi couldn’t get into one of the restroom stalls fast enough. Heart racing, palms moist with anxiety, she’d stripped out of her gray wig and costuming inside the handicap stall and stuffed the whole kit and caboodle into the trash bin before coming out in the jeans and T-shirt she’d worn beneath. No one paid her any mind as she discreetly stepped to a vacant sink to splash soap and water on her face to erase the old-age makeup.
The “Diamond Divas Dice Club” stood in front of the mirrors, refreshing their perfume and primping while they chattered about which casino restaurant buffet to hit for the best early bird dinner. Drying her face with paper towels, Naomi offered her opinion to break the ice, then had smoothly begun a soft-sell negotiation with one of the ladies about buying her jacket as a good luck charm.
Wearing the Opium- and cigarette-scented jacket embroidered with the name “Gladys” on the front, Naomi had kept her head low as she strolled out of the restroom with the women a minute or two later as if she were part of their tight, conveniently concealing, pack.
“I really appreciate it,” she told the squat, dark-haired gambler as the Divas paused with her on the casino’s midway. “I think this is going to bring me some great luck.”
“I hope so, honey.” Gladys grinned as she patted her glittery pink fanny pack. “Best luck I had so far tonight was selling it to you for a cool hundred bucks.”
Naomi smiled. “Enjoy your dinner, ladies.”
Once the group headed off toward the seafood buffet she recommended, she turned the jacket inside out and slipped back into it. Now that she was on the floor again, she didn’t want to attract undue attention with a neon pink billboard on her back.
She glanced at her burner phone to check the time. Shit. She was two minutes off schedule. Michael would be nervous because of that, but they had their signals all worked out hours before they arrived separately at Moda tonight. There would be no communication between them about the job until after they were both back home again. Being seen talking on their phones or passing any kind of hand signals across the floor to each other would not only put the night’s plan at risk, but their lives.
Naomi glanced around warily, still feeling a niggle of unease even though she could find no evidence to back it up. Probably just paranoia because of what happened last night. Besides, there was still time to abort if either one of them felt they should. A quick glance through the crowd showed Michael paused to watch the roulette tables. He was clapping along with the gathered spectators, his pre-arranged signal that everything was a go on his end.
Naomi steeled herself and moved through the packed rows of slot machines, making a beeline for the bar to order a drink as agreed. Martini with three olives if she was ready to roll; Bloody Mary if she felt they should can the plan and clear out ASAP.
With her martini in hand, she walked back over to the slots and began feeding quarters into an empty machine four seats in from the aisle. She hadn’t chosen that particular section by chance. At the head of her row, situated so that its tall illuminated jackpot sign faced the midway crowds and flashed for all eyes to see, stood Moda’s biggest-paying machine.
The one with the one-point-three-million-dollar prize just waiting to be had.
Naomi casually moved from one machine to the next, progressing to the dollar slot sitting directly beside the sleek, towering Monte Carlo Fortune Bonanza, which was currently being monopolized by a bored-looking platinum-blonde piece of arm candy who was waiting for her sugar daddy to wrap up at the blackjack table across the way.
Naomi slid a twenty-dollar bill into her machine and pulled the lever. Like most of the people around her, she squealed with excitement when she hit for any amount of money and rubbed the glass as if she could will the most coveted symbols to appear.
The only difference between her and all the other poor saps around her losing their paychecks was that she actually could finesse the machine to do her bidding.
When she’d lost about half her money, she glanced over and saw Michael slowly making his way over to her.
Go time.
The blonde put another hundred into the Monte Carlo machine and yanked on the handle. Naomi’s anxiety climbed with every second the woman remained in the seat. When she was about to surrender her third big bill, Naomi leaned over to her.
“Wanna tip for upping your odds with the big money machines?” At her neighbor’s intrigued nod, she said, “Don’t pull the lever to spin the wheel. Use the button instead.”
As she confided the nonsensical advice, Naomi reached over and touched the red button. Not to push it, but just to let her fingertip rest lightly on the machine.
It was enough.
The woman sat back and pushed the button. She lost the round. Shrugging, she tried again, then again. “So much for your tip,” she muttered, flouncing off in a huff.
Mission accomplished.
Michael rolled up only a few seconds later.
They didn’t speak to each other, barely even acknowledged the other’s presence at all. Naomi went back to her machine as Michael got situated next to her.
“How’re the martinis at this dump?” he asked nonchalantly, the way any gambler might in order to strike up conversation with an attractive fellow player.
“They’re kind of strong,” she said with a rehearsed giggle. A careless movement of her hand sent her glass toppling onto the carpeted floor. She hopped down to retrieve it, casually taking the opportunity to brush her hand over the side of the Monte Carlo Fortune Bonanza’s sleek metal casing. She shrugged at Michael. “I guess that means I’m cut off now.”
He chuckled, perfectly casual, smiling as she stepped around him with her empty glass. Her pulse was hammering, but she kept her bland expression fixed on her face.
“Take care,” she told him, already edging away from the area.
“Thanks.” He slipped a hundred-dollar bill into the machine and tapped the maximum bet button. “You too.”
She turned her back to him, hands fisted loosely at her sides as she began walking.
And then she prayed like hell that they weren’t making a colossal mistake.
CHAPTER 9
A woman’s scream rang out somewhere in the casino.
Asher froze where he stood. He’d nearly completed his search of the roulette wheel tables and several pits of slot machines in the massive game area with no sign of Naomi. That high-pitched shriek sent a surge of adrenaline—and cold dread—coursing i
nto his veins.
Holy fuck.
Don’t let it be her.
But then another shout went up, followed by dozens more and the sudden cacophony of cheering voices, bells and sirens, and applause. Over in another section of the slots near the casino’s main throughway, a ridiculously tall machine with a digital sign flashing an equally ridiculous name had evidently just paid out a mega-jackpot totaling more than a million dollars.
Nearly everyone in the place paused to look toward the area where a crowd was swiftly gathering around the winner. Asher headed that way, too, craning to see who was at the center of the excited throng. He fully expected it to be Naomi—or her disguised likeness—as he neared the periphery of the cheering spectators.
But it wasn’t her seated in front of the machine.
As Moda management and security officers moved in to greet the night’s big winner, Asher realized it was a man. Sandy hair and a friendly, round face that lit with surprise and stammering elation as he pivoted around in his wheelchair to accept everyone’s congratulations.
“I can’t believe it!” he exclaimed, looking every bit the shocked and beaming new millionaire. “This is incredible! I won!”
Son of a bitch.
Michael Carson.
Naomi’s friend hadn’t just lucked into the biggest jackpot payout in the place. He had help. The kind of help only Naomi could provide.
Which meant she had to be close.
In one, single mental snapshot, Asher took it all in. Michael seeming on the verge of actual tears in his wheelchair. The one-point-three-million-dollar jackpot sign flashing. The casino employee rushing forward with a wide smile and a pile of papers for the winner to sign.
And there, at the periphery of the expanding crowd, an angel’s face crowned in glossy black hair. No longer garbed as a crone, Naomi had shed all of her disguise and was now observing the chaos with a bemused smile on her face as she stepped back to make room for more people who pushed in. And she kept stepping back, slowly melting away like a shadow.
Not so fast, Asher thought, staring right at her.
She glimpsed him in that same moment, her sherry-colored gaze colliding with his amber-flecked furious one.
Her mouth dropped open in sudden, silent dread.
Then she pivoted and slipped out of sight, her petite size hiding her among the tight herds of casino patrons.
Asher dove into the crowd, cutting through with single-minded purpose. In the distance, he saw her round the corner up near the glass shaft of the soaring, central private elevator. For an instant, he lost sight of her.
“Fuck,” he snarled under his breath.
Using the full speed of his Breed genetics, he flashed across the casino floor, nothing but cool air breezing through the clusters of slow-moving, mostly inebriated casino patrons on his way toward the elevator. None of the humans’ senses were keen enough to track him, but there was one pair of eyes that found him and locked on with laser intensity.
A big Breed male wearing a dark suit, a wireless earpiece, and a Moda security badge on his hip stepped out of the elevator at the same moment Asher was rushing after Naomi at preternatural speed.
Icy silver eyes narrowed beneath the thick espresso-brown slashes of the male’s brows. Asher knew him—or, rather, he used to know him. Back when they both were nameless boys, yoked and collared under Dragos’s brutal Hunter program.
There was no kinship between them, then or now. Asher hadn’t come away from the lab with many friends. Or any, for that matter. In the two decades since he and this male had escaped the program, their paths hadn’t crossed until this moment.
Seeing a fellow former assassin now, here, and obviously employed by none other than Leo Slater made the killer in Asher tense for a fight. To the death, if necessary.
They squared off in silent challenge, Asher calculating a dozen lethal ways to open his attack while the other male’s scowl deepened in suspicion.
“What are you doing here, Asher?” He leaned heavily on the moniker, scorn in every syllable. “Wouldn’t have guessed you for the gambling type.”
“I could ask you the same thing.” He glanced at the shiny brass nametag pinned to the Hunter’s jacket lapel. “Cain, is it?”
The male grunted, those shrewd eyes gleaming like the sharpened edge of a polished blade. By now four other members of Moda’s security team had joined Cain outside the elevator bank. The men, humans all of them, looked to him and Asher in question.
“Everything all right, sir?” one of them asked Cain.
He gave a terse nod. “Get out on the floor. Make sure we’re secure. I’ll be right behind you.”
As the unit fanned out to do his bidding, Cain’s gaze swept the immediate area—including the path Naomi had taken only moments ago—before his attention swung back to Asher.
“Problem, brother?”
Cain’s mouth drew tight at the growled endearment. “You’d better hope there isn’t. Or I’ll be right behind you, too, brother.”
Asher smiled a cold smile, then gave Slater’s head of security a bump of his shoulder as he brushed past him without another word.
Everything animal inside him seethed at the threat this killer posed—not so much to him, but to Naomi. And, now, even to her friend Michael.
Asher exited the casino, inhaling the night air as he headed out to the bright lights of the Strip. She wasn’t hard to trace now. Two blocks up the sidewalk, she was rushing to the curb with her arm out, trying to hail a taxi.
She yelped as he hooked one arm around her midsection and hauled her away from the street.
“Keep walking and don’t pull away from me or turn around unless you want to call more attention to us both.” With his hand at the small of her back, he steered her alongside him and began walking briskly toward the garage where he’d earlier parked the truck.
Too smart to make a scene on the street, she fell into step beside him as instructed, her body trembling under his palm. “How the hell did you find me? And what do you think you’re doing?”
“Saving your pretty neck for the second time,” he muttered. “Come on.”
Although he would hardly call her cooperative, she kept quiet the rest of the walk to the pickup truck. He put her in the passenger side, then went around and climbed behind the wheel.
She shot him an irritated glance as he started up the truck. “Since I see you had no trouble retrieving this heap from where I left it this morning, I guess that means you know where to drop me off.”
“I’m not dropping you off anywhere.”
“You most certainly are.” She balked, pivoting to face him. “Take me home, Asher. Right now.”
“I am. To my home.”
“What? No! Dammit, let me out of this truck right now.”
“Out of the question.” When she lunged for the door handle beside her, he reached across the seat and closed his fingers over her hand. “If I let you go, you’re going to end up dead.”
“Didn’t we already have this conversation? I told you I don’t want your so-called protection. I just want you to leave me alone.”
“I can’t do that, Naomi. Especially not after the stunt you and Michael just pulled.”
Her face blanched, but her stubborn chin went up a notch. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He scoffed. “Really? I’m betting you’ve got about one-point-three-million ideas what I’m talking about.”
She fell silent for a long moment. “Michael won that jackpot, not me. There’s no reason for anyone at the casino to suspect a thing.”
“Not unless they have a reason to study the casino security video and notice that an elderly woman hobbled into the ladies’ room a few minutes before the big win, but never came out.”
Naomi swallowed. “I felt like I was being watched. It was only you?”
“You’d better hope it was only me.” He bit off a curse, infuriated by her brazenness—by her recklessness that seemed to border on s
uicidal. “For fuck’s sake, Naomi. You have to know what it means to cross a man like Leo Slater. Are you deliberately trying to get yourself killed?”
“No.”
“Then why, damn it? What the fuck are you trying to accomplish?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me,” he growled, taking hold of her slender shoulders. He was vibrating with the force of his anger—and his worry for her. He felt his eyes burning with sparks as he glowered at her within the confines of the truck’s cab. God help him, he wanted to shake her.
He wanted to drive his fist through the dashboard and rail at her for how close she’d come to danger. Danger she couldn’t even begin to fathom, now that he knew Slater had a former Hunter on his payroll.
“Tell me why you’re so hell-bent on this casino. On this man.”
“He owes me. Let’s just leave it at that.”
“No. We’re not leaving at that.” He gripped her tighter. “You’re not a stupid female, Naomi. In fact, you’ve proven yourself to be clever as hell. Except when it comes to Slater.”
A chill swept over him as he relived the anguish and fear and helplessness of an innocent child who’d witnessed the brutality of life, the ugliness of it, much too young. There was a part of him—a part he kept buried deep down inside—who understood some of that too.
Asher searched her pained gaze, his hands still holding onto her. The connection renewed the memory he’d read from her before, but he didn’t let go, unable—or perhaps unwilling—to release her. “It was Slater who hurt your mother, wasn’t it?”
“Hurt her?” She spoke in a tight, but quiet voice. “He killed her, Asher. I can’t prove it, but I know he did. The police have called the case unsolved. Just another woman who vanished off the face of the Earth after Leo Slater got tired of beating and using her.”