by Julia Swift
“It’s not your choice, Sloan,” my brother responds, suddenly looking way too old for his age. His face lined with worry. “You’re wrapped up in this now. Whatever I do, I have to think about keeping you safe.”
I scowl. “Bullshit. Forget the FBI, forget this deal. Let’s both run. Now, today.” I glance back and forth from Freddie to Gage. “If we leave now, we can be out of town before Aaron knows a thing.”
“With what money, Sloan?” Freddie shakes his head. “I’ve got hardly anything saved, after I bought my apartment. And we can’t get the cash box from yours.”
My cheeks flush at this reminder. I have pretty bad credit, and I never really trusted banks to begin with, so I keep anything I manage to save from my tips in a jar hidden in the floorboards beneath my bed. It seemed like a good idea until now. “We’ll figure something out. You have a credit card.”
“A super traceable piece of plastic, considering we’d be running from both Aaron and the FBI,” my brother points out sarcastically.
I scowl at him. “Well we can’t just sit here. We need to come up with a plan. Some way for you to . . . ” To not walk into a death trap tomorrow, is what I’m thinking. I choke those words down. Saying them aloud feels like it would make them too possible. And that is not a possibility—I won’t let it be.
“I want to help,” Gage says, startling us both. We stare at him. He shrugs a shoulder, seeming uncomfortable, and he won’t meet my eye. “It’s the least I can do,” is all he says. “I know a little bit about the Revel. Been in there a few times to meet Aaron. At the very least I can play lookout for you. Go back to Aaron tonight, tell him I’ve got Sloan hidden safely away, and offer to help him set up for tomorrow. At least you’ll have an eye on the inside, then. And some backup, even if it’s not an army.” Gage shoots me a faint, halfhearted smile at that.
Freddie is already nodding. “Yeah. Yeah, having someone on the inside would definitely help.”
“Hang on. Isn’t Aaron going to want to know where you’re keeping me?” I raise an eyebrow at Gage.
“I’ll think of something. Talk around it.”
“If he’s as dangerous as you say he is, will that be enough to convince him you’re still on his side?” Even as I ask it, Gage is looking away, avoiding meeting my eye. Great. Well that answers that. “Gage, it’s not going to help either of you for you to both get yourselves killed,” I mutter.
“I said it’s fine, Sloan. I’ll talk around it.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “Call him now, then.”
My brother and Gage exchange a look. Probably a can you believe women? look, but I don’t care. I’m keeping both of them alive, whether they like it or not. Because a plan has already started to form in the back of my mind.
I sit tight on the bench and watch Gage’s tensed back as he paces away from us, one ear pressed to his cell phone. I watch the muscles ripple beneath his T-shirt, and I want to run my hands over them, dig my nails into his skin, feel him do the same with mine as he claims he all over again.
I shake myself out of it, and concentrate on his voice instead.
“It’s Gage,” he’s saying into the phone. Low, trying to hide the terseness in it from me.
The person on the other end, however—Aaron, I assume—does not bother to do the same. I can hear the explosion from here. “Where the hell have you been?”
Gage paces farther away from us without so much as a backwards glance. Freddie tries to gesture at me to stay here, let him go, but I can’t. I’m already off my seat, trailing after Gage, listening hard.
“Things have taken longer than expected. We had a tail.”
“You were not supposed to take the girl anywhere but straight to me.”
“Did you want me to bring the cops straight to your front door, Aaron?”
“So you fucked up the drop. What do the cops know? Did they see the girl?”
“They saw her apartment, and her neighbor who called them. They likely know she’s missing.”
Cursing from the other end. I dig my nails into my palms and freeze in place. Gage is hunched over the phone, facing the distant highway through the trees, not seeing me.
“Bring her to the casino. Now.” The casino. The Revel they’ve been talking about?
“They could still be on us; I don’t know if I can ditch them for long enough to—”
“You will if you want me to keep her alive.”
I blink, my eyes widening.
Of course, at that moment, Gage decides to turn around. His eyes land on me, standing just a few feet away from him, and they light up with a flurry of emotions. Surprise. Fear. Concern. Anger. He clamps his lips shut tight and points at the distant picnic bench. I shake my head, but he points again, even as Aaron on the other line starts up, “Are you still there?”
Reluctantly, I start to back away.
“I’m here,” Gage replies, eyes burning holes into mine. “And I’m telling you, no can do.”
“I’m serious,” Aaron says, and then I’m too far away to hear his replies anymore.
It doesn’t matter. I don’t need to hear. I know what I need to do.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Gage
This is it. I’ve really done it this time. One last job and I managed to fuck it all up. Now my last living relative will pay the price.
Part of me knows she will understand. Part of me has known this was coming for a long time. “Living,” after all, is a strong word for what she’s been doing for the last two years that Aaron has held me under his thumb.
But still. I can’t help it. In spite of what I know I need to do, where I know I need to go, I make one last detour. After all, this may be the last errand I ever perform on this earth. I’m about to go to the Revel alone, no Sloan, and tell Aaron that she escaped.
He will not take that kindly. Especially not after I told him I’ve attracted police attention in the process. But I see no other option. I cannot actually bring her there. Not knowing what he’ll do to her.
On the way, though, I pull aside at the hospital on the outskirts of town. The woman at the desk, Clarice, waves me through without so much as a glance at my ID. We’re friends by now. Hospital friends, the kind who don’t ask too many unnecessary questions.
I walk the corridors by memory, the way I have for years now. On holidays, on weekends, any quiet day I can get away. I pause outside her room and take a deep breath. Then I step into the dim, private suite where my mother lives.
Or, continues to breathe, I should say.
I take a seat beside her tiny form. She’s even smaller now than she was two years ago when she finally drifted into this sleep. Her hand is light as bird bones in mine, when I cup it gently.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. When I agreed to work for Aaron, it was because he said he could help her. Pay for the medical care to fix her.
The disease had other plans.
For the first couple of years I worked for him, she received regular treatments, treatments she thought were provided by an anonymous benefactor, some kind Christian soul who had met her somewhere in the world and taken pity on her condition. She talked all the time about the nice man or woman, bless their soul. She prayed for them every day.
The irony of that bites deep. She thought Aaron was a saint. She had no idea the kind of depravity he’d hired me to carry out in his name, dangling her life before me like bait on a hook, blackmail for any time I got squeamish.
We’d agreed I would work for him for five years. My time will be up in a little less than a month. This should have been my last job for him. After this, he promised, he would keep everything the way it is now. He’d continue to pay for the private room, the life support, the doctors and nurses who massage her limbs every day to keep bed sores from creeping in, who monitor her all the time for changes in her comatose state.
Part of me knows she’s been all but gone for a long time.
But part of me remembers her strong faith, the w
ay she always told me about miracle cases, people who woke up from comas after years in them. Her living will says that she wants anything possible done to keep her alive, and I have tried to honor that. She believes in miracles, so I tried to buy her one by selling my soul.
The miracle isn’t coming. I know that now. I think she does, too. She would understand, if I let her go now. She would understand that I’m doing it for Sloan, for an innocent girl with a whole life ahead of her to live. My mother would want me to save Sloan, the way she herself could not be saved.
Aaron may be a devil, may have dragged me toward hell with him, but I can still be a saint for the woman I love. I can save her.
“I’m so sorry, Mom.” I bend over to kiss her forehead gently. Her body is warm, her breathing steady and mechanical, her pulse the same it’s been for two years. But she’s no longer in there. I have to accept that now.
“I’ll try to make you proud,” I murmur. I squeeze her hand one last time. Then I turn from the room, and I don’t look back.
It takes me less than half an hour to make the drive to the Revel. As I pull up in the parking lot, I notice more cars than usual. All gaudy SUV types. Some kind of meeting? Backup for Freddie’s arrival tomorrow? Or for mine, right now?
I wonder how much Aaron has already guessed. I wonder how quickly he’ll kill me. Maybe, in light of my years of dedicated service, he will be merciful. One quick blow to the back of the skull, or a single slice to the throat, and we can end this once and for all.
The entrance of the Revel is still under heavy construction. Beams everywhere now, and enormous packages full of slot machine parts, gambling tables waiting to be assembled, god knows what else. I tiptoe through the wreckage and march up the steps toward the office. The same place I met Aaron what feels like a few minutes ago, and yet also a totally different lifetime.
I reach the door, find it unlocked. Turn the knob and let it swing open to reveal Aaron surrounded by his men.
To my surprise, his face breaks into a wide smile when he sees me. My whole body tenses, on alert for whatever trick he’s pulling now.
But he only spreads his arms wide in welcome. “Ah, the man of the hour. I didn’t think you had it in you, Hunter Gage.”
I have to swallow before I can form a reply, and even then my voice comes out throaty and scratched. “Had what in me?”
Then one of the men in the corner shifts to the side, and my whole world spirals to a halt.
On the couch, where I watched Aaron get a foot job just a day ago, her hands bound behind her back and a gag wrapped around her perfectly shaped lips, is Sloan.
Fuck.
They’re all staring at me, but I can’t form a sentence right now. It feels like someone just sucker-punched me. I can’t catch my wind.
Luckily Aaron cuts in, since he can never keep his mouth shut for long. “Smart move, Gage. Having the girl come alone. I don’t know what you said to make her do it, but it seems to have thrown the police off your trail. So thanks. Knew I could count on you,” he adds with a slick, toothy smile, as if he was some benevolent friend who trusted me to get the job done all alone, and not the fucking asshole who was threatening my mother’s life on the phone less than a few hours ago.
Sloan’s eyes lock onto mine, and she’s all I can look at. The one person I swore to protect. The one person I would do anything to save. The woman I’ve just led to her doom. Her eyes widen, her mouth tightens at the edges, and though she can’t mouth anything to me now, with the gag in her mouth, I know what she’s trying to say.
I’m sorry.
She came here for me, I realize. She heard me on the phone this morning. She knew something would happen if I didn’t bring her in. She’s here for her brother, yes, but for me too, and I can’t ignore that. This is my fault. Whatever happens to her now—and sickeningly, horrifyingly, I have a pretty good idea of what could happen—it’s on my head.
“What else do you need from me?” I hear myself asking, though I still can’t tear my eyes from her, and it’s killing me that I can’t just run across this office, wrench her off that couch, cut her ties, strangle every last man in here who put her into that position. But I know Aaron by now. The second he realizes I actually care about Sloan, she’ll be in even more danger than she already is. He would have his idiot brigade kill her before I got halfway through beating up anyone in the office.
I have to play this cool. Play it smart. I rip my gaze from Sloan and look at Aaron instead, my expression passive. Calm. Annoyed, almost. “I did what you asked,” I say.
“That you did.” He purses his lips, studying me. I don’t let my gaze waver, not by an inch. Let him believe I’m completely unfazed by this. Let him think I don’t give a shit about her. “Out of curiosity,” he says, and my heart sinks into my stomach, “how did you convince the girl to come to us? I’m just wondering. For posterity, you know.” He smiles, and it’s all edges and knives. He knows he’s cutting me.
Or he thinks he knows. Luckily I’m a better liar than Aaron O’Malley will ever be. “I let her think I’d fallen in love with her,” I reply simply, and that does it. He and his goonies all crack up in laughter, Topknot in the corner actually tearing up he’s laughing so hard.
Sloan’s eyes glitter too, catching in the light of the overhead, though she refuses to let any of the tears fall. I can’t make myself look at her for long. Can’t think about what I’m doing right now. I need to convince two people in this room of two very different things. I need Aaron to believe I don’t give a shit about Sloan, and I need Sloan to believe she should hate me. If she believes that, she won’t give up. She won’t surrender to captivity or torture or whatever worse fates Aaron might have planned for her. If she’s angry, if she hates me, she will fight to escape this place. And that’s what I need her to be right now.
Angry Sloan. Vengeful Sloan. The Sloan who won’t let herself get tied up in Aaron’s web easily.
One more glance at her hot, burning eyes, and I’m pretty sure I’ve accomplished that.
“Who knew love could make such a sweet weapon,” Aaron finally says, wiping his eyes. They go hard again almost immediately, any laughter they had an instant ago vanishing. “Right. Well, I think you’ve more than earned your keep here, Gage. As you know, our contract is due to end in a couple of weeks. But I think it’s fair, after your performance today, to call it quits a little bit early. Don’t you?”
Panic lights in my gut. No. He’s supposed to keep me around. Give me some job to do tonight or tomorrow, some reason to hang in the area. “You don’t need help with the drop tomorrow?” I ask, before I realize my mistake. Shit. He didn’t tell me about changing the date, did he?
Aaron’s eyes darken. “Tomorrow?”
I bob my head toward Sloan without a glance at her. “The girl’s brother told her. She relayed it to me. The drop date changed?”
“Yes, well. I caught wind of some reasons our site on Saturday wouldn’t have worked. But that’s not your concern any longer, Gage.”
“Right. Of course not.” It would look suspicious as hell if I begged him to let me stay on this job. Not when I’ve spent years making it perfectly clear exactly how little I think of him, or how ready I am to throw this job and his fucking insanity behind me. “I just want to make sure you mean it,” I say. “That you’re not going to pull me into anything last-minute, unprepared, because you’ve changed your mind. Our deal still stands, does it not?”
You won’t kill my mother, will you? Pull the plug on her after all these years. Leave her to gasp out her last breath alone, because this motherfucker sure as hell wouldn’t tell me when he planned to cut funding.
“Our deal stands, Hunter.” He offers me his hand. “Thank you for your service.”
I never thought this day would come. I never thought that when it did, the last thing in the world I would want to do would be to walk out of this office once and for all. But I have no other choice right now. I grasp his offered hand, shake once, hard,
and force myself not to look at Sloan as I turn and leave her behind.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Sloan
I can’t believe what I’m watching. I sit on the couch, my hands wrenched unceremoniously behind me, this fucking foul-tasting rag stuffed in my mouth and bound around my face, making it hard to even swallow, and I watch the fucking bastard I thought I loved shake hands with my captor.
This was such a huge mistake. I realize that now, too late. After I’ve already set this whole thing in motion. I stole the wire Freddie had in his car from the FBI guys, hid it inside the wiring of my bra, and marched down here to the location Gage had unwittingly given me himself earlier on the phone.
I thought I was saving them both. My brother, yes, but also him. Aaron would have killed him if he didn’t capture me. Aaron would have done something terrible to . . . whoever it was he was holding over Gage’s head right now.
If you want me to keep her alive, I can still hear Aaron saying over the phone, and I can still see Gage’s shocked expression, before he laid eyes on me and schooled his face into anger instead.
Who is she?
Probably his girlfriend, the sarcastic, hurt part of my brain tells me. The woman he really loves, since he clearly never really cared about you.
And like an idiot, I walked right in here to save him and her and Freddie, and now I’ll die for Gage’s betrayal.
At least I’ve saved my brother, I tell myself. At least there’s that.
I left the audio box recording this whole thing out in the parking lot, in my brother’s car, where he’ll find it as soon as he finds me missing, because he knows me. He’ll be able to guess what I’ve done. And hopefully, when he finds that recording, by then I’ll have convinced this creepfest Aaron to confess to something bad. Maybe if they get a recording of him murdering me on tape, the FBI will just arrest him here and now, no need for my brother to step in in my place.