by Julia Swift
“After all these years, still no care. I’m wounded.” He sounds amused, actually, but whatever.
“I just know how you are. You like your technicalities. Your contracts. You like your people to finish the jobs they start. So I don’t want this shit blowing back on me, not if it hits the fan like I think it will. This was my last job for you, so I’ll finish it out proper, and then we’re more than square. Fair?”
“Who knew you had such magnanimous leanings, Hunter. Fine, that seems fair. What do you need to tell me with such burning urgency, then?”
“It’s about the brother. Fred Casey.” I glance at the closed bedroom door. Picturing him crouched on the other side, still bent over the laptop on his kitchen counter. Trusting me. Putting all his faith in me, to save his ass and his sister’s both. “He’s working with the FBI,” I say.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Sloan
I wake up to the sound of heavy footsteps outside my cell.
Well. Technically I guess it’s a boiler room. But it might as well pass for a jail cell. I slept curled up on the concrete, huddled as close to the burning hot water heater as I could get, because it’s the only warmth in this damp, leaking basement. My arms are still tied behind me, and I’m pretty sure I’ve permanently lost feeling in at least one pinky. My cheek is wet from drool, the gag between my lips soaked through, and my lips themselves chapped raw from it.
Every inch of my body hurts. But worse than the physical pain, worse than anything Aaron could order his men to do to me, is the full-body nervous panic that seized me all night, kept me awake and staring at the tiny blinking red Exit light above the door they shoved me through. I think I slept maybe two or three hours, and only then because I basically fainted, delirious. It’s hard to tell down here, though. There are no windows. No clocks. No sense of time passing, or any sign of life at all aside from the odd wheeze or sigh of the boilers.
But now, footsteps.
I push myself upright, using my elbow to lever myself up. It takes a couple of tries. My pinky starts to burn and tingle. Well, I guess it’s not completely dead. I wince as pins and needles race up my arms, through my legs, through every inch of my body that was not built for sleeping between a rock and a hard place.
Luckily adrenaline spikes fast enough in my brain to wake me up, even if I’d much rather remain unconscious through this next ordeal.
Showtime, it seems.
Two bodyguards shove open the door to the boiler room. Different guys from the ones last night, I think, though it’s hard to tell. They really do all look alike, faceless, nameless gym rats with no personality or thoughts of their own. They grab me under the armpits, one on each side, and haul me to my feet. It takes me a moment to get my footing, my legs still pins and needles from the toes up, but they don’t give me that moment. They’re already yanking me forward, frog-matching me out of the room and toward the distant staircase.
As we exit the boiler room, I shoot one last glance down the hallway, the same one I memorized last night. Two lefts from Aaron’s office, through an unmarked door that blends into the wood paneling of the casino, down a long staircase, and into this basement. This basement with a door at the far end, a glowing red emergency exit sign above it, and sunlight showing through the tiniest crack at the bottom of it now.
I jerk my head forward fast. Last thing I want is for these guards to catch me staring. For the moment, this hallway seems empty. Quiet as a churchyard. Aaron talked yesterday about posting guards down here, but if he didn’t remember to do it, I’m not going to be the one to remind him.
The stairs up to the second floor of the Revel are long and arduous. Not so much because they’re any steeper or higher than any other two-story climb, but because dread weighs heavy on my shoulders, knowing what’s awaiting me at the top of them.
Likely the end of the road. For me and my brother. Learning about the back exit was my last-ditch attempt at trying to save him. God knows if he even picked it up on the wire, though, or if he’ll be able to figure out a way to use it.
Knowing Aaron, it seems unlikely.
The guards shove me out of the unmarked door, slamming it behind us, and then we’re shuffling down another carpeted hallway, the color a hideous beige-yellow this time, which reminds me of puke. Honestly, the least Aaron could’ve done would be to kill us somewhere nicely decorated.
A hysterical laugh bubbles up in the back of my throat, but I tamp it down. Bite down hard on the gag to subdue the tremors that threaten to overtake me. I’m losing my damn mind.
Oh well. Not like I was going to live to be sane for very much longer anyway.
I think I’ve come to terms with my fate. I think I’m ready for this moment. But when the guards push open double doors into a private gaming room, and the first thing I see is him, standing beside Aaron, suited up like all the other bodyguards, hands deep in his pockets, a fresh wave of marrow-deep pain nearly keels me over.
Gage.
For some reason, I expected him to be long gone by now. I heard Aaron set him free yesterday. He seemed more than happy to be done with this case, with me. To throw us all behind him in the rearview mirror and high-tail it out of town.
So why is he here now? Just to witness the shit he set in motion?
I don’t have time to think too hard about it. Voices in the hallway snap me to attention, and the next thing I know, the doors part again, and it’s all coming to a head.
There stands my brother, framed by another pair of guards, clutching a briefcase in both tight, pale hands.
His eyes find mine immediately. I widen mine, trying to plead with him without being able to speak. Run, Freddie. Drop the money and run. Leave me.
He offers me a faint smile, and the slightest shake of his head, so tiny that no one else likely even noticed it. He knows what I’d say to him if I could. And he’s telling me no. He’s refusing to abandon me.
Even if it will only result in us both dying, instead of just me.
God damn it, Freddie.
But his gaze has already moved on. It sweeps the room. Passes right over Gage like he doesn’t even register. Maybe he doesn’t. There are a dozen guards in here, all of them in the same black suit that Gage has put on, something I’ve never seen him wear before. Dressed like that, faces blank and patient, he blends into the crowd. He could be just another one of them.
He is, I remind myself. You know that now.
“Frederick. So glad you could join us.” Aaron spreads his arms wide, and everyone else in the room zeroes in on him. That’s one thing I’ll grant him. The man knows how to suck up all the attention in a room, while hardly even breaking a sweat.
“The pleasure’s all mine,” my brother says, his tone forcedly congenial. Like he doesn’t really mind this all that much. Like he gets himself into situations like this one all the time.
Back in his bad days, he did.
“Sorry that your friends won’t be able to make it, by the way,” Aaron adds. “They seem to have run into a bit more of a holdup than they expected.”
Freddie stutters to a halt, halfway across the room which he’d been crossing. His face blanches, and my heart sinks into my shoes. Oh no.
“What . . . what do you mean?” he asks, his voice a little too shaky to come across convincingly. He’s trying to look brave, but he looks scared shitless at that comment. Like he’s had the wind knocked out of his sails in one foul breath.
“Well, you know. Your friends at the bureau. The ones who had planned to storm through the front entrance as soon as you pass me that briefcase full of tagged bills.” Aaron smiles so politely it looks borderline deranged.
My eyes shoot straight to Gage. No one else knew about Freddie working for the FBI. No one else knew that there was backup coming, to help extract him after this drop. Only one person could have told Aaron. And it explains what he’s doing standing at his right hand like a favored son right now.
I can’t help myself. I launch toward them both,
screeching through the gag. The guards to either side of me react a second too late, and I get a few steps across the room before they grab me again, holding me back. I stomp on their feet and knee one in the balls, smirking hard as he doubles over, before the other one wrestles me into an armbar that forces me to freeze, tears stinging at the corners of my eyes as my elbow strains in its joint.
“Ah ah, Ms. Casey. That’s not very ladylike.” Aaron tuts softly. “I thought we discussed yesterday that favors would get you much better treatment.” He clucks his tongue, and I swear, I actually see red.
“Let her go,” Freddie interrupts. “She has nothing to do with this.”
“On the contrary, my friend, your lovely sister has everything to do with this. She is, after all, the pawn who brought you, the knight, sailing in here to rescue her. Is she not?” Aaron’s eyes flash with triumph.
“I brought your money. Everything I owe you,” Freddie says.
“The price has just gone up. An extra hundred grand, for my troubles.”
“That was never agreed upon,” my brother spits.
“Well, then perhaps you should learn not to make deals with the devil.” Gage extends a hand. “Let’s see what you have.”
Freddie’s fist tightens around the handle, stalling. “Let her go first.”
“She’ll be released as soon as I have what’s mine. And not a moment before.”
Freddie shakes his head. “At least let me talk to her. Let me hear from her lips that you haven’t . . . ” He trails off, his voice tightening. “That you’ve kept up your end of the deal.”
“Very well.” Aaron nods his head, and the gag falls from my mouth.
I spit it on the floor, sucking in a deep breath. “Freddie, run. Get out of here. Now.”
Aaron’s sharp laughter cuts through my voice easily. “Ah, sisterly love. Such a wonderful thing to behold. Not all siblings are so loyal, you know.”
“Seriously, Fred. Go.” I catch his eye, plead with him silently. I’m already doomed. He doesn’t need to be.
Instead, he catches my gaze, and slowly, slowly, extends the briefcase toward Aaron.
I want to scream. But the world seems to have narrowed down to slow motion. I watch my brother’s eyelid, just one of them, twitch, and I stutter into a frown. Was that . . . a wink?
But the moment’s already gone, and Aaron has the suitcase in his hand, has what he’s wanted from us all along, has no need for us anymore.
And then the shit hits the fan.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Gage
I count my breaths in seconds. Inhale, one, two, three, four, five. Exhale for the same. Stay calm, stay focused.
Sloan is freaking out, Sloan is practically screaming at Freddie, and he’s right where we planned for him to be, dead center in the room, and Aaron’s fist is closing around the cast, and mine is sinking deeper into my pocket. Ripping through the lining, through the part of my suit that Topknot and his dumbass friends patted down eagerly. Into the second, hidden pocket within. To the strap against my inner thigh, the bulge I guess they didn’t bother to notice.
Aaron spins the dials on the case, and I gently ease the gun from its holster, feeling without looking for the safety, snapping it off.
Aaron lifts the lid of the case, licking his pursed lips, greed sparkling in his beady black eyes.
Aaron stares at an empty briefcase, and slowly, slowly, raises his eyes to Freddie.
I’m faster.
I whip the gun from my pocket and jam the barrel against his head. “Nobody fucking move,” I shout, because three of his goonies jumped at once, all of them reaching for their own pieces, strapped a little too obviously on their hips.
I cock the trigger, and Aaron flinches. I smile, for the first time in twenty-four hours.
“Stand down,” he says, his voice even. But from this close to him, I can see the beads of sweat forming along his forehead. He might look and sound calm, but oh, I guarantee you he’s shitting himself right now.
Good.
His men reluctantly release their weapons, though I shoot a glance over my shoulder at the men behind me too. “You, move around front.”
They all glare at me, a dozen narrowed eyes, as they circle around to stand in a line in front of me, hands rising in the air when I tell them to.
“If you don’t want your boss to die,” I say, very slowly for the idiots at the back of the room, “you’re going to turn your backs to me and put your hands flat on that far wall.”
They hesitate. Maybe I used words that were too big.
But Aaron finally nods, one of the beads of sweat creeping down his cheek. “Do as he says.” Then they move, all of them, hands flat on the wall, spines toward me.
One glance at Freddie tells me he’s already on top of his part of the bargain. Pulling Sloan toward the exit, fast as they can walk.
“You’re not going to get out of this room alive, you know,” Aaron tells me, and it’s in the same confident, fucking infuriating voice that he always uses when Aaron knows best. But this time, I can see right through his façade. This time, I know he’s backed into a corner. Desperate.
“What, you think they’ll shoot me if I kill you?” I ask him, pretending to mull this over as I survey their spines. “I dunno. What’s their incentive? If you die, there goes their paycheck.”
“There are contingencies in place. You know this. They know this.”
“Right, contingencies. Which one of these idiots did you entrust the business fortune to, in the event of your untimely demise? Was it Topknot over there? Or?”
Aaron grits his teeth. I can hear the molars crack from here. “This is suicide, Hunter. You know you’ll never make it out the front doors. And if the FBI is parked outside, they’ll nab you on murder the second you do.”
I shrug. “Probably. Be worth it, though.”
God, I enjoy the way his pupils dilate when I say that. His breath catches in his throat, his eyes widen, and he’s really, honestly preparing himself to meet his maker.
Too bad. I’m not letting him off that easy.
One last glance at the door shows me Fred and Sloan are through it. I slam the pistol into Aaron’s temple, one quick sharp blow, and as his body crumples to the floor, unconscious, I’m already sprinting for the exit.
“Move!” I shout at Fred and Sloan’s backs as I charge out of the room. They’re already walking fast, but now we run, all three of us, feet pounding, Sloan’s gait awkward as she tries to keep her balance, hands still tied.
“This way,” she calls over her shoulder, taking the lead. She crashes through a door I wouldn’t have even noticed, a hidden panel in the side wall, and I have to thank god for a moment that I picked not only the hottest, sexiest woman on the planet to fall into this insane trap with, but that she’s also smart as hell.
We wrench the door closed behind us, and only now do I catch the faint sounds of pursuit, pounding feet on carpet. As predicted, it took the Topknot Squad a few minutes to collect themselves and figure out what the hell was going on.
They’re nothing if not predictable.
We fly down the stairs two at a time until we hit the bottom, and Fred skids to a halt for just long enough to grab a nearby pipe from the assortment of basement odds and ends down here in this dead end. He jams it into the chain of the cuffs, once, twice, three strikes and the chain shatters, and Sloan has her arms back.
We hit the emergency exit at full speed, just as we hear feet clatter onto the top story of the staircase. An alarm sounds as we crash through the door, but at this point, who cares, the whole casino is on high alert.
“Where are the cops?” Sloan gasps between breaths, as we sprint out of the back of the casino into an empty field, our feet sticking and sliding in the mud between the few scarce patches of grass.
“Not coming,” Freddie manages to reply, grabbing her hand and tugging her around the side of the casino, toward the parking lot that wraps around the east wing.
“What?” she shouts, but to her credit, she doesn’t stop running. I trail after them, half an eye over my shoulder on the exit door. Any second now, we’re going to have company.
“How . . . are we . . . getting out of here?” she spits out, just as we round the corner into the parking lot, which only has about three cars in it.
One of which is a sporty little hot pink convertible, top down, engine revving.
For the first time all day, I watch Sloan stutter to a halt, shocked. It’s almost sweet, how nothing surprised her until this. But there’s no time for that. I grab her elbow and pull her into the car, Fred and I leaping over the doors, Sloan opening the rear to climb into the back seat, as her neighbor Lacey catches her eye in the rearview mirror.
“Heard you all needed a lift,” she says with a wide, shit-eating grin.
Thank god for crazy neighbors.
Then shots explode in the air behind us, and a dozen men barrel around the corner from the back of the casino.
Lacey hits the gas, we all hit the back of our seats, and the tires screech as we fly out of there, pedal to the metal.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Sloan
“I don’t understand,” I shout over the scream of the wind. Lacey takes another corner so hard I almost fall off the back seat. I have enough time to scrabble for the seat belt, jam it into its socket, and brace myself against the driver’s seat in front of me before she hits another corner and we squeal around it, leaving tire tracks branded into the road behind us.
“Your boy here explained your predicament,” Lacey shouts over her shoulder, flashing a wink at Gage. “Everything that creep was threatening to do to you in there. Of course I said I’d help out.”
She floors the gas again, and we roar down streets with a speed limit of thirty at most. I guess at this point, being pulled over by the police would actually help us, though, so who cares.