CHAPTER 13
JAGGER
Carl hadn’t asked questions. He never did. When I told him Eden needed a shift tonight—a late one—he just nodded and adjusted the schedule. That’s why he ran our largest casino. He understood that curiosity wasn’t part of his job description.
“She’s good,” I’d said lightly. “Put her in the high roller room.”
“Yes, sir.”
I grinned as I hung up. I was solving two problems. She’d get great tips tonight, and Ryan would be alone.
Which was perfect for what I had planned.
After watching him kiss her and having to set off the fire alarm to break them apart, I was done with any more waiting.
My phone buzzed against the desk, and I answered without looking at it. “If you’re calling to talk about crocheting again, I’m not interested.”
“Have you seen the news?” Cruz spat.
His tone made me immediately straighten, and I pulled the browser up on my tablet. “What am I looking for?”
“Front page,” he said. “Local. Then national.”
The headline hit before I finished scrolling: “Former informant comes forward with details on Las Vegas crime syndicate.”
I went still.
The subheading was worse.
“Man claims decades-long organized crime presence tied to casinos, real estate, and political influence.”
“Well,” I murmured, “that’s inconvenient.”
Cruz exhaled on the other end. “You’ll want to keep reading.”
I didn’t like the way he’d said that.
The article loaded fully, and there it was. A grainy photo of a man we hadn’t seen in years. He was older now, and that receding hairline wasn’t doing him any favors, but regardless, it was easy to recognize Gerald Knox.
I leaned back slowly in my chair.
“Well,” I said lightly, because evidently that was how I sounded when something potentially catastrophic landed in my lap, “Gerald looks terrible. Prison was not kind to him.”
“He’s not in prison anymore,” Cruz said.
No. Of course he wasn’t.
I skimmed the article faster.
Gerald claimed he’d worked for decades as an informant for a “loosely structured but deeply embedded organization” that controlled most of the Las Vegas casino industry. Alleged bribery. Extortion. Coercion of city officials. Manipulation of licensing boards.
My jaw tightened. Gerald had worked as an informant—for Cruz’s father—and we’d gotten rid of him the second the man had died and Cruz had taken over. Gerald had always given us the creeps. He probably wasn’t happy about our role in putting him in prison, but he wasn’t supposed to ever get out.
I snorted at the line in the article about dynasties. I bet Cruz had liked that line.
“I’m not seeing any names in here yet,” I murmured.
“Not yet,” Cruz said. “They’re dancing around it, though. ‘Senior operators.’ ‘Primary financiers.’ ‘Untouchable leadership.’ They’re being coy.”
That didn’t provide any comfort, because they could have our names and just be saving them.
I continued reading. There were references to properties and licensing deals. Even a real estate acquisition from three years ago that had been intentionally complicated so no one would know it was us.
Gerald wouldn’t have known about any of these things . . . which meant someone had given him that information.
I stood up, irritated, and walked over to the floor-to-ceiling windows. Traffic moved below in neat, orderly streams, and I found it almost amusing how none of them realized how close they lived to things that could destroy them.
“The timing is interesting,” I said. “I’d prefer to believe the Irish are stirring this up rather than that we’ve got a rat in our midst.”
“But how did they find out about those deals?” Cruz growled.
“How, indeed,” I murmured.
Rolling my shoulders back to try to help the sudden tension sitting in them, I took a deep breath.
“It’s going to be fine. There will be regulators sniffing around .
. . some agents. But we’re prepared for all that.
Gage will get all the information we need if the FBI are going to become a problem or if they’re getting too close to the truth. ”
“We are prepared,” Cruz agreed. We both sounded more unsure of that than I would have liked.
A beat passed.
“Are you still planning your evening?”
“Yes,” I said. “If I waited for my life to calm down before making decisions, I’d never make any.”
Cruz hesitated. “You’re sure about this? I don’t want any more heat on us right now.”
“Please,” I said. “The man is a footnote at best. No one writes headlines about men like him. And I’m fairly certain she’s already grieving a version of him that doesn’t exist anymore, so she’s not even going to care that much. Everything will be fine.”
He was silent for a few seconds, and I knew he wanted to argue some more.
“Keep me updated,” Cruz said finally.
“I wouldn’t dream of leaving you out.”
The call ended.
I looked back down at my phone, at the messages already queued, and the pieces already moving. Eden would get the call soon. Ryan would get the invite not long after.
I glanced back out the window again to where our empire continued to glitter like it always did.
Somewhere out there, a man was about to walk toward yet another terrible decision.
And I was about to make sure he didn’t survive this one.
It was time.
Eden was tucked safely inside the casino, working an extra shift that had appeared on her schedule that morning like a small mercy. And Ryan . . . was on his way to a poker game one of his friends had called him about. Organized by me, of course.
I had to give him credit, he’d said no three times before he’d finally said yes. His willpower was truly awe-inspiring.
If I were a better man, maybe I would’ve paused.
Maybe I would’ve watched him drift exactly where I’d nudged him and felt something resembling pity. Maybe I would’ve considered how easy it was to steer someone who’d never learned how to steer himself.
A better man might have seen tragedy; he might have seen addiction and weakness and the small, pathetic hope that clings to second chances.
But I’ve never confused myself with that kind of man.
What I felt wasn’t pity.
It was rage.
Rage that he’d been allowed into her life at all.
Rage that she’d worked herself raw trying to save someone who didn’t even have the decency to save himself.
Rage that he’d taken something soft and hopeful and real and ground it down to fear and exhaustion and apologies she should never have had to make.
He didn’t deserve pity.
He’d had Eden.
And he’d fucked it all up.
I’d made sure the address he was given for the game was on the outskirts of town in a warehouse district where Lawson could easily hack the cameras.
Zachary drove with one hand on the wheel, the other resting loose near the console, his eyes flicking between the quiet street ahead and the mirrors.
“There he is,” I murmured, nodding toward the stretch of sidewalk ahead where Ryan was walking with that misplaced swagger of a man who thought tonight might finally rewrite the narrative of his life.
It was truly shocking the amount of money the Syndicate made from people just like him who believed one more game would change everything wrong with their lives.
At least he was able to walk in a straight line tonight. That was an improvement from the last time I’d been watching him from a car.
Zachary slowed to a crawl, his posture alert as he waited for instructions.
I continued to watch Ryan through the windshield, and my mind drifted backward, to the first time I’d crossed a line and realized it hadn’t felt like crossing anything at all.
I hadn’t grown up damaged. That’s what people always assume. They like their monsters forged in fire with absent parents and violence and chaos . . . that wasn’t me.
I’d come from a family where my parents loved us loudly and showed up when it mattered. My brother and I were close in the way that makes teachers nod approvingly and neighbors say things like, Those boys are going places.
But when I sat in the Sphinx secret society house my senior year of college after I’d gotten the news that the police had finally identified the man who’d hit Carlie .
. . only to learn he was escaping any justice because of some bullshit issue with how the evidence had been handled, an idea had formed, and it had festered and festered until I couldn’t let it go.
If the system couldn’t close the gap, someone else could.
The idea didn’t feel evil. It felt corrective.
I’d thrown up after I’d killed him, alone in a bathroom with flickering lights and a cracked mirror.
But that had been the only time I’d had any reaction at all.
Carlie hadn’t walked since the accident, and in fact, she’d basically disappeared from the world.
Soon after she’d been paralyzed, Carlie had broken up with me, telling me she didn’t want to hold me back.
Then she’d dropped out of school, stopped answering calls, and holed up in her parents’ house . . . never really coming out again.
Carlie had let me come see her once after that.
Her curtains were drawn in the middle of the afternoon. The air in the house felt stale, like nothing new was allowed to enter. She’d lain on the bed and stared at me with tears rolling down her cheeks and told me she never wanted to see me again.
Her life after that had been reduced to square footage and doctor visits and polite pity.
I liked to believe that knowing the man who’d done that to her was dead gave her at least a sliver of peace. But I guess I’d never be sure.
Blinking, I came back to the present where Ryan had just stepped off the curb and was crossing the street. I rolled down my window to shoot him, and the night air rushed in, the dry heat still hot enough to scorch your skin.
Ryan’s head suddenly snapped toward the SUV, and his eyes widened in recognition as he saw me in the window. “You,” he said, his voice cracking. “You’re the guy . . . You almost killed me. Your shit was tainted.”
Ah, accountability. How refreshing. I mean, sure, he was the one who bought it from me with the money he’d taken from his wife . . . while he was already high, but details, right?
The color drained from his face suddenly, and he looked terrified as he turned and began running awkwardly away.
I watched him go, surprised he’d remembered me at all. Most people in his state that day wouldn’t have. Credit where it was due, though, the man had a talent for clinging to the things that would ruin his life.
“Zachary,” I said quietly.
Zachary didn’t hesitate. He eased off the brake and accelerated forward. The impact was soft—almost gentle—considering. Ryan’s body folded over the hood with a dull thud, his limbs flailing as he slid off the side and hit the pavement hard.
We rolled to a stop, and then I stepped out of the SUV and walked over slowly with my hands in my pockets and my posture relaxed.
Ryan lay curled on his side, one leg bent at a wrong angle. He was still conscious—barely. His eyes were dazed, and blood was already trickling from his mouth.
“Why?” he asked in a garbled voice as I stood over him, unmoved. I cut off any other words he had planned by planting my boot on his neck and pushing down.
His breath stuttered, then broke, a wet, strangled sound tearing out of him as his windpipe collapsed under the force.
I felt it through the sole of my shoe, the give of something vital collapsing inward.
His hands spasmed once as his fingers clawed uselessly at my ankle, then slid away as his strength failed.
I kept the pressure there until his body went still, and when I crouched to press my gloved fingers against his neck, there was nothing left beating beneath my touch.
To be doubly certain, I stepped back and nodded toward Zachary. He immediately eased the SUV forward, and I watched as the tires rolled over what remained of Ryan. His body disappeared beneath the Escalade EV’s almost ten-thousand-pound frame and reemerged on the other side . . . definitely dead.
The police would call it a hit-and-run. And I guess they’d be mostly right.
I reached into my jacket and withdrew the small packet of cocaine I’d grabbed.
His hand rested near his hip and the palm was turned upward as if he’d been reaching for something in his final seconds.
I lifted it carefully, then placed the packet against his skin and curled his fingers around it one at a time until it looked like he’d been holding it all along.
Satisfied with the story that would be told, I turned and walked toward the SUV without sparing Ryan another glance. Whatever he’d been five minutes ago no longer required my attention. Problems deserve focus. Corpses don’t.
Zachary had already stepped out and opened the rear door for me. I climbed in smoothly, adjusting my cuffs as the door shut with a solid, insulated thud that sealed the night out again.
“Paradise?” Zachary asked calmly as if he’d just picked me up from dinner.
“Yes.”
The SUV pulled away, and I pulled my phone from my pocket and sent a single message to Cruz.
Me: Done
The typing bubble appeared almost immediately. Then disappeared. Then returned.
Cruz: About time.
I didn’t bother responding.
Eden would get a call at some point tonight during her shift, and words like tragic and accident and we’re so sorry for your loss would be thrown around. And I would be there to support her, of course, concerned and infuriated on her behalf.
I’d be ready to hold her when the shock hit, to remind her she didn’t have to face any of this alone . . . and to slip seamlessly into the space Ryan had been occupying so poorly.
The first phase of the plan had been removal.
The next was . . .comfort.
I loved when a good plan came together.