Cruel Summer (Summer Love #2)

What Happened in Vegas

Clay

June

Ten million dollars is more than enough to ruin a man’s life.

Not mine, of course. Everything is going exactly as planned. My revenge fits neatly into five heavy-duty duffel bags, and it’s the weight of maneuvering them through the pre-show chaos of Wet’s dressing room that has me sweating, not the ten million inside.

“Handing out flyers?” one of the guys asks, rubbing oil on his pecs and stepping back to avoid a hip check from one of my bags.

I snort but don’t deign to reply. My client list is carefully curated, and my services are expensive. But my escort work is on hold, likely indefinitely. I’ll be in Paris, waiting for the inevitable conclusion of events I set into motion.

I’ve arranged a hand-off in one of our VIP rooms after the show, so I force the bags one by one into a locker backstage while a few of my asshole coworkers make wild guesses about the contents.

Another guy snaps his fingers. “Off-loading skin care products?”

“Fuck off,” I grit, more to the locker door I’m trying to shut than to anyone. A final shove does the trick, though I have to lean against it while I fumble for the lock in my pocket.

Ten million dollars, and the only thing standing between anyone else and a spending spree is the cheap padlock I slap on the locker door.

As nice as it will be in my bank account, the money isn’t the point.

I could toss handfuls all over the Strip if I felt like it.

No, the point is I won and Tristan Hunting is dead man walking once his associates discover ten million missing.

Tonight I’ll hand the cash over to a wealthy former college friend. He’ll transfer ten million minus his cut into an offshore account belonging to an LLC—one owned by another LLC, and so on in the way of shell companies—funneling it back to me squeaky clean.

Tomorrow night, I’ll drink the most expensive wine I can find in Paris to celebrate the demise of the man who left my sister to die alone while he spent her money and fucked his mistress.

Maybe it’s something in the current zeitgeist, but ruining the life of a man who has never suffered from the consequences of his actions felt damn good.

“Alright, lads,” Baz’s loud Australian accent enters the room before he does. “Now that you’re all here, there’s something I’ve gotta say.”

We aren’t all here, apparently. Someone mentions that Aiden is missing.

Baz loudly insists he doesn’t give a fuck, but spends a solid minute cussing the absent man out for not heeding the All Hands on Deck SOS text.

I pay minimal attention as I trade the button-up shirt I arrived in for the button-up shirt held together with Velcro.

Baz ends his rant and claps his hands. “Look, I’m not going to blow smoke up your arses, but we’ve had a good run of it the last few years. The show’s been a hit, and you lot are like the sons I never wanted.”

Someone snorts. But this isn’t the usual pre-show speech. I cross my arms and wait for the catch.

“We’ve lost our venue—budgie smugglers are out, magic shows are in. And rather than search out a new home for the show, I’ve decided to hang it up and retire.”

And there it is.

Tonight was my last night anyway, but I feel for all the guys who will be competing for spots on other Vegas all-male revues.

I’m not sentimental enough to say this place has been like a home, or these guys are like family.

Still, Wet has been something of an anchor when I needed it most, preventing me from drifting purposeless from one novelty to the next, from one pointless pleasure to another.

I pull on my pants while Baz stops to repeat everything to Aiden, who just arrived with a VIP in tow. The large hoodie, sunglasses, and medical mask hide their identity. Some celebrity, most likely. Something that happens often enough to make it not particularly interesting.

Baz breaks from what’s turning out to be a surprisingly long goodbye speech to chew out one of the younger dancers for the wedding band still on his finger.

Benji blinks in surprise, even though they have this same conversation every night.

Eventually, Benji slides the ring off, and Baz goes back to blowing smoke up our arses.

Then it’s show time.

Tonight’s performance is a goodbye. I’m ready. At thirty-seven, I’m the oldest person on stage with Wet. My knees are looking forward to retirement.

But for tonight, I give it my all, living in every beat, every movement. Dance has always been a source of comfort, a deeper connection to everything I lost. But performing—that’s power. I can be at my most vulnerable, my most core self, and still walk offstage after, safe and untouched.

The lights dim, and the music for the finale starts up. It’s almost over.

A loud off-beat pop like a car backfiring makes me flinch.

That was a gunshot.

I wait, heart pounding for pain to blossom over some vital part of me, but the pain doesn’t come.

I haven’t been shot. Yet.

I dive for the stage exit as the guys around me falter in their dance steps, looking around in confusion. I’m barely backstage when another shot rings out. Someone screams, and the crowd erupts into chaos.

I run.

Shit—did Tristan discover my real identity? He’ll be desperate, but he should’ve gone into hiding. Does he think I’d give the money back? That if he returned it, he’d be forgiven?

It doesn’t matter. I need to get the money and get out.

What if it’s not Tristan? What if it’s the men he stole from?

Then I’m fucked.

My shoes slide on the dressing room floor, and I slam against the locker. My heart is pounding so loud I can’t hear the noise around me as I spin the lock. 8-33-60. My hands shake, but the door springs open. I yank out the first bag, whirling when I see movement out of the corner of my eye.

It’s just Aiden, his VIP, and another man with them.

I go back to pulling out my bags as people stream into the dressing room.

Benji is suddenly next to me, sliding his stuff into his backpack. Everyone else in here is crouched and panicking, but he looks remarkably calm.

He’s a himbo, but he might be a useful himbo right now.

“Benji, take this,” I say before I can overthink it, tossing a duffel bag to him. He catches it, stumbling back.

“The fuck you got in here?” he asks.

Two million dollars in hundred-dollar bills weighs roughly forty pounds, but he’s twenty-five—the perfect pack mule.

I hand him another and grab the final three. “Follow me.”

He follows without question, and when another shot rings out somewhere in the club, he quickens his pace.

I push the back door open, and we step into the dark parking lot. A motorcycle—Aiden’s, probably—takes off into the night. Every instinct in me screams to run, but I force myself to walk to my car. My skin crawls with the feeling that someone is watching us.

“Holy shit,” Benji says, looking over his shoulder. “Was that a gun? Someone was shooting in there? What—?”

“Yes.” I pop the trunk and drop my bags in, shoving them aside to make room for the two Benji is holding. “Those were gunshots.”

“We have to go back,” Benji says, panicking. “What if—”

I take the bags from him and put them in the trunk. “You a doctor?”

“Sometimes?”

I slam the trunk and turn to stare at him. Like orange cats, I suspect there is a single communal brain cell he shares with his kind. Tonight isn’t his night for it.

“What?” he asks in genuine confusion.

The door behind us bangs open, Benji jumping at the sound as we both turn.

The bartender is sprinting toward us, toting a large box, her pale face terrified.

Cold dread slips down my spine.

“Get in the car.” I shove Benji toward the passenger’s side.

“It’s just Briar—”

A man bursts out of the door behind her.

I throw myself into the driver’s seat, jam the key into the ignition, and turn to tell Benji to get into the back—but he’s already climbing in, so I turn the key and the engine roars to life.

Briar shoves the box into Benji’s outstretched arms and slams the front seat back into place. In the rearview mirror, the man chasing her stops, raising his gun.

Shit. I hit the gas just as Briar gets in.

“Get down,” I snap, hunching low as Briar reaches out to close her door. We both flinch at the sound of the gunshot, and I say a silent prayer for my baby as I peel out of the parking lot and slide into a gap in the traffic.

Fuck. That was close.

My heart is pounding, blood rushing in my ears as I drive. Flashing lights fly by, headed for the club. I keep glancing in the rearview, but the traffic behind us is ordinary. No police, no one driving erratically to catch up.

“God fucking dammit,” I mutter under my breath. “What the fuck was that about?” Was the shooter after Briar? She’s just a bartender. She has nothing to do with me or Tristan.

Christ, I don’t want to gamble on the possibility that this wasn’t about me.

The click of Briar’s seatbelt pulls me out of my thoughts, and I reach back to grab mine. The last thing I need is to get pulled over for a traffic violation with ten million in underground poker winnings in the trunk of my car.

“You hurt?” I ask her.

She wraps her arms around herself and shakes her head.

“That guy was after you?”

She hesitates. “I need to get out of Vegas for a while.”

Okay, maybe the shooting was about her, but I’m not going to take any chances.

“Yeah. Me too.” My suitcase is already in the trunk, and the rest of my belongings are in storage. But if there’s a chance Tristan found out my real identity—or if the people he stole from did—then they’d know I’ve booked a flight to Paris. So I need to go somewhere else.

“I know where we can go,” Benji says, startling me. I’d forgotten he was in the backseat.

“You can go home,” I tell him. “No one is after you.”

“Turns out the engagement ring I gave Gina might have belonged to some mob boss, and he wants it back.”

He says it so casually, like it’s something to shrug off. Briar laughs softly, but I spin to stare at him. This twenty-five-year-old child, this literal boy-next-door, is mixed up with the mob? What the actual fuck?

A distinctly feline pissed-off yowl erupts from the backseat.

“Is that a fucking cat?” I ask through gritted teeth.

“He’s Trouble,” Briar grumbles.

In the backseat, Benji says hi to the cat, because of course he does. He even buckles what must be the cat’s carrier into the seat.

I turn to Briar. “You brought your cat to work?” I leave the why in the ever-loving fuck out of the question, but it’s implied.

“What’s in those bags you hauled in?” she asks sharply, reaching into the backseat, presumably to comfort the cat.

“Did you rob a bank?” Benji asks, suddenly interested.

I push my hand through my hair in irritation, then tighten my grip on the wheel. “No.”

“A casino?”

“No.”

“You didn’t murder someone and chop them up and stick them in the bags to dispose of after work, did you?”

“For fuck’s sake,” I mutter, slowing for a red light. Benji can spill his secrets. Briar can keep hers. They’re both better off not knowing mine.

A tense silence falls over us, until Benji breaks it. “No one would think to look for us in Havenwood, Minnesota,” he says, nonchalantly.

Havenwood, Minnesota. A place I only know because Benji won’t stop talking about it.

I sigh. “You think some woman who got drunk and married you is going to welcome you into her life?”

“Why wouldn’t she?” Briar glares at me in warning, like I’m trying to rain on Benji’s parade rather than point out the obvious. “And it’s as good a place as any to hide.”

That might be true. I have no ties to Minnesota.

I’ve never been there. From what I’ve gathered from listening to Benji go on and on, it’s a small town in the middle of nowhere.

I’m not an outdoorsy person. I have no desire to surround myself with nature, which undoubtedly includes mosquitoes, spiders, and nothing to do or see but the same trees every day.

But I need to lie low for a while before I reach out to my college friend again. I could start laundering the money myself. How hard can it be?

And it would be irresponsible to abandon Briar to whatever shit she’s gotten herself into. Benji, too. They’re just coworkers, but they’re clearly out of their league.

“I can’t believe I’m fucking doing this,” I grumble, more to make myself feel better than anything as I put the destination into the navigation system.

It’s just a setback. Ten million isn’t going to ruin my life.