CHAPTER 20
JAGGER
It was always strange seeing Gage in daylight.
Not unsettling exactly. Just . . . weird. Like spotting a wolf asleep in the sun, belly-up, looking almost harmless if you didn’t know better.
He sat across from me at the long table in the back of the restaurant with his sleeves rolled to his elbows and his forearms braced casually against the wood.
His hair was the color of wet sand, darker at the roots and lighter where the sun had bleached it over time.
Gage’s features were balanced in a way that made him immediately approachable, a face people opened up to without realizing they were doing it.
There was something composed in his gaze, quiet and attentive, like the sort of man you’d trust with directions—or a secret—without thinking twice.
Federal agent by day.
Our problem solver by night.
I took a sip of my drink and studied him over the rim of the glass. “No wonder you don’t ever go on dates during daylight hours,” I said. “You look like a completely different person right now.”
Gage scoffed. “Please. I’m devastating in all lighting. Daylight just gives the public a fair warning.”
I huffed out a laugh. I guess he wasn’t wrong. Like all of us, Gage was unfairly good-looking, or at least that’s what I’d heard said multiple times.
I didn’t see what the fuss was about for anyone but me, honestly.
I would say that Gage was exceptional at moving like he belonged wherever he was—courtroom, gala, dive bar—it didn’t matter. People trusted him before he opened his mouth.
Which was hilarious, considering.
The restaurant around us was empty, the front doors locked. We owned Velluto, and it usually had a thriving lunch business when it was open to the public. Gage and I had things to discuss . . . so today it was closed.
Gage leaned back in his chair, crossing his ankle over his knee. “You didn’t call me here to admire my face.”
“No,” I said. “Although, I can’t recall ever doing that. So I hope that’s not what you’ve been thinking all this time.”
The eye roll he gave me was very unbecoming of a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent.
I studied him for another second, clocking the faint tremor of restless energy under his calm. “How many energy drinks have you had today?”
Gage didn’t even blink. “Three.”
“Three,” I repeated. “Since when?”
“Since this morning,” he clarified. “Alanis. The cherry ones specifically, because everyone knows they’re the best.”
I stared at him. “It’s barely noon.”
“And yet,” he said pleasantly, “I remain among the living.”
I wondered often how that was possible. I’d read somewhere that the human heart could only handle so much caffeine, and I was positive that Gage blew right through that amount before breakfast.
Taking a sip of my drink, I shook my head. “So what’s the word on the feds’ reaction to the shocking revelation that dear old Vegas might be run by the mafia?”
Gage’s smile turned thin. “Outrage. Disbelief. A lot of very serious faces pretending they already knew and they’d been ‘working’ on it.”
I barked out a quiet laugh.
“Officially,” he went on, “it’s ‘unverified speculation’ and ‘media sensationalism.’ A lot of polished statements about ongoing reviews and commitment to public safety.”
“And that means?”
“They look blindsided,” he said. “And they hate that.”
I nodded once. “And operationally.”
“They’re playing it safe,” Gage said. “There aren’t going to be any raids yet.
They don’t want to tip us off.” He grinned as he said that, considering they tipped us off every single day without realizing it.
“Right now it’s financial mapping and trying to identify our shell companies.
I saw a chart yesterday with a list of casinos, construction firms, and what ‘consulting offices’ were used for each project. ”
“I’m sure that’s going well,” I mused. That was something else they’d never be able to unwind.
“They’re bringing in analysts from New York and DC,” Gage continued. “People who don’t know this city, but they’ve studied the organizations back East, so they think that makes them qualified to untangle Vegas.”
“I think Lucian would disagree with that assessment,” I said as I took another drink. I leaned forward slightly. “What do you think the timeline is for when they start showing up?”
Gage didn’t hesitate. “A month.”
I lifted a brow. “That fast?” That was very inconvenient because it meant more time away from Eden handling things. I needed to get this shored up with her immediately. I had to get her out of that apartment.
Even with that timeline, there was still only so long I could function trying to sleep on that mattress before I went insane.
Well . . . more insane than I was already behaving. Drugging your love interest so you could sleep with her every night was probably frowned upon by most people.
I started adjusting pieces in my head. “Feed them something small.”
“I already am,” he said, looking faintly offended that I’d even suggested it.
“Something noisy,” I clarified. “Complicated enough to keep them busy. Not important enough to matter.”
Gage’s mouth tilted. “A mid-level laundering channel tied to a contractor who’s about to retire?”
“Hmm, they’ll smell something off with that,” I said.
He tapped his glass against the table, considering. “What if I give them an old real estate partnership that brushes up against one of the New York families? It’s dusty, mostly dissolved, but it’ll light up their charts and keep them busy arguing over who owns it.”
I thought about it, then nodded. “That should work.”
His fingers suddenly stilled on the glass. His gaze drifted past me, unfocused, as though he was watching something rearrange itself in the air.
The easy charm slipped, and his eyes went a cold, flat, pale gray, like frost over a frozen lake hiding something long dead beneath.
The memory slammed into me without warning.
A dim warehouse outside Henderson. Concrete floors stained dark and sticky under the single hanging bulb. The air was thick with bleach and copper, so intense it burned the back of my throat with every inhale, like breathing through a wet rag soaked in pennies.
A man was strapped upright to a metal frame, his wrists and ankles bound so tightly the rope had already bitten through skin and into muscle. He was breathing in ragged, wet gasps interspersed with broken, snot-choked sobbing pleas. Gage tilted his head, and the pleading abruptly stopped.
Gage peeled the man’s face first. The scalpel tip kissed the hairline, then dragged down along the jaw in one smooth, unhurried line, parting flesh like wet paper.
Blood welled in perfect crimson beads that were bright against his paling skin, then ran in thin rivers.
He lifted the edges with gloved fingers and gently pulled.
The face came away in one piece, a glistening, dripping mask of skin with the muscle and fat left behind.
The man’s scream turned high and shredded as the cold air of the room hit his exposed nerves.
Gage didn’t flinch or even blink at the sound.
He just held the flap of skin up to the light like he was inspecting a piece of fabric before setting it aside on the crate next to him with the same care he’d use to set down a coffee cup.
He moved to the man’s arms next. Cutting in long, careful strokes down the forearms, Gage curled the blade under to separate dermis from muscle.
Skin sloughed off in wide, translucent sheets, red and veined, like peeled fruit, landing on the concrete with soft, wet slaps.
The man jerked against the restraints, his veins pulsing under the raw meat that used to be his arms, every twitch sending fresh blood splattering to the floor.
Gage’s face never changed. He didn’t look excited or disgusted .
. . He simply kept that same flat, surgical calm—like he was disassembling a broken appliance instead of a person.
When the man’s screams dissolved into gurgling whimpers, Gage peeled the torso open, stripping away every inch of skin until nothing remained that could be recognized.
No face. No fingerprints. No story left to tell.
Just glistening red muscle, exposed tendons twitching like dying worms, and the slow drip of blood pooling beneath the frame in a widening dark mirror.
When he was finished, Gage wiped the blade clean on the man’s own discarded shirt . . . and then looked at me and smiled.
That same surgical emptiness stared back at me now.
“Come back to me, buddy,” I said softly, watching as he slowly blinked and the light returned to his eyes. Being close friends with a psychopath wasn’t the easiest thing, but we’d all figured out how to manage it.
“Well, look at this,” a familiar voice called warmly. “My favorite investors, gracing me with their presence.”
Dominic Bianchi swept toward the table as if he was still walking into a dining room in Milan instead of a strip mall–adjacent jewel box in Vegas.
He was wearing his usual perfectly tailored jacket with a silk pocket square, and his dark hair was threaded with silver at the temples.
The man held multiple Michelin stars and never let anyone forget it.
We owned the restaurant, but Dominic ran it. And he ran it like it was his kingdom.
“Numbers are up again this quarter,” he announced proudly, clasping my shoulder before shaking Gage’s hand. “Eighteen percent. Private dining bookings are saving you heathens from yourselves.”
“Imagine that,” I said dryly. “People like good food.”
He sniffed. “They like my food.”
He adjusted his cuff and glanced toward the windows with theatrical disgust. “And I achieve this excellence in a climate that is actively hostile to human life. Forty degrees Celsius last week. In Milan, we have seasons. Here, we have the sun trying to murder you.”
“You say that every week,” I reminded him.
“Because it remains true.”
Gage smirked into his drink.