Chapter 7 Maverick
Maverick
Even I know this is stupid—and that’s saying something from the man who just helped Phoenix kidnap a stray dog.
This? It’s too risky, even for me.
Out of all of us, I’m usually the one who’s willing to take the gamble, ready to throw the dice and shove my chips into the middle of the table.
We only live once, right? I’ll sleep when I’m dead.
So when I’m the voice of reason—when it’s my veins that are loud with adrenaline, and it’s me who’s jumping at every sound—that’s when I know we’re fucked.
Because if I’m the only one seeing the danger, that means that everyone else is already doomed.
My grip creaks on the tarp as I shift it higher on my shoulder and adjust, sweat slicking my palm and then going cold in the AC. Storm moves in counterpoint, adjusting his end.
We slept through the entire day, exhaustion and stress finally taking their toll on our bodies even if our brains wanted to keep spinning.
I only woke when a wet tongue dragged across my ear and a sharp, proud yip went off by the bed.
Zeus—Phoenix’s brand-new, ill-advised surprise I helped her smuggle in last night—had his paws braced on the mattress, tail thudding against the bed in excited bursts.
The others didn’t know he existed; they learned fast. Someone bolted upright swearing, someone else stepped straight into a cold, accusing puddle, and Phoenix half-laughed, half-groaned into her pillow.
Despite the hours of near coma-sleep, I still felt run-down and sluggish when I finally pried my eyes open.
There is not enough coffee and hot showers in the world to make me feel right.
Conrad insists the first thing we do is get rid of the body, and it’s the right move. It just feels risky as hell.
We can’t keep her in the closet. Eventually the corpse is going to start to stink, and then housekeeping will find her and start asking questions. I get that.
What I don’t get is why we have her wrapped in a bright-blue tarp—Storm carrying her feet and me carrying her shoulders—as we walk out with what is obviously a corpse without clearing the path first.
We should have gone with a black tarp at the very least. Black wouldn’t have been quite as noticeable. I’m pretty sure that’s in the Handbook of How-To Dispose of Dead Bodies for Dummies. Atticus must have skipped that fucking part.
“There couldn’t be a worse night to do this,” I say through gritted teeth. “The resort is almost at capacity.”
“The Great Gatsby theme party was your idea,” Storm reminds me, glancing back.
“I planned that months ago. And thank fuck for it, because the revenue should start making a dent in this fifteen-percent bullshit.”
Storm makes a sound in the back of his throat that could mean agreement. We’ll make a game plan for that later. Body disposal first.
“How was I supposed to know we’d be taking out the trash tonight? Maybe you’ve got a crystal ball shoved up your butt, but ass play isn’t my thing,” I grunt.
Storm huffs a laugh and shifts more of the weight. “I thought ass play was your thing, though.”
“Only when they beg for it, and I like my women more…responsive.” I reply automatically. How is one skinny girl so heavy? Silicone shouldn’t weigh this much.
“It’s not like any guests are roaming the back corridors,” Atticus says in my earpiece. “They’re all in the bars or heading to the boat.”
“We have extra staff scheduled tonight, asshole.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got you. Stop at the next corner and wait for my signal.”
Storm and I trade a look, roll our eyes, and stop.
“Can you believe that bitch Sarah didn’t show up today?” A voice floats down the hall.
“Yes, yes I can,” someone else says with a laugh. “She tried so hard to fuck one of the Titans, but none of them would even give her a second look. She probably got smart and cut her losses and found some rich old guy to buy her stuff. That girl is determined to be someone’s sugar baby.”
“Really? She told me she was already hooking up with Maverick, and I swear I was jealous for a half second. Can you imagine being taken by someone as big as Tarzan,” the first voice says.
The second girl laughs. “No. He may have fucked her, but I promise you he didn’t even know her name. Rumor has it, he told her she wasn’t pretty enough to give bad head. He offered to pay for blow job classes, like for a charity tax write off.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
Under normal circumstances, I’d love to eavesdrop on this conversation and find out. Since they’re connecting me with the dead body in question, however, I’m less enthusiastic.
I shift restlessly, and the tarp crinkles. Storm shoots me a sharp look, and I hold my breath and listen for footsteps.
At least Conrad and Phoenix aren’t here to give me shit about the irony. Storm doesn’t care, and Atticus is too focused on the issue at hand to enjoy the joke being made of my life.
“Because that’s how all of them are. It doesn’t take an idiot to know there’s no chance. There’s only one girl any of them have ever looked at twice. And it’s been the same way since we were teenagers.”
“That tacky trailer trash hanging around them? She isn’t even that pretty.”
Storm’s eyes narrow, and I send a quick prayer to whichever god watches over us for shits and giggles to keep him from losing it.
One dead bitch is enough for the night.
“She is too pretty,” the other voice says, and I can see some of Storm’s anger ease. If his hands were free, he’d flip his knife and stroll past the girls just to watch them scatter.
“Phoenix is one of the sweetest girls here. She wouldn’t even live in that trailer if her dad wasn’t holding her back. She spends all her time working here or taking care of that drunk loser before he died,” the voice continues. “I always thought she was pretty and liked her.”
I agree with her assessment.
“I mean, I guess—”
“No, look, Phoenix is one of us. She was raised around here, and her dad was an asshole and the worst kind of gambler. I don’t know what it is about her that caught their attention and held it, and I don’t care.
She deserves something good. Yeah, those guys are hot.
But hot guys are a dime a dozen in our world.
What matters is that they’re good to her. ”
“How do you know they’re good enough for her, then? If you think she’s one of us and deserves it.”
I look at Storm, ready to share another eye roll, but his face falls, and his shoulders slump. I see it land.
He doesn’t think we’re good enough for her—or at least, he doesn’t think he is. His mouth goes flat; he stares at the wall in front of us like he’s looking in the mirror and he doesn’t like what he sees.
“Hold tight,” Atticus’s voice crackles through the earpiece. “I’ll get rid of them.”
A second later, a walkie-talkie chirps, and the girls are called back to work. Their voices recede down the corridor in the opposite direction, and I release the first full breath I’ve taken in five minutes.
“You’re clear,” Atticus says.
I open my mouth to say something to Storm and realize I’ve got nothing. Not because I don’t want to comfort my friend, but because I’m not sure he’s wrong.
She does deserve better than us.
We have money, and we have power, but when you get down to it, that’s all we have. We’re degenerates. I’m not sure that makes us anything special. She deserves normal, and we aren’t capable of giving it to her.
I can rationalize it, pointing out that when she was in danger we killed for her, and we’d do it again.
But she’s seen so much death and pain in her life, she deserves men who can keep her from danger in the first place.
Part of me thinks we should let her go. Maybe put her where she could find someone who can make her happy. That’s what good men would do.
I’m not a good man, and I never claimed to be.
There isn’t a deadly sin I haven’t basked in or a commandment I haven’t broken. And I’m not the only one.
I refuse to give her up. If that means I have to figure out how to be good enough for her, or how to bring her down to my level, then so be it. Because the woman who asked for my help to rescue a dog? Yeah, I’m not going to let her walk away from me.
I square my shoulders again under the weight I’m carrying. The tarp bites against my neck, and Storm sends another look back. I have the feeling the same thoughts are rattling around his skull and smile darkly.
There are no more interruptions as we carry the body to the pickup with stolen plates waiting in the delivery bay. Conrad and I wanted to dump her in the ocean, but Atticus said it was too risky. We were just there the other night, and we don’t have the time.
We need to be seen at the casino.
Conrad and Phoenix are already there. People will assume we arrived when they did, but we still need to make an appearance.
So instead, we’re putting her where we know she’ll be found—eventually. An alley behind a seedy motel. I wanted her in the dumpster—make it look like someone took her, got what they wanted, and tossed her.
Phoenix wouldn’t let us.
She refused to throw her away.
“It could have been me,” she said in a low, sad voice that will haunt my sleep until I’m on my deathbed. “Sarah and I weren’t friends, but we come from the same place, and that could have been me. Get rid of her—do what you need to do—but you can’t just throw her away.”
Storm insisted we take care of it, in a way that means she will be found sooner rather than later. Her family will be notified, and she won’t just be another missing girl on a flyer and a Jane Doe in the morgue.
Part of me is relieved. I didn’t like the way I felt when Phoenix's voice broke or the look of devastation in her eyes when she thought we would let someone do that to her. My chest tightened and I felt…something far too close to an emotion I refuse to name.