Chapter 7 Maverick #2
Storm and I drive about twenty minutes out from the casino and find a motel that rents by the hour. The alley stinks of piss and desperation. Spent condoms and dirty needles litter the ground. Neon hums, and a TV barks behind a thin wall. Somewhere a woman laughs, and it isn’t a sound of joy.
“This seems…nice,” Storm says.
“Atticus arranged an anonymous tip,” I tell him, watching the rearview. “Cops cleared out the homeless twenty minutes ago. Rounded everyone up, checked for weapons. In a minute they’ll realize processing each of them for solicitation and possession isn’t worth the paperwork. Let’s move fast.”
“How is this better than throwing her away?” Storm asks.
Atticus’s voice comes over the comms. “The residents will be back soon, which means they’ll find her, and someone will report it. She’ll be processed and laid to rest. Her next of kin will be notified. There won’t be any links to us other than the fact that she worked at the hotel.”
I nod as if Atticus can see me and help Storm pull her from the bed.
We arrange her just so—still naked, still with the single tiny exit wound to her head.
I gently turn her face toward the glow of the streetlight and brush her hair back from her face—not softness, exactly—just a refusal to make it worse.
I almost feel bad as we climb into the truck without leaving a trace of evidence behind.
“Get back here and park it where you found it. I’ll have the plates switched back,” Atticus says before the line goes dead.
We don’t talk the whole ride back. Not that I would want to; I can still feel Storm’s rage coming off of him in hot waves. He didn’t like doing this, but it needed to be done.
At the resort, we cut through the back corridors to the suite and change for the event.
Normally a suit makes me feel invincible—Jack Reacher in cufflinks.
I look good in a suit, if a little…big. Storm’s the one who looks like Tarzan, no matter what those women said, with his height, lean, muscled build, and pale blond hair.
Tonight I don’t feel like Reacher. Reacher is always in control. When he doesn’t have control of a situation, he takes it. Usually, that’s exactly how I feel and what I do. Lately, though, it feels like everything’s been spinning out.
Instead of spending the summer with my brothers finding new ways to push and punish our girl in a haze of champagne and bad decisions, I’m playing whack-a-mole with one crisis after another.
That’s a problem. I can handle stress. I can handle problems. But they’re piling up, stacking one on top of the other, and the second I think something’s handled, another bomb drops.
The body is gone. The evidence linking us to that girl is gone. We should be in the clear. It should be over. But the tension won’t leave my shoulders. The gnawing in my gut won’t quit. It feels like the summer’s bullshit is just beginning.
My bow tie pinches, and I slip a finger under the knot, running it around the circumference of the tie.
I still can’t fucking breathe.
Storm waits for me and Atticus in the living room. The three of us will head down together and pretend we’ve been there the whole time.
“I don’t like this,” I say, pacing. “Why leave the body? Why not just send a message?”
“They did,” Storm mutters. “The message is: we can get in. We can fuck with your systems. And we can make you clean up our mess like good little fuck boys.”
I stop pacing. “So you think it’s just a power play.”
“Feels like it.”
“Weak fucking play,” I spit. “If they wanted to make a move, they would’ve. This? This is a warning. A test.”
“Or a setup,” Storm says with a shrug.
I glance at him. “You think they wanted us to dispose of it?”
“Are we ready?” Atticus asks before Storm answers.
He looks like shit.
That’s how I know things are really bad—Atticus is usually precise to the edge of OCD. Tonight, his shirt is wrinkled, his collar’s unbuttoned, and his bow tie is untied. His hair’s ruffled like he’s been clawing at it, and his glasses are smudged.
That’s not the Atticus I know. His left eyelid ticks.
He doesn’t wait for us to ask, but I see it, and I know Storm does, too.
“Still no trace,” Atticus says. “Whoever did this scrubbed the logs clean. All access footage of this suite, the hallway, the docks—wiped. I’ve got a backup redundancy, but even that’s corrupted. Let’s get down there so I can come back up and keep working.”
I don’t think he slept at all. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he’s flirting with abusing his meds.
“Inside job?” I ask.
He nods once. “Or someone who knows me very well. And there are only four people on the planet that know me that well.”
Fuck.
The casino floor is packed—women in sequins, men in tuxedos. Champagne and laughter flow almost as fast as the money. I outdid myself again, but none of the glitz and old-world glam compares to her.
I see her the second we walk in and my breath catches. My actual chest aches, and I remember my half-formed promise to become a man worthy of her.
Or to bring her down to my level.
But the absolute vision of a woman that I’m staring at? She’s not lowering herself for anyone. Not even me.
She’s worth all of it and more.
Phoenix stands at Conrad’s side, his hand low on her waist—possessive—and I don’t blame him.
My little firebird burns brighter than any woman in the room.
Her honey-hued hair falls in loose waves, and her black dress is banded in gold and silver beads with fringe kissing her thighs, giving teasing peeks.
Unlike the other women in dresses around the room, hers isn’t a sack with sequins.
The V-neck frames her cleavage, and the cut hugs her curves in a way that makes my mouth water.
She’s stunning. And she’s mine.
Well—all of ours.
But she’s mine to take, to break. I could bend her over a poker table and claim her as mine in front of everyone here if I so chose, dictated by the terms of our agreement and more, by the terms of this thing…this attraction that sparks between us. That doesn’t lie.
That thought alone will get me through the next few hours. I run a thumb across my bottom lip. Later tonight that pretty red lipstick is going to be smeared over my cock, and the memories of body disposal will fade.
I slide a smile into place and step into the light—time to work the room and win us a future so I can claim my prize.