Chapter Fifteen
Krish peered through the windshield. “I assumed strip club was code for something else.”
“Indeed it is not.” Sejal opened her door, grateful to have reached their destination. One step closer to getting Alexei off
their backs. Maybe.
She closed her door and craned her neck to look up at the building. She’d never actually been to the strip club her honorary
uncle owned. At least one point in favor of her dad’s parenting skills.
It was a big building, like everything else in Vegas, and the neon lights above it flashed, even in the morning. The parking
lot, though, was pretty empty.
Krish fell into step beside her as she marched up to the door, his long legs easily keeping pace with her. “One of your dad’s
accomplices is a stripper? Pretty inclusive of the place, I guess, to have an older cast.”
She shot him a glance, trying to suppress her amusement over Krish’s barely concealed scandalized tone. “He’s not a stripper.
He owns the place.”
“Oh. That makes more sense.”
“I guess your mom’s friends growing up didn’t own strip clubs.”
“My mom didn’t have any friends when I was growing up,” he said matter-of-factly. “She didn’t trust anyone to be around me
or my brother. She opened up a bit more when Patrick came into the picture, but she still doesn’t have many close friends.
There’s people like Suzy, who she charms, but that’s more of a security measure than actual friendship.”
Sejal’s footsteps slowed. “You didn’t have any honorary aunts or uncles growing up?”
“Nope.”
Sejal thought back to when they’d first met. “You said that there was always an auntie.”
“What?”
“In the car, that first night. I said I had an aunt I was close to, and you said, ‘There’s always an auntie.’ And I thought
at the time that you must come from one of those Desi families that I couldn’t relate to, with tons of extended relatives
and aunts and uncles, and big dinners.”
“I know people like that, and I could never relate to them, either.”
It was funny, the things they had in common, given the vastly different worlds they came from.
They neared the front door of the building. A meaty bouncer leaned against the wood, but he snapped to attention. “Hello,
folks. Can I see your—”
Sejal cut him off. They didn’t have time for pleasantries. “I need to see Sunil. Right now.”
The bouncer’s smile didn’t slip. “Sorry, miss. Nobody by that name is here.”
Sejal looked up at the camera right above the door. “Sunil! It’s Sejal. Vassar’s oldest. I need to talk to you, damn it.”
“Miss—” The bouncer paused and pressed his finger against his earpiece. “Okay. Okay. Can you give me your phone number?”
It took Sejal a second to realize the man had directed the question to them, but Krish had already stepped forward, their
new untraceable phone in hand. “Yeah.” He checked the screen and rattled off the number. The bouncer didn’t repeat it, because
obviously someone was listening. The guy nodded again and focused on her. “Someone might give you a ring shortly.”
“Might? Or will?” Sejal asked.
“Might.” He pressed his finger against his earpiece again. “You’re welcome to wait inside. We’ll comp you a drink if no one
gets back to you.”
“It’s not even noon,” Krish said.
The bouncer shrugged. “None of my business what you order with your drink coupon, bud.”
“If no one gets back to me. . . ?” Sejal looked at the camera again. “Sunil, you better call me, damn it.”
“Miss, you can either wait inside or get in your car, but I can’t let you make a scene.”
“We’ll wait in the car, thanks,” Krish said, and took hold of Sejal’s arm.
Sejal shot a glare over her shoulder as they walked away. “We should go in.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Not a fan of strip clubs?”
“Not really.”
“Why not? Too prudish?”
“I don’t care what other people look at. I’d rather—” He cleared his throat.
“Rather what?”
“Rather have a more personal connection to the person I’m going to see naked,” he said, more quietly.
“Oh.”
Do not think about him naked.
Except how could she not? The memory of his nice bare ass was imprinted on her brain forever, and she’d only gotten a glimpse
when he’d turned around and put his boxers on. The full frontal visual was a mystery.
If only she’d gotten that towel off him yesterday.
The phone buzzed in Krish’s hand, and they both stopped. He checked the screen, and his brow furrowed.
“Is it . . . ?”
His frown didn’t dissipate, but he shook his head. “No. It’s nothing. My mom.”
Oh. Good. Once again, thinking about his mom definitely got her mind off his ass.
They got inside the car. Krish took out his phone and put it between them on the console. “Do you think he’ll call?”
“Not sure. Fifty-fifty. I think Sunil helped me back when my mom kidnapped me.” The words popped out of her. It was like her
mouth was dying to tell him about that incident.
“You don’t know?”
“I was pretty out of it. My mom drugged me while she held me. Roughed me up a bit.”
There was an appalled silence for a second. “She beat you?”
Sejal scratched her head. “My friend, I told you she kidnapped me. Did you think she got me a penthouse suite with room service?”
He scrubbed his hand over his face. “What exactly precipitated this kidnapping?”
“It’s not important.”
“You can’t drop breadcrumbs about a kidnapping and then not go into more detail. That’s cruel.” He gestured to the car, as
if to show that no one else was around. “I won’t tell anyone. I promise.”
Sejal sighed. What did it matter if she gave the fed who had investigated Rushali’s arrest the whole picture? If he did suddenly
turn on her and decide to drag her in for questioning, she’d deny everything. She guessed Mira and Naveen had already done
that.
He’s not going to turn on you. He promised.
She pushed away that assurance. Her gut didn’t have a great track record lately, especially around Krish. Best to expect the
worst.
How to explain the foolishness succinctly? “She and my father stole a diamond necklace with a passcode to a crypto fortune
inscribed inside of it. Like, hundreds of millions of dollars. Then my dad stole it from her. Then he had the audacity to
die.”
“Where did you come in?”
“Rushali thought my dad had given the necklace to me or Mira. He had not. After a few days of holding me, my mom realized
I wasn’t going to be of much help to her, so she tried to have some of her men kidnap Mira, who escaped. Then she told Mira
she’d release me if Mira delivered the necklace to her. I don’t know how Mira did it, but she and her husband found that damn
necklace and delivered it in time.”
“Did this all happen in Las Vegas?” he asked slowly.
She saw where he was going with this. “Yes. My mom was arrested right after. We left her in the hotel room.”
“And your aunt? She was there, too, wasn’t she? The timing of when she went missing from Witness Protection is too coincidental.”
Smart man. “She helped subdue my mom. Took a frying pan to her head.”
“That must have been satisfying.”
“Immensely.” A faint smile touched her lips. “My aunt has a habit of showing up in the nick of time. Once I got busted at
a party for underage drinking. I thought I was fucked. She came driving up to the house before the cops could even put me
in a patrol car.” Rhea had pitched a massive fit, until the cops had just shoved Sejal at her with a warning.
“And when your father kicked you out, she gave you money.”
She gave him a sharp look. He’d listened to her, really listened. “Yeah.”
“You made it sound like you have some complicated relationship with her. It seems pretty straightforward. She loves you.”
Sejal wrapped her arms around herself. “We weren’t on good terms before she went into Witness Protection.”
“Why?”
“She lied to me most of my life, telling me about all the amazing things she was doing all over the world. I was so proud
of her. And then I found out that she was a thief, no better than my parents.”
“Why do you think she lied to you? Was she someone who cared about appearances or something?”
Sejal scoffed. “No. It doesn’t matter why someone lies to you.”
He draped his wrist over the steering wheel and squinted out the windshield. “I think it does. Sounds like she gave you the
lie because you needed it.”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” A headache was building behind her eyes. Sejal massaged her temples.
“Your family,” he said quietly, “is a clusterfuck.”
She couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah, no shit.”
“But it sounds like there’s some good stuff in there.”
“Is that how you feel about your family?” she dared to ask.
He gave a short laugh. “Basically. Yes.” Krish picked up the phone, then put it down again. “How long should we wait? Do you
have your uncle’s number?”
“No.”
Krish turned the radio on, and Bing Crosby’s crooning voice filled the car. Sejal had noticed that Krish immediately changed
stations the second an ounce of static disrupted the tunes. The man was serious about unmarred music.
“Sounds like your sister did help you the last time you saw her,” he noted. “She might help us now.”
“Her hand was forced.” But later, Mira had been kind and welcoming to her.
That couldn’t possibly have been genuine, though. Or if it had, Mira probably hadn’t thought it through. Her sister had a
nice, sanitized life and didn’t need her messy family fucking that up.
“Why do you want to know so much about me, anyway?” And why was she telling him?
This is part of his game. He’s a way better interrogator than his mother is.
“It helps me understand you a little more.”
She drew back. That sounded earnest, and was somehow worse than intel gathering for law enforcement purposes. “Why would you
want to understand me?”
His cheeks puffed up. “I’ll be honest . . . I have no idea.”
The phone rang between them. They both looked at the blocked number for a ring or two like it was a live bomb, and then Sejal answered, placing it on speaker phone. “Hello?”
“The tiger’s got a friend.”
She was confused by the raspy feminine voice until she reached way back into her childhood. “The friend’s a rabbit.”
A pause. “Come to the Wyatt. Suite 3540.” The line disconnected.
She hung up and put her belt on, a new urgency taking the place of her worries about Krish. She could deal with it if her
big mouth got her in trouble later, but Alexei needed to be neutralized immediately. “The Wyatt’s not far. Come on.”
He started the car and pulled out. “Will your uncle be there?”
“Hopefully.” Or maybe not hopefully? It was unclear how she felt about seeing Sunil again.
“What was that about a rabbit?”
“Take a left out of the parking lot and get back on the freeway.” Sejal sat forward in her seat, anticipation coursing through
her veins now that they were on the move. “When we were little, my uncle used to read me a story. About a tiger who only made
friends with other predators, because he felt that prey were beneath him. But then one day, when they were in the midst of
a drought, the tiger realized that all of the predators being friends meant that none of them ate. So he set out to make friends
with a bunny. With the objective of eating him at the end of the day.”
“Jesus, what kind of brutal children’s book was this?” Krish navigated onto the freeway.
“A standard one, so many of them are brutal. Anyway, the tiger realized he was having fun with the bunny, so he didn’t eat
him that night. Every night that went by, he made excuse after excuse as to why he wouldn’t eat his rabbit friend.
“The other predators became jealous, so they tracked down the bunny. Just when they were about to eat him, the tiger leapt in and saved him. The other predators were angry, but the tiger stood his ground, bunny in his mouth. They ran off together, and lived in a little cave, taking in other animals, predators and prey, who wanted to have fun, with no ulterior motives.”
“Well, at least it ends happily.” Krish glanced at her. “Wait, am I the bunny?”
Sejal agreed that, as big as Krish was, he wouldn’t make a very good bunny. “She was asking if I was with you under duress.”
“Oh. I see. Fine.”
The Wyatt was a huge upscale hotel and casino on the strip, and it took them longer than she would have liked to park their
car and wind their way to the elevator. Sejal worried a thread from the sleeve of her sweatshirt around her finger, until
Krish stopped her by taking her hand. “Relax. This is a friend, right?”
“Yup.” A friend who had known and loved her father, someone she had known and hated. A man from the childhood she’d done her
best to leave behind in this godforsaken city. Easy.
They came to the suite door, and Krish knocked.
The door opened, and Sejal felt like she’d been punched, the wind knocked out of her. The woman standing on the other side
of the door appeared equally stunned.
Mira’s hair was longer, and she had gained weight since Sejal had seen her last, her face now rounder and rosier. She wore
casual clothes, expensive jeans, and a wrinkle-free long-sleeved shirt that fit her curves well.
But as good as her sister looked, all Sejal could focus on was the brown-skinned, fresh little baby sitting on her sister’s hip. The child was angelic, maybe a few months old, wearing a green-and-white-striped dress, with matching ribbons holding her curly dark hair up in two short pigtails.
“Sejal,” Mira breathed.
Sejal tore her gaze away from the baby. “Mira. I’m sorry—”
But that was all she got out before her sister hugged her.