Page 12 of The Deeper Game (The Kinky Bank Robbers #3)

“Sure,” Macy said. “It’s not Jenny’s guy, I’ll tell you that.”

Angel snorted.

Matteo grinned. “It was a motherfucking thing of beauty to behold when they caught Jenny’s stalker.”

Macy glared at him. “What happened to hard guy?”

“You know what happened to hard guy,” Matteo said.

Angel looked around the table. “You guys are coming up on a job,” she said. “I can feel it.”

Thor strolled up behind them. “Sorry, ladies, you’ll have to read about it in the paper with everyone else.”

Macy rolled her eyes as Thor shoved in and sat on the other side of Zeus. Then she turned, and the three of them walked off, fighter jet style.

I narrowed my eyes at Matteo. “What happened with you and Macy?”

Matteo shrugged.

“He slept with another woman,” Odin said.

“Yikes,” I said.

“Don’t say it like that,” Matteo said. “It wasn’t my fault.”

“Not your fault?”

“No. We were gearing up to hit this mansion in Malibu, and I got an in as a cable guy, and the lady of the house, she wanted a go with me. I wasn’t going to fuck her. I was just acting into her, but when you’re acting into somebody? When you’re a guy? Sometimes biology just takes over.”

“That’s your excuse?” Odin asked, incredulous. “Biology took over? Is that what you told Macy?”

“Yeah, that’s what I told Macy,” Matteo said.

“That’s your problem,” Odin said. “You’re not taking responsibility.”

“I’m not saying I didn’t do it. It was me,” Matteo said. “I did it, but it was biology. I wasn’t into her.”

Thor grinned. “Yet you were.”

“Biology didn’t fuck the woman,” I said.

“This job’ll let me show her how I feel. That’s what giving her the Liz Taylor diamonds is. She’s wanted those jewels since she was a little girl.”

“That’s nice,” I said. “But she also needs to know that you’re taking responsibility, like Odin said.”

“I don’t see how I can take more responsibility than putting myself in danger to get her the prize of the century.”

“If I were her, I’d be more interested in an assurance that the fucking won’t happen again,” I said. “How does she know biology won’t take you over again?”

Matteo frowned.

“It’s like the parole board,” Odin said. “They don’t give a shit about excuses. They need to see you have insight into how you fucked up and that you have control over your own actions going forward.”

“But sometimes it really does happen like that,” Matteo said. “You can’t help it.”

“Then why should she get back with you?” I asked.

“I won’t put myself in that situation again, that’s why,” Matteo said.

Odin rolled his eyes. “It’s not the situation that fucked the other woman.”

I added, “What if you get into that situation accidentally? Why should Macy trust you?”

Odin pointed at him. “You need to fucking-g ponder that decision-making process with the woman you cheated with. You need to look at yourself and why you want to pretend your biology controls your dick, because you know what? It doesn’t.

You have a worldview that says you’re sometimes not responsible for your own actions.

But you are, Matteo. You need to look inside yourself and ask, ‘ What do I get out of that worldview? What does it mean if I’m responsible for my actions?

What do I fear if I accept that as the truth? ’”

I watched Odin, stunned. Impressed.

“Jesus Christ!” Matteo said. “Seriously?”

“What do you lose if you accept that you alone control your own actions?” Odin pressed. “You ponder that.”

“God,” Matteo said. “It’s not enough to be in mortal danger robbing the Prime? Because I don’t know how to do this other shit.”

“Everybody knows how to do it,” Odin said. “You don’t want to.”

My phone buzzed just then. Which was strange, because everybody who had that number was with me. I pulled it out and looked at the screen. Unavailable.

“Somebody’s calling me,” I said stupidly. You weren’t supposed to have phones in Guvvey’s, but the owner changed the rules once he got re-addicted to Tetris.

Zeus grabbed it. “Answer it normally. A simple hello.” He put it on speaker and set it in front of me and then took out his own phone.

“Hello?” I said.

My guys all bent in.

A distorted male voice. “I’m coming for you, Isis.”

My belly dropped through me.

Odin and Zeus flew up from the table, looking all around the bar.

Thor slid closer and swirled the air with his finger. Talk more.

“Who is this? What do you want?” I asked, trying to keep my voice from shaking.

“You know what I want,” the voice said. “It’s only a matter of time ‘til I get it.”

I looked up into Thor’s blue eyes, uncharacteristically grim now. “Who is this?” I asked.

“Bring your lipstick,” the voice said.

The line went dead. I didn’t even want to touch the thing.

“Christ,” Matteo said.

Thor took a deep breath and moved in closer to me. “You’re okay.”

Zeus and Odin were out of sight. “Where’d they go?” I asked.

“The thinking is always that this kind of stalker gets his jollies out of seeing you react, seeing us react,” Thor said. “So they’re looking for people acting suspiciously. People watching us, people hurrying away. Just taking in the crowd. Everybody here is now a suspect.”

“I hope you all got a lot of photos of this crowd,” Matteo said.

“Defo,” Thor said.

Matteo snorted. “Such a mindfuck to see those two acting like cops.”

“It’s weird for me, too.” Thor turned his gaze to his soda, half gone, in the highball glass. “Bring your lipstick,” he repeated.

“What does it mean?” I asked, feeling all shaky. I drained my drink.

Matteo furrowed his brow. “Well, you do wear lipstick, I guess.”

“Yeah.” I actually wore lipstick a lot, and I reapplied it a lot. When I went from redhead to blonde, it gave me a whole new class of makeup to use, including frosty pink, something you couldn’t pull off as a redhead.

The Gigi’s and I had put lipstick on together in the bathroom…could it be them with a voice distorter? I hated the idea, but I looked around, wondering. At least we knew it wasn’t Matteo.

I swallowed, thinking I really was visible and notable these days, what with the bright colors I favored and being a woman with three men. I felt almost ashamed for the first time. I’d clawed my way into this life I loved, but maybe I had taken too much.

Thor had a faraway look in his eyes.

“What?” But right then, I remembered. Venus, the woman who’d been with them before, had written her suicide note in lipstick.

“It’s probably nothing,” he said.

Zeus was back. “Fucker’s watching. He’s got to be.” He picked up my phone and smashed it into a brick pillar to the side of the table. His intensity made me feel worried, but also like an army was on my side. A powerful army of stormy guys.

“We’re okay,” Thor said to me. He slung his arm around my shoulders.

I sucked in a breath, heart pounding. Of all the threats we’d encountered, this one was the scariest, because it felt like it was coming from our people.

I thought about the cozy sheep farm I’d left behind, the place I could never return to.

Nothing ever happened there, but it was safe.

And I thought about the sun-drenched hotel on the Tunisian island. I rested my head on his shoulder.

“Stop looking scared, baby,” Zeus said. He slid in on the other side of me and put an arm around me. “You’re giving whoever it is what he wants.”

“But I am scared,” I said.

“And you’re looking pissed,” Matteo pointed out to Zeus.

Zeus looked more than pissed. “Somebody dies,” he growled. “And the lipstick? Not loving it.”

“Everybody knows about that part,” Matteo said. “It’s common knowledge.”

“It’s a taunt,” Zeus growled. “Somebody dies. I’m telling you.”

“Can you get something from the phone carrier?” Matteo asked. “A trace or some such? On the number that called?”

“They called from a burner. No way would they be so stupid not to,” Zeus said. “Fuck! How’d they get her number?”

“We’re hitting the Prime Royale in six days,” Matteo said.

Zeus turned to him. “We’re not rethinking that.”

“We don’t have to hit the Prime,” I said.

“Yes, we do,” Zeus barked. “Nobody messes with our own. Canceling this job, it’s like giving in to a terrorist. We don’t give into ZOX, and we don’t give into stalkers.”

Odin strolled up with a fierce expression, sexy in his black suit. “That SIM card had better be intact.”

“They called from a burner,” Zeus said.

“I’d like to look all the same,” Odin said. “And let’s press our contacts a little harder.”

Zeus grunted.

I’d seen this before—Odin sometimes stepped up when Zeus got emotional. Zeus lacked a certain amount of impulse control. Or maybe he let himself lack it, knowing Odin was there. So much of our group was symbiotic, I sometimes didn’t know where one of us started and the other ended.

“They could’ve triangulated it from our numbers. It’s not hard,” Zeus said.

“Oh, is that how?” Odin said. “Too bad the phone’s in pieces.”

“You guys,” I said. “We’re going to be okay. I have total faith.”

A waitperson appeared with a broom and dustpan.

Odin took the implements from him. “Bring me a baggy, okay?” He grabbed a cocktail napkin and started cleaning off the dustpan.

Zeus swore under his breath.

I fit my hands around him, holding him from the side. “I don’t feel worried,” I whispered. I didn’t have a word for how I felt at the moment. Except maybe kaleidoscopic. I snuggled in more tightly.

He grabbed my hair and gave me a deep kiss, plying my lips open, pulling me hard against him. “Nobody fucks with you.”

“Except you,” I said.

“I want to fuck you right now,” he said.

“I feel wild, goddammit. But…” He grabbed my knees and pulled me onto his lap so that my legs were completely around him.

“We’ve got a motherfucking stalker to catch.

He pulled out his phone and punched in a number so hard I was shocked the screen didn’t crack.

I kissed his neck. When I shifted, I could feel his cock, rock hard in his pants. He launched into an intense, mumbled conversation. Pressuring somebody about the fingerprints.

Odin finished gathering up the phone pieces into the baggie.

“Just a little more time,” Thor said quietly to Matteo. “Let’s see where we are tomorrow with all this.”

So Thor was open to putting the Prime Royale on the back burner. That was a relief.