Page 27 of The Deeper Game (The Kinky Bank Robbers #3)
Three weeks later, my guys and I were lounging on the porch in our matching plush bathrobes after some exuberant fun in the hot tub. The last remnant of my struggle with Manning, my chin bruise, was nearly all the way faded. You could barely see it.
Zeus set down his paperback novel and stood. “Who wants lemonade?”
I smiled up at him. “Could it be strawberry lemonade?”
“Could be and will be.” He headed inside.
Getting kidnapped, chased, and nearly tossed to your death in a quarry pit turned out to be quite the boon if you were the type who liked being waited on hand and foot by three hunky bank robbers.
Which I was.
But it went so much deeper than that. The experience changed us. I got this new appreciation for my guys. Out there in the quarry parking lot with them all bloody and invigorated, I came to love them in a newer, deeper way.
And they had a different relationship with vengeance, too. They were no longer the bitches of vengeance, just like Zeus had promised.
They might still want to rob banks, they assured me, and they would strike back if ZOX came after them, but they didn’t have to do any of it. Odin was doing more painting these days. Thor was into his clinic work.
Zeus announced he was opening a detective agency.
“What?” Odin said. “You’re opening a detective agency?”
“Yeah, why not?” Zeus said. “I put it out on the grapevine already.”
“Don’t detectives catch criminals?” I asked. “And work with the police?” Both of those were rhetorical questions.
Thor was laughing. “Are you thinking this through? You start busting criminals, you’ll never get served at Guvvey’s again. And that will be the least of your problems.”
“No, this detective agency would help criminals. Our peeps need detectives, too,” Zeus said. “In fact, we have our first client.”
Odin sat up. “You don’t think you should’ve consulted the gang?”
Zeus shrugged. “If you don’t want to solve this guy’s mystery, I’ll do it myself.”
Odin grumbled. “Of course I want to help solve a mystery. Who is it?”
“Alexander Hamilton.” Zeus pulled out his phone. “Obviously not his real name.” He hit play on a voicemail and a man’s voice filled the room.
Yeah, this is…Alexander Hamilton calling.
So…somebody out there framed me up for something.
Made me a powerful enemy. This frame-up was tight.
They thought of everything. And I really need you to, you know, to figure out who did it so I can have a chat with this person if you know what I mean.
I’m around this week. Shoot me a time and place and I’ll be there.
Odin narrowed his eyes. “Shit,” he said.
“What?” Zeus said. “You recognize the voice?”
“That’s Herk Washington, man,” Odin said.
Thor sat up. “The Herk Washington? Why would he be calling us?”
“Obviously he got framed for something and needs our help,” Zeus said.
At the moment, however, we were enjoying the quiet evening. I was busy knitting wee little socks to send along with the fabulous baby gifts we’d picked out for Lupe, who had given birth to a healthy baby boy just the week before.
We’d had the security system and cameras ripped out and replaced.
It was so creepy to know Manning had been watching us all that time.
He’d messed up the robbery for my guys, of course, though Matteo and the Gigis had made out like bandits—the jewels in the Prime Royale went beyond everybody’s wildest dreams. Those four were off living it up in various glamorous capitals around the world as they dealt with different black-market brokers.
Macy hadn’t forgiven Matteo on a personal level, but they were working together again; it gave Matteo a chance to prove himself. Hopefully he would.
Before they’d left, Matteo and the Gigis had dropped by and handed over a chunk of the haul as a gift for us having done so much of the prep work. It was a lovely gesture, and now we were more fabulously wealthy than ever.
Zeus came back with a pitcher of strawberry lemonade and glasses. He’d changed into jeans, and the tattoo on his arm seemed to glow in the moonlight. I studied it as he poured the lemonade into the glasses.
You WISH we were dead, motherfuckers.
I reached out and ran my finger over it. “I can’t believe I used to think it was so negative. It means something new for me now.”
“Like what?” Odin asked.
“I can’t explain it,” I said. “The words are the same, but everything else is different. It’s just more beautiful somehow.”
Odin’s eyes shone with pride. “It means we love each other,” he said.
“And that we’re a family,” Zeus said.
“Forever,” Thor said. “To support each other in our desires, whatever they might be.”
I looked at the tattoo, emblazoned on the arm of one of the men I loved. To me it meant all that and more. It contained every possibility in the world.
Thank you for reading the bank robbers!! I hope you love them as much as I do.
I nearly keel over from shock when my guys’ mortal enemy, ruthless Agent Denko, calls them by their real names and spills their deepest, darkest secrets—including few things they didn’t even know about each other.
Luckily, Odin has the man tied up at the time, and he’s able to slap some duct tape over his mouth. Denko is clearly trying to tear us apart.
Is he succeeding?
Does he know something that we don’t?
My guys are the most protective and dangerous men alive, but who will protect us from the truth about each other?
Or will the truth make us fiercer and more fabulous than ever?
The Most Wanted (Bank Robbers #4) is on fire!