Page 7 of The Deeper Game (The Kinky Bank Robbers #3)
“Have it now, goddess.” Odin came around and set it next to the keyboard. Then he leaned in to kiss my hair. “Whoever did this,” he whispered into my hair, “we will run him down to the ends of hell and pull his guts from his belly like fishing rope. Because nobody fucking-g threatens you.”
Shivers came over me. “Thank you, baby,” I whispered, loving him so much. I felt so wonderfully loved and held and protected by these men. My family.
Odin went to a drawer and pulled out a leather case that contained another magnifying glass.
I went back to studying diagrams. I had a feeling we were looking at a pigeon feather, but I hadn’t found an exact match.
Odin and Thor were discussing everybody who knew where this particular hideout was, who had also met me, creating a list of suspects.
They ruled a few people out, like Matteo, who had been with us all day.
Thor set down the iPad. “So apparently every athletic store and discount store in the known world carries this model.”
Odin turned the shoebox all around, blowing gently on the dust. “Fucker’s full of prints.”
“Could be from the shoe store.”
Odin set it on the plastic and grabbed a magnifying glass.
He examined the top of the box, then dusted the rest of it.
“Four different individuals at least. It looks like somebody tried to wipe them—poorly. Good.” He took out his smartphone and made a few scans, then hit some keys, sending them, presumably, to their guy in intelligence.
“How long?” I asked.
“We’ll see,” Odin said. “Our guy can’t be obvious about it. He has to put them in a batch already running.”
Odin got on the phone with Matteo and asked him to sit on the bank a little longer, explaining the situation and asking if Matteo had fielded any questions about Isis. He nodded, grunted, and hung up.
I will confess that I was a little bit wary of robbing the Prime Royale with this new development. Especially in light of the last note we got.
“What’d he say?” Thor asked.
“That a shitload of people ask about Isis,” Odin said. “They all knew Venus. They’re curious.”
I looked down at my screen. Venus had been with my guys a few years back.
She’d hated being trapped on the run. She’d nearly gotten them caught on a job, and then she killed herself by jumping a hundred feet into a quarry pit.
Venus was a tender spot—they spent years blaming and hating themselves for her suicide. Zeus especially blamed himself.
I wondered about Venus often—what she was like, how she interacted with the guys. Times when I felt insecure, I wondered if I really measured up to her. But mostly I felt sad for her, and I thought I would’ve liked to have known her.
“And our gang cloud tattoo.” He pointed his eyes down at my ankle. “Matteo thinks it made you a bigger target. And now the cherub angels on our arms?”
“Hmm,” Thor said.
“I love the tattoo. Screw that.” At least, I liked the tattoo of an angry cloud with four badass lightning bolts representing the four of us. It showed we were a family, and I was proud to have it.
“You making progress with that feather?” Odin asked.
“A little.” I got back to examining the barbules.
Later, Odin sent Thor out to a lab downtown with some of the blood for a DNA test. I knew the place—it was mostly for drug testing and paternity testing, but apparently they could test blood to see what sort of animal it came from.
After that, Odin called Robert Manning, the A/V guy who’d installed surveillance around the driveway and neighborhood and requested extra security cameras installed around the perimeter of the house, so that no inch of tundra would go unfilmed. Then he made sandwiches.
“Thanks,” I said as he set down a plate.
“Zeus is going-g to freak the fuck out,” Odin said.
I nodded glumly, staring at my sandwich. I didn’t have much of an appetite, but Odin ate ravenously. It took a lot to make my guys lose their appetites.
“This man will bitterly regret the day he ever so much as thought of you with anything but the purest of admiration.”
“I don’t want him to think of me at all.”
Odin lowered his voice. “Soon he won’t.”
I got up and washed my hands in the kitchen sink, which looked out over the cozy living spaces of the hideout, decorated in a style I’d describe as mod cabin, built for comfort and relaxation, and not at all flashy.
The style involved plush rugs, blocky upholstered furniture, and old snowshoes on the wall in front of the fireplace.
Odin eyed me carefully as I sat back down across from him. “You okay?”
I tore off a crusty bit of bread. “It’s just creepy. And if it’s the same person who sent us that Abe Lincoln warning? Does that make it better or worse?”
“Why warn us of something and then threaten us?” Thor said. “None of it makes sense.”
“Hey.” Odin came around and settled a hand lightly onto my hair. “We have you, goddess.”
“I know, and it’s not that I don’t think you’ll get him, but that doesn’t take away the yuckiness of a gift like that.”
“We’ll hurt him extra for the yuckiness.”
I smiled up at him. Odin’s lovely Mediterranean skin had bronzed in the LA sun, and he had a perfect five o’clock shadow below his hot, jaggedly scarred cheekbone. “More than pulling his guts from his belly like fishing rope?”
“I’ll do it slowly,” he growled.
“Oh,” I said. Because, what else do you say to that?
“Finish your lunch. We go to the butchers.”