Page 21 of The Hard Way (The Kinky Bank Robbers #5)

Chapter Sixteen

Zeus and Odin and I sat in our bed, surrounded as usual by watchful cupids, reading like an old married couple, which I suppose we were. It was still hard to get my mind around that, and it never stopped being wonderful.

A soft knock at our bedroom door. “You guys up?”

It was Thor, back from his motel odyssey.

“Come in,” Zeus said softly.

Thor walked in and threw his coat on the bed. “Pay dirt. Six Winks Motel,” he said.

I groaned. The scummiest deer hunter motel ever!

“What kind of man conducts an affair at Six Winks?”

“Hank Vernon,” I said. “I should’ve told you to start with the grossest place.”

“Yeah, well, we have it now,” Thor said. “I even got security footage.”

“The noose tightens,” I said.

“It’s not a noose yet,” Zeus said. “It’s still just circumstantial evidence. All we have is an affair and a suspiciously timed visit to the Piggly Wiggly, which could be explained by the affair.”

He updated Thor on what we’d found.

“It’s an excellent crime,” Thor said. “If Hank did the break-in himself, it’s nearly flawless. Yeah, we have him on the affair. That just means he’s a terrible person, which everyone already knows.”

“What are we going to do?” I asked.

“We won’t give up,” Zeus said.

I sighed. “That’s the kind of thing somebody says when all hope is lost.”

“You’re wrong,” he said.

But I suspected I wasn’t. “It’s like one of those signs that says ‘drug-free zone.’ You would never put a ‘drug-free zone’ sign somewhere where there’s a drug problem.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Thor said. “We always do.”

“I could get us physical evidence,” Odin said. “It’s out there. Hank could tell us.”

“Through extreme measures,” Zeus said.

“Her sister could do time for a crime she didn’t commit,” Odin bit out. “That’s pretty fucking-g extreme.”

“Even so,” Zeus said. “Think it through. You know Denko came through here after our robbery. You know he knew it was us. You think he didn’t leave his card and ask Hank to report anything unusual?

Thuggish insurance investigators are one thing, but a black-ops-style interrogation by three armed men over a food safety dispute?

You think that’s not going to draw Denko’s attention to Baylortown?

And how long until he looks at the Sunny Sisters? ”

“I could make it work,” Odin said softly.

“It’s not how we roll,” Zeus growled.

Odin glanced at Zeus. It was just a glance, but it had Zeus climbing over me and hauling Odin right out of bed. He pinned Odin to the closet door.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

Both their faces were glowing, and it wasn’t the good kind of glow. “Tell her what you’re proposing.”

Odin glittered at Zeus .

“I’m with Zeus,” Thor said. “That’s a no-go.”

“Are we talking about intestines like ropes again?” I said.

“That and more,” Zeus growled. “He’s talking about kidnapping Hank and making him give us evidence.

Guys like that, there’s sometimes a chance that they fucked up somehow, maybe threw something away wrong, left some physical evidence, but they know they can’t go back.

Or there’s a money trail. Or maybe we get a confession on a tape.

Better yet, written. Right? And then what?

We’d need to keep him quiet. How would that happen, Odin?

How would we get the evidence and confession and keep him quiet? ”

A chill went over me. He was actually serious about this. “We don’t torture and then execute people in cold blood. That’s not who we are.”

“It’s who I am,” Odin said softly. “Hank could kill himself. He could leave a confession in writing that could be verified. Add that to the circumstantial evidence…” I could feel my heart breaking. “Nancy would plead out. This is how we save your sisters, Ice. It’s the only way.”

Zeus jerked him again, and a cupid fell off the built-in shelves and broke. “We don’t do that. Especially when we haven’t exhausted all of our options.”

“ We don’t—” Odin clarified.

Zeus slammed him against the wall. “ You don’t either, goddamnit. Because we are together in this, and like hell if I’m letting you give up some fucking piece of your soul after how far we’ve come. Like fucking hell. There are still other options open to us.”

Odin and Zeus were like two wolves, staring into each other’s eyes, challenge thick in the air. Odin was allowing himself to be pinned for the moment—but this thing could end in a flash of fists. In a battle between Zeus and Odin, I couldn’t say who’d win, but I knew who’d lose—all of us .

Thor drew near, intending, maybe, to separate them if they went at it. A risky and probably futile plan.

Coolly, Odin said, “So her sister goes to jail? We let Hank take the farm?”

Zeus’s nostrils flared. “We don’t do either. Option C—try to do it the right way.”

“You go ahead and enjoy your fantasyland with your detective games, then. I say Ice deserves better.”

I hated that Odin was so bereft of hope that he just wanted to go for the dark option. Or was he the only reasonable one?

Either way, the sight of my guys at each other’s throats freaked me out. “Let him down, Zeus,” I said.

No reaction. My guys got very hard of hearing during fights—especially if you were speaking in the vocal range of calm reason.

“We haven’t even broken into the man’s home yet, Odin,” Thor said. “Let’s case the place. Let’s get in there and go fishing.”

Zeus kept his hard, sinewy arm across Odin’s chest; not on his throat, but pretty near. The testosterone in the room was spiraling off the charts. I looked helplessly over at Thor. He was worried. Had he ever had to break up a fight between them, or was this new?

“Come on, you guys,” I pleaded.

“New rule,” Thor tried, “nobody gets brutally tortured and murdered.” Again. Deaf ears.

I moved near and grabbed Zeus’s arm and Odin’s shoulder. I wouldn’t stop them like this, but they’d hurt me if they fought. “This is not cool.”

They weren’t hearing.

“Please.”

Nothing.

My heart pounded. I didn’t know what happened with Odin in that prison, but I knew that the whole thing was really alive in his mind right now, and I knew for sure that a man pinning him to a wall was the opposite of what he needed.

My heart was breaking for these guys I loved so much, fighting each other. Fighting for the soul of the group.

Finally, Odin spoke. “Fine. We’ll case the place.” And then, in a deeper tone, in a no-fucking-around-yo-I-mean-business tone, he said, “You’ll wanna let me down, now, brother. Right. About. Now.”

Zeus let him down, but they kept glaring at each other.

I stared at the broken cupid on the floor, feeling scared for us all.

We’d never been in this place. Fighting. I didn’t know what to do, so I went over and picked up the pieces—two large pieces. “We should glue this,” I said.