Page 18 of The Most Wanted (The Kinky Bank Robbers #4)

Thor brought me all the way back to the club. We found the Gigis at a table near the giant window. “Thought you left,” Jenny said.

“Trouble,” Thor said. “Someone did our car.”

Macy’s lips parted. “As in blew it up?”

Thor gave her a dark look.

“But nobody was in it, right?” Jenny said.

I shook my head. “Zeus smelled it.”

“You guys sticking around?” Thor said. “We don’t want Ice alone.”

“I’m fine,” I said.

Angel looped an arm around my shoulder. “We’re sticking around. Maybe I’ll even let her wear my tiara.”

Thor took off.

I put my hand to my chest. “I feel like my heart’s going to pound right out of my chest.”

“How close were you?” Macy asked.

“Across the garage. If Zeus hadn’t smelled it…”

“But he did.”

“Fuck,” Jenny said. “Somebody doesn’t like your investigation.”

Macy sniffed and crossed her legs, white boots shining. “If I framed one of L.A.’s toughest motherfuckers for crashing the Corvette of another of L.A.’s most dangerous motherfuckers, I’d be blowing up cars, too.”

“You think this is somebody freaking out?”

“Of course,” she said. “To go after you that? With you there ? Shit.”

Jenny pointed at me with a toothpick. “Which means your boy toys have another clue—the culprit is batshit crazy.”

“Which rules out, oh, maybe fifty percent of the people here,” Angel said.

A glass of champagne arrived. “Drink up, girlfriend,” Jenny said.

I took it and swirled the liquid. “We almost died just now.”

“But you didn’t,” Angel said.

“I hate this,” I said. “They think the person who did it was still out there.”

“Blowing up a car is a coward’s move,” Macy said. “I promise you, the doer ran away when they saw that it didn’t work.”

“One more minute, and we would’ve been in there,” I said.

“You’re okay. Shit happens.”

“Shit happens?”

Macy grinned. “Drink.”

I took a sip and then pushed it away. “All I want right now is to be on the couch with a bowl of popcorn and one of the stupid superhero movies those guys always want to watch. I just want to hide together. I love those guys so much.”

“They’ll be okay,” Jenny said. “Drink.”

“I probably shouldn’t have any more. I already had three.”

“And how drunk are you?”

“Not at all. I feel sober.”

Angel took off her tiara. “Car bomb’ll do that to you. Drink up and I’ll let you wear it.”

“It’s okay.”

“I saw you looking at it. You know you want to wear it. Go on—bottoms up.”

I took another sip.

“Good enough.” She handed it to me, and I put it on.

“Perfect.” She smiled. “Is that better?”

“A little.”

“A tiara always makes you feel better. It makes me feel better every day.”

I looked at her anew just then. I’d always thought the Gigis had everything together, but I guess everyone has their demons, even pretty, talented safecrackers with the best jewels in the world. “Thanks.”

Macy said, “I would not want to be that person right now. Can you imagine how they’re freaking?”

“You know as well as I do that anybody who wants to hurt my guys has a trump card to play.” I meant dropping a dime to the Feds and getting ZOX on their ass.

Angel pursed her pretty lips. “Huge fucking death wish, anyone who does that.”

“What are we doing?” I asked. “Maybe we need to rethink things.”

“You have three hot husbands, Isis,” Macy said. “What exactly do you want to rethink here?”

Jenny smiled. “Three husbands, bitch. You’re like a hero to us.”

“I’d like to avoid the car bombs.”

“Shit.” Jenny fixed her gaze over my shoulder.

I turned to see a dark-haired man in a fine tuxedo strolling toward us.

Even in the chaos of Guvvey’s, everybody seemed aware of him—their faces and bodies turning toward him like sunflowers, orienting to the light.

The ripple of attention following him was like a living thing. “Who is that?”

“Stamos Strong,” Jenny said. “He owns this place.”

“I’ve never seen him here,” I said.

“Very reclusive,” Angel said. “Very hot, very rich, very reclusive.”

“Whoa,” Jenny said as he neared, straightening her dress.

He came up to side. “You’re Isis?” Mr. Strong said.

I nodded.

He held out a hand and introduced himself to me, and then to the Gigis.

“I just heard what happened,” he said. “I want to personally apologize, and let you know I put a team on all the feeds from the garage. We haven’t turned up any decent images of your culprit, but you go ahead and tell your men that Guvvey’s will assist in any way possible. ”

“Thank you,” I said.

He bid us goodnight and left the way he came, in a wake of adoring gazes.

“He’s even hotter up close,” Jenny sighed.

“Mother of fuck.” Angel slammed her drink. “The one time Stamos Strong comes around, and you were wearing my tiara.”

I smiled.

Jenny pushed the champagne toward me. “Drink. Breathe.”

“I feel too fucked up.”

“Notice a color,” Macy said.

“Excuse me?”

“When we’re on a hard job, or like when things are going wrong on a job, I look around and pick out a color to notice,” she said. “And I really take it in. I pick out one color. Go on, do it.”

I focused on the lime green leaves of one of the trees on the wall mural.

“Really notice it,” she said. “Let it into yourself.”

It actually seemed to work—my heartbeat felt slower. I felt more substantial, somehow. I regarded Macy with surprise. She grinned. “You have to stay calm in our line of work. And here’s what else—your guys are the best. You need to trust them.”

I nodded, feeling better until Jenny said, “We heard about your peepshow at the James brothers’ place.”

“Oh my god,” I said.

They teased me about it, assuring me that yes, everybody in Guvvey’s probably knew about it. It took my mind off the close call for about ten seconds, so that was something.

I asked Macy about Matteo, her former boyfriend.

She’d kicked his ass to the curb after he’d cheated on her, but last I heard, they were back on speaking terms. She told me a long, funny story where things were going better…

un til he started mansplaining during a crime spree they’d let him tag along for.

“Back in the doghouse,” Macy said.

An hour later Zeus was there, beelining across the place. He pulled me up off my chair into a giant bear hug. “Baby,” he said. “Fuck, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay, baby,” I whispered into his ear. “We’re okay.”

It didn’t ease him. He was caught in his vast, deep animal emotions, and I wanted to tell him he was beautiful, but the word seemed so inadequate.

The Gigis gave Zeus and me a ride home, and we told him about the Stamos Strong visit. To hear them talk about it, you’d think the pope himself had stopped by.

Odin and Thor were apparently off looking into something. When we got back home, Zeus told me they’d returned to the James Gang’s place, looking to see whether Kenny James was there.

“It’s three in the morning,” I said.

“They’re up,” he said, pulling me onto his lap on the couch. “But I wanted to get you out of there.”

Odin and Thor came back a bit later. They said Kenny James wasn’t around, but they were very suspicious of him at this point.

“Kenny James loves to blow up cars,” Odin said.

Thor grabbed a bag of cheese curls, his favorite middle-of-the-night snack. “I knew the James brothers were hiding something. Even I could see it. It’s something with Kenny.”