Page 20 of The Most Wanted (The Kinky Bank Robbers #4)

Chapter Twelve

Having two bodyguards trailing you was a lot different from being in the God Pack. My guys were all about flanking me and hanging arms around me and being the romantic unit. Treating me like a princess.

But when you were an actual crime figure’s daughter, like Maria, the bodyguards were discreet. And the biggest difference: they took orders instead of giving them. Once we got into the freight place, she had them carrying boxes, filling out forms, running for coffee.

“I hope that didn’t seem insulting before, like I didn’t want to come,” I said.

“I get it,” Maria said. “My dad is Carmine Galvano. Do you know how much I’m shut out of?

Not that I want to join that business, but just being able to know things, to feel close to him.

..” She took a clipboard and signed, then handed it back to the guy.

“I get to know nothing.” She handed her credit card to one of the counter guys.

“You’re really going,” I said.

“Trust me, I don’t want to. I know it looks like me being dependent on my dad, but it’s actually me getting out from under his thumb. Setting myself up for med school. If this is how I have to go to school, this is how I do it,” she said.

I nodded.

“Do you think Herk was set up?” she asked .

“Yeah,” I said.

“You really found a wig hair?” she asked.

I nodded.

“A lot of people wear wigs,” she said. “Some of them ride in Dad’s car.”

I nodded.

“I want to believe him,” she said, glancing at the clock. The silence between us got a little awkward. “Most days I do. I don’t know. We had an… honesty crisis early on.” She pulled out the quote fingers for honesty crisis. “Did he tell you?”

I shook my head.

“We patched it up, but now all this shit. He’s a good man. I know that.”

I nodded. It wasn’t my place to argue. But Herk was right—she’d get on that plane and that was it.

Afterwards we hit the Grove, with its endless luxury shops.

At Etro I found a fabulous print gown with a faux-fur-trimmed plunging neckline from a rack.

“A definite do,” she said, holding up an emerald green and black dress.

“For you?”

She nodded.

“Do,” I said, feeling clever and special for shopping at an Italian luxury design place with the daughter of a mafioso.

She grinned, and we headed back to the changing room.

“I hear you visited Nico,” she said over the partition.

“Yeah. We brought him donuts.”

“He told me.”

“You talked to him?”

“Don’t tell Herk,” she said. “Herk doesn’t like me staying friendly with Nico.”

“Nico doesn’t want to get back together, though, right?” I asked.

“Fuck no. He’s all over Sophia Viga, not that he’ll ever get her, but a man can dream. It’s cute.” She knocked on my dressing room door. “Check it out.”

As soon as I had the dress on, I opened the door and looked her over. “Right color, but you need a new bra.”

“Weird neckline,” she said of mine.

We re-upped on gowns and went back in. I tried on a pink jeweled-bodice gown; she tried a low-back black and white print.

She spun around in the mirror. “Even if he wanted to get back together, Nico would never pull a thing like we’re talking about.

I mean, the Corvette thing was actually too crafty for him.

He’d die if he heard me say that. Nico has a good heart, but he’s more of a puppy dog.

He follows rules really well. He’s great at his job because you can give him instructions and it gets done. Which has its advantages.”

“Hot,” I said.

“Yeah?” She spun some more.

“Hot as hell.”

She pointed at mine. “That’s too mother of the bride. Stay there.” She left and came back with a pair of red gowns. I closed the door and inspected them. Back when I had red hair I stayed away from red. But hey, it was a new day, and I had platinum hair.

She kept on about Nico. He wasn’t entrepreneurial like Herk, she told me.

She loved how Herk was a man of vision, how he could see structures where none existed.

She told me he was supposed to have gotten some shakedown territory after the wedding and he would’ve built that territory, whereas Nico would’ve just ridden it until it dissolved under him. “Of course it doesn’t matter now.”

I came out in the slinky red gown. Maria clapped her hands. “ Fuck yeah!”

We headed out on the quest for accessories, and then we browsed at a sports store and discussed the merits of various yoga mats.

Afterwards we split a cinnamon roll at a bench in the shade while her sunglasses-wearing duo of bodyguards sat nearby.

That’s when it hit me—Nico had said there would be no handing over of territory. What is this, 1920s Sicily? he’d said.

I turned to her. “Did Nico not know he was getting territory?”

“We didn’t really discuss it. But my sister’s new husband got something.”

“Did Nico know about that?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“Oh, at Guvvey’s last night, he was like, no way would the Don be giving out pieces of his action. Like he knew for a fact that wouldn’t ever, ever, ever be happening.”

“That’s weird,” she said.

“Is it weird he’d say that, then?” I asked, thinking maybe I could be getting a new clue for our investigation here.

“Kind of,” she said. “Though Nico always wanted people to understand he wasn’t with me for the money. It was always really important to him, because people used to say that he was, due to his gambling thing. And it really wasn’t true. Nico’s a man who falls hard for a woman.”

“Do you know what territory Herk would’ve gotten?” I asked. It probably wasn’t that important now that we had our sights set on Kenny James, but my guys were always talking about how every piece of information was important.

“The shit adjoining his central corners up to Oakford Lanes. Dad said he wouldn’t feel right running protection under Herk’s nose, because it put them at odds.

” She sighed and looked away. “Herk was so proud to have won him over. He’s so into family.

His parents are amazing, and the way he takes care of them is amazing. ”

“He’s super into family—I could even see that.” And then I was thinking about Zeus and his white picket fence and family holidays thing.

We hit the bookstore, loading up on way too much awesomeness. I was trying to sell her on a sassy little vampire number when I looked up and found her grinning. She whispered, “Your husbands are here.”

I smashed the book into her chest. “Don’t let them hear you call them that! God, what am I, a Mormon?”

“Oh, honey, nobody is thinking you’re a Mormon.”

Odin came up. He grabbed me and kissed me, and then Thor did, and then Zeus did, and I was feeling stupidly happy and Maria was just laughing.

“How’d it go?” I asked.

“We discovered a lot of places where Kenny isn’t,” Zeus growled. “Fucking Manny James knows where he is, but now we can’t find Manny either and…” He ended the sentence with another growl. “You ready to go?”

Maria and I paid for our books while my guys thanked the bodyguards in a very guy way.

My guys and I headed out to the parking lot, weaving between cars. I joked about them having lost their car, which of course would never happen due to their paranoid level of awareness, but the way we were weaving through cars, you’d think it.

I was about to tell the odd little detail about Nico when Zeus tensed and shoved me behind him.

I followed the direction of his gaze to movement in the shadows. Zeus had his piece out. Thor had his piece out. Odin was suddenly nowhere. And then there was more movement out in the shadows, then a grunt and a clunk.

The skirmish turned out to be Odin pressing Noel James’s face onto the hood of our Navigator. Noel, the good James brother. Or so we’d thought.

“Fuck!” Noel said.

“What the hell are you up to?” Odin growled.

“I’m not up to anything! I wanted to talk.”

Odin pulled a gun from Noel’s pocket and let him up.

“You want to talk?” Thor asked.

“Yeah, man— discreetly —but I guess I should’ve hired a skywriter.”

“Fine. Come on, then,” Zeus said. He clicked the key fob to open the SUV doors. “After you.”

“Seriously?” Noel said. “You think I planted a fucking bomb in there?”

“I don’t know,” Zeus said. “Seems to be the trend.”

“Fuck you.” Noel yanked open the door and got in, and then Thor and Odin followed him into the back. I got in the front with Zeus.

“Satisfied?” Noel asked.

“Our car was blown up, and it had your brother Kenny’s signature all over it,” Zeus said. “And Manny didn’t want to say where Kenny is, so…”

“I get it, I get it,” Noel said.

“You here to give him up?”

“Look,” Noel began, “I felt like after your last visit that we were moving toward a better relationship.” He nodded at Thor. “I liked working with you. I felt like we had something productive going. You helped my brother.”

“How is he?” Thor asked. “Did the swelling dissipate? Are you tracking the color like I told you?”

“Pretty much,” Noel said. “He’s on the mend, but my brother Manny—you guys, come on, you came into our home uninvited. Now this car bomb shit and you’re saying it’s Kenny. Manny isn’t your bitch, and you can’t go at him like you did today.”

I looked at my nails, wondering how my guys went at poor Manny today. “People like to be respected,” I said.

“Exactly,” Noel said.

“And they like their cars not to blow up,” Zeus said.

“I get that you’re upset by that. I see where it would lead you to think Kenny did it, but I swear to you it wasn’t Kenny.

We have certain reasons not to want attention put on Kenny, and it has nothing to do with you guys.

Manny’s pissed off and not in the mood to help you, but you’re hurting us with this attention right now.

So I’m going to hold out an olive branch and help you and tell you that Kenny is in Bali right now. Bali, as in Indonesia.”

“And I’m supposed to take your word for it?” Zeus said.

“You don’t have to.” Noel pulled out his phone. “Kenny went a bridge too far in the job we pulled, and Manny got him out of the country. Last Friday, it was.”

“Must’ve been quite the bridge too far,” Odin said.

Because Indonesia has no extradition treaty with the U.S., I realized.

Noel had Skype open. “I’m reaching out in peace between our families.

Manny doesn’t know I’m doing this, but this heat from you guys is bullshit, and so is this growing feud.

So hopefully you see this and it helps you catch the person who did this.

And hopefully it builds up a bit of goodwill between our families.

” There was a tone and suddenly a voice. “Hey, buddy,” Noel said.

“Dude!”

I couldn’t see the phone, but Odin and Thor were looking hard.

Noel said, “Do me a favor—go walk onto the porch. I need to see something.”

“Like what?” I heard a guy, presumably Kenny, say.

“I need the streetscape. Just go out there and turn around. Just to get the layout. I want to see your neighborhood.”

Apparently Kenny did it, and it was convincing—I could tell by the glances that flowed between Zeus and Odin.

“You fucker, look at that sun!” Noel said. “Motherfucker.”

“Is Manny there?” Kenny asked.

“Nah. Look, I gotta call you back later.” Noel cut the connection.

“That’s Bali, alright,” Odin said. “Real-time.”

“He could’ve flown down last night,” Zeus pointed out.

Noel snorted. “The whole call could’ve been a film of a film. Look, I’m trying to backchannel here.”

Zeus studied his face. I could see him deciding to trust Noel. Finally he nodded. “Okay.”

“So you’ll back off of Kenny? Yeah, it was his signature with that bomb. Kenny loves a big smoky inferno like that, but I’m telling you it wasn’t him. Neither was the Corvette, obviously.”

Zeus exchanged glances with Odin. They both bought it.

Odin narrowed his eyes. “Does anybody else know Kenny’s in Bali?”

“Just you and us.”

“You planning on keeping it that way?” Odin asked.

“Yeah,” Noel said. “It doesn’t help that you all are asking around about him. The attention is no good.”

“Okay, Noel,” Zeus said. “No more asking around about Kenny.”

“Thanks, man,” Noel said.

“Let me ask a favor,” Zeus said. “You mind if we let people go on thinking we blame Kenny?”

“You can let people think whatever you like,” Noel said. “Let ‘em think you found Kenny. Just stop beating the bushes for him, okay?”

“I appreciate it,” Zeus said. “I appreciate the cooperation between our groups. And this helps us.”

Noel pocketed his phone and took back his piece. “You think you can repair with Manny one of these days?”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Some gesture. Restore the respect.”

Zeus nodded. “We’ll see.”