Page 23 of The Most Wanted (The Kinky Bank Robbers #4)

Chapter Fourteen

We resumed a routine I knew well—me in a wig with one of the guys, posing as two lovers who want the best hotel suite in the place.

We couldn’t go home again. It got me right in the gut. The little home we’d enjoyed, if only for a matter of months.

This was a hipster hotel, not as posh as we liked, but it was near the airport, and we needed to be able to move out on a dime.

My guys were spooked. They were so rarely spooked. Whenever I asked about it all, they assured me they were being careful, and yeah, I knew they were being careful, but I also knew they were spooked.

Thor and I showed our go-bag passports with our new names and paid in cash that we took out of a congratulations card, putting on our big happy act.

We stepped into the elevator and hit the button for the second floor. The doors slid open, and Thor and Odin came in with their bags, having mysteriously gotten up there while we’d checked in. We rode to the top in silence that was part paranoia, part sadness.

The suite was beautiful—very spare and colorful and modern, and the usual things we loved were there, including a hot tub.

Still, it wasn’t home.

“I’ll miss that place,” I said, meaning our hilltop safehouse .

Zeus got the idea of lending it to the James brothers. “They’d have a lot of use for a place like that once the heat is off us,” he said. “Noel really stepped up, and he wants our groups to get along. What do you think?”

We all agreed. Having allies meant everything. It was particularly evident now that somebody had screwed us so bad.

Zeus lowered his bearish bulk onto the couch. “The weather is Paris is shitty right now, but Hong Kong is nice. So is Auckland.”

“I can’t believe we’re actually going,” I said.

“It’s time. ZOX got too close,” Zeus said.

“We flew too close to the sun.” Odin stared out the window, weary and unhappy.

I wrapped my arms around my middle. My guys never gave up. This Agent Denko really had spooked them. And poor Herk and Maria.

Odin said, “We could do a pit stop in Honolulu if we went east. Re-up on go bags.”

“You have go bags in Honolulu?”

“My favorite identity is there,” he said.

“There’s always Jerba,” I said. That was the island in Tunis I always wanted us to go to.

Odin groaned. “An old man’s place to fish.”

“Tokyo has that place with the hot tub that feels like you’re in a grotto,” Thor said. “Isis would enjoy that hot tub very much.”

I went and put my arms around him. “Do they give you fluffy bathrobes?”

Thor brushed back the hair from my forehead. “Would we take you to a place that doesn’t have fluffy bathrobes? Would we do that, baby? What would we wrap you up in after we fuck your brains out? ”

“Yeah,” I said. “I accept only the fluffiest of robes after my brains are fucked out. No terrycloth for me!”

Odin got on the burner phone to look at flights. “They’ll be looking international.”

Thor said, “Honolulu would be nice.”

Odin found a set of flights. He decided he and Thor could go separately, routing through San Francisco, and I’d go with Zeus. Nothing we wanted left until the morning. Eight hours.

We bought the tickets.

“So we relax for eight hours,” Zeus said, looking me up and down, and then he looked out the window, out at the city lights, too upset to fuck. We all were. Everything was wrong.

I joined him at the window and gazed down at the crosshatch of roads outlining big box stores with their blocky rooftops. Thor and Odin came over, and we all just stood there, not saying anything.

“Except somebody fucking dropped a dime on us,” Zeus said finally.

The silence turned to chill.

“Think about it,” Zeus continued. “On us . I’m gonna be honest, when Galvano was saying that shit, I thought, ‘Nobody’s going to drop a dime on us.’”

“And somebody went and did,” Thor said.

“They assumed ZOX would take us out,” Odin said. “Before we got to him.”

“Ratted us out,” Zeus spat.

“It’s whoever crashed that Corvette,” Thor added.

“Oh, definitely.” Zeus grabbed a bottle of scotch from the wet bar. “Somebody ratted on us. I can’t tell you how good it would feel to just?—”

“To sink our fangs into his flesh as we viciously rip him apart. Tear him into little bits of fiery pain that swirl into the bowels of hell,” Odin said.

Probably not how Zeus meant to finish it, but it worked.

“It would feel good,” Thor agreed.

“Except, hello, if we solve the mystery, that would lead us straight to ZOX. It’s the one place ZOX knows we’ll go,” I said.

Silence. I wasn’t liking that silence.

“Right?” I said. “Amirite?”

Zeus studied the bottle.

Gulp.

“You guys. We can’t.”

“They dropped a dime on us, Ice!” Zeus growled. “And what about Herk? We let somebody wreck his and Maria’s life? This life they could’ve had?”

“Right,” I said. “And I want to sink my teeth into this person’s jugular and rip them like a satanic tiger snake blowtorch, too, and I’m not even a tiger-snake-blowtorch type of person. I get it. It’s bullshit.”

“Total bullshit.” Zeus topped off his drink. “That’s why I’m using the next eight hours to solve this mystery and kick some ass.”

“Fuck yeah, brother,” Odin said.

“Wait, what ?”

Zeus took a swig and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “God, I feel better already. For a minute there I was in danger of not being able to look myself in the mirror ever again.”

“Me either,” Odin said.

“Wait, what about the maze? Us as rats? The evil picture frame?”

“Fuck it,” Odin said.

Thor pulled out his phone. “We need to think a little bit more about that territory Galvano was handing over. That’s the key. ”

“Agreed,” Odin said.

“No, timeout!” I said.

“We’re fine.” Zeus passed the bottle to Odin. “We go back and clear it up in time to get out of town. It’s something they won’t expect. Thor, you and Ice hold down the fort while we have a chat with the Don.”

“Wait, no,” Thor said. “I want in.”

“Who’s going to protect Ice?”

“Fuck you,” I said, getting off Thor’s lap and grabbing the bottle from Zeus. “We’re a family. If we’re foolish, we’re foolish together.”