Page 28 of The Most Wanted (The Kinky Bank Robbers #4)

Chapter Nineteen

Zeus strolled into the room and shut the door behind him.

“What the hell?” He glowered at Denko, full of heat and testosterone, green eyes looking nearly backlit.

“You just missed it,” Denko said. “Rashad and Christian here were trying to get your girlfriend to fuck them in front of me. She almost went for it. It was quite the show.”

“Stop it! Don’t listen to this guy!” I said.

Zeus just stood there, displaying the kind of calm I’d learned not to trust. “Have you always been a snitch, or is this a skill you’ve developed as a ZOX agent?”

“He’s trying to drive a wedge between us,” I said.

“You don’t need any help from me,” Denko said.

“Can we get that duct tape on?” I wanted him to stop talking and also to stop using their real names.

“Good idea,” Thor said.

Zeus grabbed the tape.

“You’re done, and you know it,” Denko was talking fast now. “You know, Nick, if it wasn’t for Isis, they’d be fucking like rabbits right now, and I’d be watching. Is that what you want for your life?”

Zeus shot a dark glance toward Odin and Thor.

“Well, at least we weren’t asking her to elope,” Odin said. “White picket fence, anyone? ”

Zeus’s face went white. I could see our conversation gliding through his mind. Odin would’ve texted him with the details of the bugged purse. “Is that what this motherfucker wants you to believe? You really fucking think that?” He worked at the tape, awash in betrayal.

“Groups like yours always break up—I don’t have to tell you that. Criminal organizations. Rock bands. There’s a certain shelf life. The question is, who gets the short stick?”

“I don’t give a shit about other groups,” Odin said defiantly. “Nobody controls us. Nobody predicts us. Nobody tells us what to do.” He was saying it to Denko, but it was a message for Zeus, too.

Their fucking power struggle.

Thor came up and slung an arm around my shoulder and looked right at Zeus. Taking Odin’s side. Thor didn’t like control, either. But I could feel his distress underneath, like a knife in my gut. Could Zeus feel it?

I pulled away from Thor and faced my men. “We’re all okay as long as we’re together.”

“How about if two of us walk down the aisle to dance to lame wedding songs?” Odin said. “Are we okay then?”

“Odin—” I said.

“That’s right, Zeus,” Odin said. “Denko gave us the whole recap.”

“So let me get this straight. It’s not okay for me to imagine a thing,” Zeus said, “but you three can act on something so fucking out of bounds?—”

“You don’t get to say what’s fucking-g in bounds and out of bounds,” Odin spat.

“Bringing Denko into things?” Zeus said. “That’s out of bounds.”

“Says who? ”

“Stop it!” Things were deeply, deeply fucked up, and not in a fun way that I liked.

“You think you can start a fucking business?” Denko barked. “Own property? You really think you can have that?”

“That’s it.” I grabbed the tape from Zeus and tried to free a piece. The end got twisted and stuck together but I pulled a whole bunch off and just pressed it over his mouth. An end flapped loose and got stuck on his shirt.

Zeus angrily snatched the roll and started pulling more off, but not before Denko managed to dislodge the piece I’d put on by shaking around his head. “This is your chance, Nick. Cooperate and I’ll give you the white picket fence. The freedom you and Isis want. You can have that.”

“Fuck you,” Zeus said.

“Things will only go bad from here,” Denko said. “You know how these systems work. You know how groups break apart. Your friends wanted to fuck the woman you love in front of your worst enemy. They don’t give a crap about your wishes. They were going to do that. They were?—”

Crack.

A quick uppercut and Denko was out. Zeus slapped the tape over his mouth all the same.

And then there was this awful silence. The hit had sounded hard.

“I have a lead,” Zeus said. “Time-sensitive. All the shit is pointing at Handsome Jack.”

Thor went over to our unconscious would-be captor and pulled up the man’s eyelids, looking at his pupils.

“Does he look okay?” Zeus asked.

“Nothing Odin’s duct tape mummy head won’t cure,” Thor said.

Zeus smiled wistfully, but the damage was done. The damage felt deep. Scary.

I wrapped my arms around my middle. “We need to talk about this.”

Crickets.

“You guys?—”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Zeus said.

Odin glowered at nothing. Thor stared at the door, arms crossed. The sense of betrayal in the room cut deep.

“You guys, we need to fix this.”

More silence. My pulse raced. Did they not feel like it could be fixed?

“We can do anything together,” I said.

“I’ll be honest with you, Ice, right about now, I just want to finish this thing for Herk.” Zeus buttoned his suit jacket and looked at each of us, one at a time. “Let’s go. Together. We’ll put Denko in the trunk of my ride and fix this for Herk.”

My belly twisted because all I could hear was, let’s fix something we can actually fix, and then we’re done.

I said, “I don’t like us going into the danger not perfectly together.”

Odin was already strapping up, holster to leg, buckle to the shoulder, chamber in, chamber in.

Thor came to me, pocketing his silver Sig. “Need time,” he said softly.

I nodded, unconvinced.

“Time,” he said. “And maybe if we could find this guy and fuck him up really, really bad together.” It was a little bit of a joke, but I could see he was scared, too.

“You guys,” I breathed, “what about ZOX knowing where we’re going and who we’re after? What about that?”

“They’ll be focused on Denko now,” Odin said. “They’ll be looking to get him safe, and they’ll be looking for us to escape. It would never cross their minds that we’d stay to solve this mystery.”

“Nobody in their right mind would do that,” Zeus growled, smashing his chamber into his gun.

“And luckily we’re in our right minds,” I said. “Right?”

Thor looked grave. “The last place they’d expect us to turn up would be Handsome Jack’s.”

“Because we are fucking-g badass,” Odin said. But the spark had gone out of it.