Page 31 of The Most Wanted (The Kinky Bank Robbers #4)

Chapter Twenty-Two

I woke up—or more accurately, got woken up—by Thor shaking me.

“Where are we?” I asked, rubbing my eyes.

“Vegas, baby,” Thor said.

I sat up. “What time is it?”

“After lunch, sleepyhead.” He pulled me out from the car.

He was wearing a nice suit. I rubbed my eyes and peered around.

We were in the dark corner of some sort of parking ramp full of cars—rows and rows of shiny cars like bullets in the dark.

Out beyond the concrete slats of the ramp, it was daylight.

More like daylight plus, with flashing lights and jagged energy in the air.

Odin strolled over in a suit and tie, attention all around, hyperaware. He didn’t like being in an area with so many hiding places.

Right behind Odin was Zeus wheeling a dolly with a giant, brightly painted magician’s trick box strapped onto it—the kind where you shut somebody in and pretend you’re cutting them in half. It was here I realized Thor was actually in tails, like a magician.

“What the fuck?” I said.

“We have to get him inside a room,” Odin said. “He won’t be out cold forever.”

“Motherfucker, no way,” I said. “He’s in there?”

“We can’t leave him in the trunk.” Odin shrugged. “Nothing like hiding in plain sight.”

“Where’d you even get that?”

“Rented,” Zeus said. “While you snored away.”

I smiled, knowing they’d probably moved around stealthily, as only they could, using all of their mad covert ops skills to ensure I stayed sleeping.

Maybe it gave them something to discuss and focus on.

Something to work together on. But nothing was different—that deep sense of sorrow and betrayal permeated the air between us.

Women all over the world complain that their men don’t want to talk about their relationship. They think they have it bad? They should try tripling the number of men in their romantic unit and see how relationship talks go then.

Zeus handed me a clear garment bag with something sparkly inside—a sexy magician’s assistant outfit. “Just carry it,” he said.

I tried to think of a joke to make to lighten the mood, like, magician role-play was a kink I couldn’t go for, or, if they started with the magic tricks I might have to safeword out.

I didn’t have it in me. So I just I grabbed the bag. “Thanks.”

“You and Thor,” Zeus said, “you’re here for tryouts down at the Ritz. It’s booked, but they’re using this as an overflow hotel. Odin and I are helpful friends.” He handed me new ID.

“Wow.” I took it and examined it, memorizing my new name. “You got ahold of a go bag while I was sleeping, too? Fuck, did you also cure cancer?”

Odin grinned and messed up my hair.

I smoothed it down. “So…what? We’re just here?”

“Until we leave,” Zeus said, handing me a dark curly wig. “We survive.”

Survival. Was that all that was left of our beautiful love? Survival? “We need to talk about this,” I said.

“Women,” Zeus growled .

None of them took the bait. At least they had something to agree on.

I used the reflection of the windows to fix my wig.

We’d wait out the danger and then what? Go our separate ways?

Splitting up would be safer, but that had always been the case, and it was never what we did.

We stayed together. We were all about the fuck you.

Y ou WISH we were dead, motherfuckers, like our tattoos said.

I put on a coat of red lipstick. And sure, I’d enjoyed hearing Zeus’s dream, but it was just a fairy tale. I’d never want to leave my guys, and I knew Zeus wouldn’t want that either—couldn’t they see that? And we’d never betray Zeus in our hearts by bringing in a fourth guy in any meaningful way.

Why were they being so stubborn?

I tucked in some stray blonde hairs. Odin nodded. He always did like me as a brunette.

We headed down to ground level to the street, which was awash with lights and crazy grandeur. I’d never seen anything like it. “It’s like…” I was going to say a carnival funhouse nightmare, but that wasn’t it. “It’s like….”

“Poor little sheep farmer,” Odin said. “I always forget that’s what you were.”

“What it’s like is Vegas,” Zeus said. “Only Vegas is like Vegas.”

Thor took my hand and pulled me across the busy, noisy traffic jam. We made our way down the sidewalk packed with people in all kinds of clothes, from red carpet stuff to Les Miserables beggarwear to your classic “I’m a freak on stilts” look.

Every hotel casino had a theme—there was a Roman decadence place, a cowboy place, a circus place. Thor kept hold of my hand, which was good, because I couldn’t stop gaping at it all. At one point, I thought Zeus might haul off and hit one of the guys handing out fliers .

We finally found our hotel, which had a fancy Italian theme, all marble and Michelangelo, though the soundtrack was dings and doot-doot-doots and cha-chings coming from the slot machines, a weirdly agitating noise that didn’t do much to calm me.

Thor and I checked in. He told the clerk we were from Nebraska and waved a hand at Zeus and Odin, suggesting they were our assistants, not really with us, nothing to see.

Zeus and Odin stood obediently by, having changed their demeanors to make themselves seem small and unremarkable, a truly amazing feat, considering.

She wished us luck on the act and gave us our key cards.

Zeus and Odin rolled the box into the ginormous elevator. Thor hit the button for our floor. We didn’t talk all the way up to the twenty-seventh floor and down the hall to our suite.

The place was way more over the top than our usual spots, with everything overstuffed and megafancy and ultraposh, all marble and gold and silk with a hot tub fit for a prince, but fake somehow. It was all very full, yet all very empty.

They set the magician’s box in the corner, like it was just some stupid piece of luggage.

“Why do we have to keep him?” I asked. “You think they’re close?”

Thor shrugged. “You always want insurance.” An understatement. They would’ve ditched him if they had felt safe.

They set about exploring the room, stashing weapons, looking at potential escape routes. I waited in the lounge area at the center of the overly decorated suite.

“What the fuck,” I said when Zeus strolled back in.

“Welcome to Vegas,” he said, knowing exactly what the fuck my what the fuck was about.

When the inspection was complete, they opened up the box, and there was Denko slumped in the bottom, gagged, wrists and ankles bound in duct tape.

Thor knelt in front of him and checked his pulse, then he pulled up his eyelids.

“He’s good.” He pulled the tape off his mouth and slapped his cheeks. “Hey.”

The man mumbled. He and Odin carried him across the suite and propped him up on some cushions in the corner by the window, which had what I suppose was technically a great view of the Eiffel Tower except it wasn’t the Eiffel Tower.

“Did you put him by the window so we can watch him while we look at the view?” I asked.

“Of course,” Zeus said.

Professionals to the end.

“And you’re sure he’s okay?”

“Don’t be fooled,” Thor said. “He’s as alert and energetic as we are.”

Odin strolled off to a corner bar dripping with mirrored crystal.

He grabbed what was no doubt a zillion-dollar bottle of scotch, twisted off the cap, and poured himself a drink.

Thor went over and pulled a bottle of water from the small refrigerator.

He brought it over to Denko, crouching, tipping the bottle into his mouth, taking care not to spill it all over him.

Denko drank pretty competently for a tied-up man. So maybe he was alert.

Zeus got on the phone and ordered a snack and sandwich cart to be left out in the hall. “Knock when it’s out there and we’ll grab it,” he said. Prudent, what with Denko like that. There were limits to hiding in plain sight, even here.

I strolled around the place. Two bedrooms with the usual spa-like bathroom. I returned to the main room and sunk into the couch. I didn’t like it. We were fake getting along, and now we were in this fake place. “I wish we hadn’t come here,” I said.

Thor sunk down on one side of me; Zeus sat on my other side. Odin came over with a scotch and handed it down to Zeus.

A peace offering?

Zeus threw it back in a gulp.

“Just a matter of time,” Denko said from across the room. “We’re on your ass. You have to know it.”

Odin grinned at Denko. Odin usually had a beautiful smile, all dark tousled hair and gorgeous lashes and that glint in his golden eyes, but this smile wasn’t beautiful; it was a cold, harsh fuck you smile.

“Every fucking resource, pointing at you,” Denko said. “You think this hotel didn’t get a bulletin? You’ve been out of the agency all these years; you have no idea what we can do now. How close we can track.”

“Hasn’t done you much good so far,” Zeus said in his fake calm voice.

His fake calm voice.

Fuck.

How much trouble were we in?

“And when my men come for you—we’re talking minutes more than hours—this sea of civilians will not keep you safe.”

Thor crossed his legs. “Using civilians to keep safe isn’t our style anyway.”

“Have you thought about what I said, Nick?” Denko asked suddenly. “You could make her happy.”

“You want duct tape over your mouth for when the snacks come?” Zeus grumbled. “Is that what you want?”

“You could have a home, Nick. Children. A place in the community.”

Odin headed back for the bar. “Who’s gonna dig out the duct tape? I hope we packed it on top.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Denko doesn’t have any problems some duct tape can’t fix. ”

Thor smiled at this.

Here was something we could agree on. Unite against Agent Denko! I thought. He’s a common enemy!

“Let him say what he wants,” Zeus grumbled. “It doesn’t matter.”

Denko addressed Odin. “You know how Nick came to choose La Belle, Rashad? How he heard it was the best?”

“Don’t know, don’t care.” Odin poured himself another glass of scotch.