Page 34 of The Best Trick

I stumbled into Zeus’s arms. He pulled me to his chest for a quick, fierce hug, then pushed me behind his back. Odin crowded in next to me, holding my right arm with both hands like he needed to know I was really, really there. Thor was on the other side of me, rubbing my shoulder.

It was only then that I relaxed. I was safe in my manwich.

“We’re okay,”I said softly.“We’re together. We’re okay.”

Thor clamped a hand over my shoulder. Odin squeezed my arm harder. Odin had had a lot taken away from him in his life. We all had, but with Odin it was more extreme.

“So lemme get something straight here,” Thor began, dark rage rumbling through his every word. “Assuming this bag exists, you want us to believe that while you’ve been chasing us all this time, you had proof we were innocent? You knew what happened back there, and you continued to chase us?” I hadn't heard Thor so angry in ages, possibly ever. “While the real perpetrators walk free?”

“A job is a job,” Denko said, keeping his gun trained on us.

Odin muttered darkly under his breath in one of the many languages he spoke.

I could feel the anger radiating from Zeus. He had no words.

It was truly messed up that Denko knew we were innocent all this time. They all knew they were pursuing innocent people who’d only tried to do the right thing…in the beginning, anyways.

Zeus swallowed, straightening. “How do we know you'll actually give us the location of the tackle bag? How do we know it even exists?”

“You don't,” Denko said. “But I let Ice go, didn’t I? Be thankful I’m not taking you in right now.”

“As if,” Odin said. Now that Denko didn’t have me, there was no way. But Denko could’ve used me to get them. All of us knew it.

“Let’s do this,” Zeus said. “We’ll find your dog, and you’ll get her back when we decide your intel is worth it. Who do you think has her?”

“Don Pedro,” Denko said.

I knew enough not to make a face or cringe or react in any way, but we knew Don Pedro. He was a massive crime boss.

“Why would Don Pedro want your dog?” Zeus asked.

“I'm sitting on evidence that will help put Don Pedro and his crew away for a very long time,” Denko said. “It's a ledger—names, dates, facts, and figures. It ties him to a lot of crimes, and I've got somebody in custody who would be willing to back up that ledger. We had him by the balls—”

“Until he stole something that was more valuable to you than his conviction,” Zeus said.

“I want my dog back,andI want the conviction,” Denko said.

Zeus snorted. “And you assume that just because we're part of the criminal underworld, we have a relationship with Don Pedro, and that we would be able to figure out where among his properties and people he was keeping your dog stashed? Is that how it goes? You think all of us just know each other and hang out together?”

“You don’t know him?” Denko asked.

Zeus’s gaze was hard. “We’ll get your dog. You better hold up your end, though.”

“I'll hold up my end,” Denko promised.

My guys exchanged looks, expressions unreadable, but I’m sure they were thinking twelve chess moves ahead.

“We’ll need the full download,” Odin said. “How they grabbed Doris, how they communicated with you, and everything else.”

Denko launched into the story, pulling out his phone and forwarding the text message he received. It was instructions to drop the ledger at a certain place at a certain time or else Doris would die.

It was weird even to be talking to Denko in an almost normal way, considering what happened the last time we were together. Were my guys thinking about it?

“The number’s a burner,” Denko said, pocketing his phone. “It doesn't exist anymore. It blinked out minutes after the message got sent.”

Zeus asked more questions about the case. I’d heard that Don Pedro was a careful criminal—it was weird that he’d be in trouble. You didn’t get to be a big crime boss by making mistakes.

Denko’s witness against Don Pedro was an expert violin appraiser named Wilson Brockmeier who was currently hidden in a safe house. The whole thing was about money laundering. Denko had this complex explanation about cheap violins being appraised for hundreds of thousands of dollars, then being sold and resold through shady violin dealers and overseas collectors controlled by Don Pedro. There were Panamanian bank accounts and auctions involved.

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