Page 43 of Femme Fatale
He grinned, helped me to the door. My left leg was dead weight. I hopped once, twice, and got it moving. With each step, I felt the blood seeping down, soaking into the sock, the shoe. It didn’t matter. Only the next move mattered.
Boss got me to the exit. The lights outside were so bright they made my eyes water. The crew was waiting. Joker, still limping from her own gunshot; Spade and Aces, arms folded, eyes hard; Nines, silent and twitchy, glued to her tablet; Glitz, phonepressed to her ear, already arranging whatever it took to keep us invisible.
Joker whistled when she saw the mess on my jeans. “Damn, boss. Need a tampon?”
“Just a new set of pants,” I shot back.
She grinned, then got serious. “What’s the plan?”
“Jack’s house. Tonight.” I let the words hang, heavy. “We walk in, we end it. No survivors.”
Spade nodded. “You don’t want him alive?”
“Dead. I want his whole operation dead.”
Glitz looked up, her gold lipstick smeared from a nervous habit. “You sure you can walk, Prez?”
I didn’t answer. I just started limping toward the bikes.
Joker caught up, put an arm around my waist to steady me. “If you bleed out, can I have your office?”
“If you can clean it,” I said. “And don’t get sentimental. This isn’t a suicide run.”
She looked at me sideways. “Feels like one.”
We mounted up. Boss handed me a bottle of water and a handful of painkillers from his own stash. I dry-swallowed them, never taking my eyes off the horizon.
The Strip was a wound in the dark, red and gold and bleeding promise. But the real action was in the quiet neighborhoods to the west, where men like Jack Smalls built their fortresses, surrounded by stone walls and private guards.
I started the engine, the bike’s vibration a welcome distraction. The others lined up, a pack of wolves ready for a blood trail.
As we rolled out, I glanced down at my leg. The bandage was already soaked, but I didn’t care. The pain kept me sharp, kept me angry.
Time to kill Jack Smalls. For me, for the club, for Zeke, for all of Vegas. I would deal with Kara when the time came.
Chapter Eleven
Zeke
When I came to, I tasted copper and concrete in the back of my throat. A humming ache radiated from the center of my chest, and every breath sawed at my ribs like a dull blade. I was handcuffed to a chair, arms behind me, and the chair itself was bolted to the floor. They’d stripped my shirt, left me in a mesh of Kevlar soaked with blood, the vest torn open where two bullets had smashed through but failed to punch the ticket all the way. The wounds were wet, ugly, and shallow compared to what they could have been.
My father watched me wake up from behind his desk. The desk was real mahogany, not the cheap laminate you found in every casino manager’s office up and down the Strip. His computer screens ran a silent symphony of surveillance of the casino floor, pit bosses, the counting room, and even the side alley where they’d probably dumped my bike. He wore a suit so black it hadno reflection. His shoes were buffed to the point of vanity. Every hair in place, skin trimmed and shaven, even the mustache sharper than my memory of the last hour. The only thing out of place was the wolf-head necklace looped over his desk lamp. My mother’s. Or maybe Simone’s. He’d never bothered to learn the difference, as long as it belonged to him.
The office was a trophy room. On the wall behind the desk were family photos. Jack at a ribbon-cutting, Jack shaking hands with a senator, Jack with a woman on each arm—one blonde, one dead-eyed. No warmth. No life. Just another set of props for the part he played. The bookshelves were crammed with business bibles and memoirs from men who’d made the world worse. A baseball bat sat in a glass case by the door, rumored to be the one he’d used to cave in a man’s skull back in ‘98. A humidor, three ashtrays, but not a whiff of smoke. Even the air in here was Jack’s, piped in at just the right humidity for his expensive taste.
I worked my jaw, testing for breaks. None. My tongue was swollen, but I could still speak, and that was a mistake I’d bet Jack regretted every day of my life.
He let me cough and spit until I got my head upright. Only then did he break the silence.
“You’re awake,” he said, voice silk-wrapped acid. “I was almost convinced you’d find a way to die before we could have our little talk.”
He poured himself a shot of something golden. He didn’t offer me one.
“You’re getting soft,” I said, breathing slow. “The old man would have aimed for the head.”
Jack smiled, the kind of smile that made you wish you were dead. “I did. You ducked. I suppose even a bastard dog can still manage a clever trick.”
He rose from the chair, straightened his jacket, and walked a slow circle around me. I could see the way he measured everything, including the blood soaking my vest, the split in my eyebrow, and the way I had to squint to keep my left eye open. He studied weaknesses. That was his fetish.
