I didn’t stab the cherry out when I pressed the blunt into the ash tray, so I take another quick hit and nod as smoke pours out my nostrils. “Yeah, I noticed.” The flickering blue glow of the pools in front of the casino makes this difficult to miss.
I straighten my jacket and fuck with my tie and run my fingers through my newly trimmed beard. I don’t want to get out, but…I kind of have to.
I tuck the .38 in my pants pocket as I reach for the door handle, and Jenk reaches back and slaps my shoulder. “You want me to wait around, right?”
I blink at him, replay his words, then shake my head. “Nah. Go home and study, man. You’ve got…finals?”
He laughs. “Two weeks ago.”
“What?” I rub my dry eyes, trying to make sense of this.
“Two weeks ago. Finals already happened, dude. I’m on a break right now, so I can wait as long as you need.”
I shake my head again. “Park her at the Sahara location and go home. I’ll call a cab or something.”
“You sure?”
Goddamn, this kid is persistent. I cut my eyes at him, trying not to let my foul mood show. “Yeah, man. I got it.”
That’s a lie. But I still owe a guy some money, and I don’t need to involve the kid in whatever might happen. What is it they say? Bad impression. No—it’s bad
example
. Kids are vulnerable, and I’m an example, right?
It’s Friday night—still early, but the Wynn is hopping. The weed keeps me mellow, so the crowd doesn’t bother me much. I hurry through the massive, marble-columned hallway, trying to keep my head down as I walk toward the private room that’s reserved for the Hearts for Heroes fundraiser Hunter roped me into. It’s for the cardiac unit at the local children’s hospital, and there’s some elaborate system they’re using to raise the money. Something with teams. We’re calling ours the Love Inc. team, even though Hunter set everything up, and we’ve got a couple of extra people.
I feel like an asshole with this gun in my pocket, and I’ll look like one if security sees it, but I can’t take the risk of getting jumped by Hawkins. Rex Hawkins, the guy who’s been threatening to shoot me in the back.
Fuck him. I said I would pay. I just need a little longer to get the money moved. Fuck Hawkins for starting that fight last week at Tao. Fuck Tao, too. I got a month-long ban and a ride to the South MLK police station, and Hawkins got nothing.
I try to shove my anger down as I turn sideways to get past a group of Asian men in pastel business suits. I need to keep my mind on tonight, not get lost in that other shit. But I can’t help it; I wish I was at Tao playing blackjack. I wish I could find Rex Hawkins and kick his fucking ass.
I press my hand against my pocket and remind myself that guns are terrible things. I’m not a gun guy, right? I’m all about the party.
I should throw the gun out.
Where? A trash receptacle? No
way.
The cameras pick that shit up. I rub my slacks again, but my mind is fucking hazy. I don’t know what to do with the damn thing.
The room we’re in is big, with high ceilings, floor-to-ceiling windows, marble floors, and lots of black, fringed chandeliers that look, to me, like video-game monsters. Tonight the lights inside of them are glowing red. I guess in honor of the whole hearts thing.
Kids with heart defects. Now that shit is sad. Really goddamned sad. When I think about the kids, I need a fucking drink.
This dude comes up, and I swear I’ve got some magic fucking powers, because he’s got a tray loaded with alcohol. I grab what looks like Long Island iced tea and down it before he can make it to the next person.
“Let me grab another one, dude.” I shove a hundred into his palm and grab two more drinks.
“One for my friend,” I mutter as I step away.
Take that, Hawkins. I’ve got enough money to come through this shit. I’m solvent. I finish the second drink and sit the empty glass by a potted palm tree. My eyes are burning like a motherfucker. My hands itch. Fuck. I’m jumpy as shit. Maybe I should go. I could probably make it over to Tao’s in less than half an hour if I could get a police escort.
I rub my eyes again. Okay, the cops probably wouldn’t do that for me. Not unless I get in trouble. Maybe I should go find Hawkins and shove my fist into his tenth-grade-looking face again. Baby-faced motherfucker.
I cast my bleary gaze around the room. Crowded. Lots of important types here. The mayor and shit. Wonder where the hell Hunter is. I can’t remember who’s on our team. It’s fucking hot in here. I’d love another blunt. Maybe I should go.
I fiddle with the gun and think about going to the bathroom and flushing it down the toilet. I don’t need a gun. I’ve got my fists. Guns kill people—right? I don’t want to do that. I’m a nice guy.
Can guns fit down toilets?
Right out in front of me, in between me and the tables they’ve got set up, this woman walks by, and she’s a fucking fox. Short, blonde-brown hair. Angel face. Ass-hugging jeans. Maybe
that’s
what I need to shake this weird-ass mood: a good fuck. I push myself up and start to follow her. If I ask, she might be game. I can donate some money to this charity bullshit. Stay in bed with her instead of playing.
I’m on her tail, my eyes glued to her pert little ass in those amazing blue jeans. Fucking hell. The way she moves…
There’s Hunter! I see him in a crowd of well-dressed pricks, crossing through the room behind this one, angled toward me. I need to dodge him, follow the girl, but he holds his hand up. He raises his eyebrows—West’s idea of a friendly greeting—then pulls his phone out of his tux pocket. He’s getting a call, and whatever he hears makes his eyes go wide.
I turn back, and the girl is gone.
Goddamned Hunter. He’s such a cock block.
I turn back toward the lobby, because I’m getting out of here. I don’t have the right head for this hearts bullshit.
I turn, and there’s Hawkins.
“I don’t know what the fuck you want from me, but I told your asshat errand boy that I wouldn’t have the money until Monday.”
Hawkins, standing in front of me in a small, round sitting area off the rented casino room, smirks. “You didn’t tell anyone shit.”
“Monday,” I growl.
Again, that smirk. “So make it Sunday, papa pimp.” He grins and takes a step toward me.
I take a step forward, too, crowding him against the rounded wall. Wormy little bastard. I can take him with my eyes closed. “You gonna threaten me here, when you’re all alone?” I sneer.
“I’ve got friends everywhere, Radcliffe.”
“Good for you, you fucking prick. You’ll get your money Monday. Now, you might want to consider getting the fuck away from me, before I get pissed off.”
His face twists. “Sunday, or I’m coming for it.”
“Why don’t you try?” My self-control snaps and I shove him against the wall, enjoying the sensation of my hands digging into his shoulders. “I might owe you money, but you’re a fucking bully and a cheat. And getting the cops involved at Tao was—
hey!
”
I was going to say “a bitch move,” but strong arms grab my shoulders from behind.
“Let’s take this outside,” Hawkins says, his beady eyes directing whoever is behind me. One of his thugs, obviously. I force my body to go limp as the man behind me pushes something hard and cool into my lower back, and I’m shoved out a nearby door, into one of the casino’s discreet atriums, with lush green grass, potted trees, and a bunch of cheesy lanterns.
Hawkins’ thug digs his gun into my back, but I don’t give a fuck. I whirl on him, kneeing him in the balls, sending him down to the plastic grass in half a second, before Hawkins’ other goon throws a punch at my jaw.
I dodge it easily. My eyes are fast. One swift kick to the wrist, and his gun is on the ground. One more and that big, fat bastard is bleeding from his ugly fucking head.
I go for my own gun, rounding on Hawkins as I do—but my fingers aren’t working right. I’m having trouble tracking. My mind is racing too damn fast now.
Goon No. 1 is back up, so I backhand the bastard and he flies across the grass. Another big bastard with that distinctive Hawkins Security swagger comes barreling out the door, and I kick him in the balls. Now they’re all down.
But Hawkins has the gun, and he’s circling me. “You high on something, Radcliffe?”
“Life.”
He looks at me like I’m crazy, but he should have looked at me like I’m the fucking Flash, because I grab the gun from him and get him on the ground in half a second. I start wailing on his face, and it feels so good. Just what I need.
From somewhere far away, conscience tells me to lighten up—I’m gonna really hurt him—but I don’t listen. I need this too badly.
I’m feeling better than I have in weeks when I hear a shriek, then feel small hands tugging at my shoulders. I aim a punch behind me and, a millisecond later, hear a woman’s scream.
Holy fuck! I turn around, adrenaline pumping so hard I can feel my heartbeat in my eyes.
It’s her. The blonde in the ass-hugging jeans.
I push Hawkins harder against the ground and search her face. Her cheek is red, like there’s a bruise forming. “Jesus, baby. I’m sorry.”
“You’re going to kill him!” She backs away, scrambling like I’m some kind of monster.
And it fits—because I am.
*
SURI
The first thing I think: There’s something wrong with him. The guy kicking ass in the tuxedo is too frenzied, too fast, too reckless.
He seems completely unafraid as he takes the big guys—obviously body guards—to the ground. The little guys has a gun, and just as I think I’m going to be witness to a murder, the guy in the tuxedo is on him, and the gun falls into the grass.
The little guy goes down like a rag doll, and Tuxedo Ass-Kicker drops on top of him and pounds his face with a gusto that’s almost scary. Scratch that: It’s
definitely
scary.
I press my back against the ivy-swathed brick wall that helps create the garden-like façade of the atrium. Blood is everywhere now; all over the thick green grass, coating Scrawny’s face, staining Ass-Kicker’s fists. I’ve never seen so much blood in all my life, not even the night Adam knocked my tooth out.
Finally, Scrawny’s nose starts spraying—literally, spraying blood like a faucet. That makes my stomach lurch. It wakes me up. I fist my hands and lean forward. “Stop it!”
Ass-Kicker doesn’t even flinch.
“Stop
right now
!”
I take a hesitant step toward them as my ears are filled with the awful sound of bone crunching. When Ass-Kicker doesn’t respond, I rush up to him, throw my arms over his broad shoulders, and shriek right in his ear.
The hand that’s punching Scrawny slings my way—lightning fast, before returning to Scrawny’s face. A few of the knuckles catch me in the cheek hard enough to knock me off his back. I land in the grass, clutching my face as tears fill my eyes.
“Oh my God,” I whisper as Ass-Kicker’s gaze finds mine.
His eyes widen and his mouth drops open. “Jesus, baby. I’m sorry.”
“You’re going to kill him!” I scramble to my feet and run toward the door that leads back to the casino’s hallway, but I’ve only taken a few steps when sirens start to wail. Not sirens like an ambulance, but sirens like an alarm system. I’m frozen mid-step when a heavy arm locks around my waist. A deep voice purrs in my ear, “I’ll show you the party.”
The siren, accompanied by flashing red lights, is definitely of the security type. One of the cameras must have seen the fight.
Or me. I did run away from someone claiming to be a security guard, after all.
I tense, imagining scenarios as terrible as getting kidnapped or splashed across the inside pages of a tabloid, and the guy’s grip on me gentles. “I’m a good guy. Swear.”
Then he tugs me through the door, into the casino. I see a flash of light—red light, coming from chandeliers—and then I glimpse the security guard I escaped from. His dark eyes widen and his mouth pulls open into a snarl. “Ma’am—” he growls, and before he can get another word out, I am jerked in the opposite direction.
I’m moving because Ass-Kicker is pulling me. He’s pushing me. He’s bloody and he’s gorgeous and he’s trouble. I should run the opposite way, but Ass-Kicker seems to know where he’s going—and I’m clueless.
We run through a few card parlors and down several crowded halls, up two sets of stairs and into a sleeker, quieter hall before he tugs me into a bathroom that looks more like a formal dressing room.
I’m not sure who drops whose hand, but suddenly I’m just standing there panting, in between a long, Victorian-style burgundy sofa pushed against one wall and a row of clam-shaped, white marble sinks topped with oversized King Edward mirrors on the opposite wall. The bathroom is empty, so my frantic breaths echo off the mahogany stalls.