10. Nik

CHAPTER 10

Nik

The security room door swings open for us. The now-familiar scent of burnt coffee and stale sweat hits me first, but I feel a wave of relief as I spot Holden. He’s alive, which is good, and looks unharmed, which is even better. He’s hunched over a computer in the corner, and now he’s one less thing to worry about.

Phil Reynolds materializes at my elbow before I can reach Holden. “Don’t you have a casino to run?” I ask him.

“I do, as a matter of fact,” he snaps back. “But I took what you said about my security staff personally, and I wanted to lend my eyes to make sure nothing untoward occurred. So I stayed to keep an eye on Mr. Brooks myself.”

Brie has taken a few steps forward, seizing the moment to look around at the security monitors herself, noting that Larry Caruso is in the lobby with a few of his cronies, all of them huddled together and talking. I turn my attention from Brie to Phil, looking for micro-expressions, tells, anything that might betray deception. Is he trying too hard to prove his loyalty? In my experience, the most dangerous people in this business are the ones desperately trying to convince you they’re on your side.

“What do you think of him?” I ask suddenly.

“Who?” he asks, surprised. “Mr. Brooks?”

“Yeah. Mr. Brooks.” I’m looking for any glimmer of dislike, contempt—something that might indicate that Phil Reynolds is the person who sent Holden those threatening notes.

“I don’t know him all that well.”

Deflection. Interesting. “But,” I prod, “I thought you two worked together pretty close?”

Reynolds shakes his head. “I manage the casino. Mr. Brooks handles…” He pauses. “Well, personal guests of Mr. Colombo, while he was alive. Quite a separate part of the…business.”

“But you still had access to those funds,” I point out.

He starts to get defensive. “Of course I did. As casino manager, I have access to all financial accounts. But so does—” He drops his voice. “So does Sophie Johnson,” he hisses at me. “Like I told you before.”

Before I can dig deeper, Holden’s sharp intake of breath cuts through my thoughts. “Brie?” His voice cracks, eyes wide as he stares at her. “You’re alive?” He pushes himself unsteadily to his feet.

Brie wraps Holden in a fierce hug that makes my chest tighten up. “I’m hard to kill,” she says, that familiar wry smile on her lips. But I catch the slight tremor in her hands as she pulls back, see the way she has to force herself to let go of him. I head over to them as well, after a nod of thanks to Phil Reynolds.

“Any progress on the footage?” Brie is asking Holden softly, though her voice carries that note of command that’s becoming more natural by the hour. The transformation fascinates me. I feel like I’m watching her step into her power in real time.

Holden’s laugh is hollow. “Honestly? I’ve just been sitting here hoping I won’t suddenly be killed.” The redness in his eyes is a sign of the toll this night has taken on all of us.

Something clicks in my mind, a connection forming. “Hey—Holden—did you ever find anything in that footage from outside your suite?” I ask. “You were going to give it a closer look, see if anything had been erased.”

He blinks at me blankly.

“To see who left those notes under your door?”

Holden’s eyes go wide with dawning realization. “I…totally forgot about that,” he says, running a hand through his hair. The gesture reminds me of a frightened child. “But when we, uh, ran like hell from here, I only took the footage with Brie spliced in to work on. I have no idea what happened to the footage from outside my suite.”

Brie straightens and looks around the room, sharpening her eyes. They stop on the very same security guard who helped us the other day, gathering the footage for us and delivering it to Brie’s suite the night of the poker game…and Brie’s assassination attempt. Throat-Bobbing Guy, I’ve been calling him in my head. Banks, his name tag reads.

“You,” Brie says, pointing at him, no trace at all of that flirty minx who charmed him last time. But he swallows nervously in the exact same way. “You’ll work with Mr. Brooks to find some footage that he needs.” Her voice carries the weight of absolute authority now. No room for argument or hesitation.

“When did you get so bossy?” Holden asks with a tremulous smile as she turns back to him.

“Well, the casino is mine now, and maybe—” Brie cuts herself off.

“What were you going to say?” Holden leans forward, curiosity momentarily overwhelming his exhaustion.

Brie lowers her voice, but in the quiet room, each word reaches me as I’m standing just a few feet away. My attention is on our surrounds as much as on Brie and Holden. “Did Terry ever talk to you about updating his will?” Brie asks him.

My eyes snap to Phil Reynolds. He’s talking to another security guard, but his head is tilted our way. I’m pretty sure he’s listening.

And hell, doesn’t he have a casino to run? I shift my position, trying to block his view while maintaining my own sight lines.

“Terry updated his will?” Holden asks blankly. “What do you mean?”

I watch Phil’s face carefully. I should have pulled Brie aside, suggested we question Holden privately. But then again, rumors about a second will are bound to spread faster than wildfire, now that Sophie Johnson knows—and others. Maybe letting Phil overhear isn’t actually much of a security breach.

“Did he—did he maybe give you any papers to hold on to?” Brie presses. “Or do you know somewhere he might have kept important documents? Besides his office?”

“Just the safe in his office, as far as I know.” Holden shrugs apologetically. “Terry was very particular about his, uh, paperwork. Everything important went in that safe—you know that.”

Brie looks at me. “I think…”

“Yeah,” I agree.

“What?” Holden looks between us. “What is it?”

“We need to search Terry’s office. Again. Now.”

“For this will?” Holden asks. At Brie’s nod, he stands. “Then I’ll come and help. I need to get out of here for a while.”

Grateful for the extra help, we head out of the security area and Brie leads the way to the late Don’s personal office. It’s not far away, though the corridors twist and turn.

But there aren’t all that many places in the office to search through in the end. Holden opens the safe easily, but apart from the kind of things you’d expect to find in a Mob Boss’s safe—photographs, a stack of bonds, thick wads of cash—there’s nothing much of interest. And Brie has already seen what’s going on inside there, based on the way her shoulders slump as she flips through it.

“Who told you that Terry had updated his will?” Holden asks. “He never said anything about it to me.”

“Or me,” Brie sighs. “Frank told me.”

“Is this why Frank hasn’t gotten his act together about it yet?” he asks with interest.

Brie lifts one shoulder and lets it drop. “It might not even exist anymore,” she says.

“What do you mean? And what was in it? What made it so important?”

It’d be difficult to miss the anxiety in Holden’s voice, and Brie doesn’t, turning to him with a reassuring smile. “Just some changes he made about the Family—nothing you need to worry about. You’ll still be taken care of, Holden; I know that was Terry’s dearest wish.”

“I wasn’t thinking about that,” he says, but he bites his lip. “It’s just…how do you know Frank’s not just, I don’t know—making stuff up?”

“He’d have no reason to,” she points out. “And besides, Frank and Sophie Johnson both witnessed it for Terry.”

“Then can’t we just ask them what was in?—”

“We just need to find it,” Brie says, impatience touching her tone now.

Holden frowns, but says no more as he keeps looking through the filing cabinet. Brie tries the desk again. I go over the bookshelves, running my fingers over and under, searching for hidden drawers, loose papers in books…

Nothing.

Eventually, Brie sighs, and the sound tells me how exhausted she really is. “There’s nothing here. And I’m dead on my feet—I bet you are, too, Holden.” He nods. “We should all get some sleep.”

We go back to security, where Phil Reynolds is still hanging around, and he agrees to send some guards with Holden for the next few hours while he sleeps. “What about Mrs. Colombo?” he asks.

“She’s mine,” I snap. “I mean—she’s my charge, and I’ve got it under control. And you have a casino to run—right?”

“Right,” he says stiffly.

I turn to Brie, touching her elbow. “Come on,” I say softly. The contact sends electricity up my fingers. “We need to get you somewhere safe to rest, too.”

She looks at me with trust clear in her eyes. In this world of betrayal and shifting loyalties, that trust is more precious to me than all the chips in the vaults of the Golden Sands.

Way more sexy, too.

We exit the room with Holden and his guards, but I pull Brie back gently as she begins to walk the same way. Once Holden and the men have disappeared around the corner, I look at Brie and open my mouth, but she forestalls me. “Not my suite,” she says, reading my mind with that uncanny perception of hers. “Larry would look there first for me, if he decides he’s done playing nice.”

“Yep. And I want you all to myself.” The words slip out before I can stop them, rougher than I intended. Something hot and possessive thrills in me at the way her pupils dilate slightly in response.

“My dressing room?” she suggests, and I catch a hint of something in her voice that makes my pulse jump. “Shower, pullout bed. Private. And just around the corner from Terry’s office. It’s not exactly steel-walled, but it does have a lock, and no one ever remembers it’s even there.”

I consider it, the tactical advantages. Close enough to reach security again quickly if needed, but not an obvious hiding spot. It’s not exactly a panic room, but neither is her suite, and I don’t want to chance sneaking out of the casino in case Larry has men posted at the exits. “Perfect,” I decide. “Let’s go.”

Brie leans slightly into my touch as we walk, and I try hard to keep my mind off her and on our surroundings. Right now, my job is to keep her safe, get her somewhere she can rest.

But as she glances up at me through those long lashes, fatigued but mischievous, I wonder if rest is all she needs tonight. The look in her eyes tugs at something dangerous inside me, something that has nothing to do with professional duty and everything to do with the way she fits against me like she was made to be there.

But the lights are dimmer here, shadows pooling in the corners. Perfect for an ambush. I scan every doorway, my free hand never far from my weapon.

Even with desire clouding my judgment, some instincts never completely sleep.

We reach her dressing room. It’s got the added advantage of being in a quiet side corridor with no cameras, so after checking no one has been following us, we slip inside. I throw the bolt on the other side as Brie switches on a floor lamp instead of the overheads, illuminating the cozy space that smells of her perfume and face powder. It’s intimate in a way that makes my heart race—this private sanctuary where she transforms herself into the glittering golden queen everyone sees.

But I still take the time to pull a rack of clothes across the doors as she pulls out the couch bed and slaps at the creased sheets.

“Been a while since I used this,” she says ruefully. “Sometimes I’d take naps here if I felt like it, if I needed a rest from walking the floor, or got bored during Terry’s all-night poker games.”

“It’ll do for now.” The digital clock on the coffee table shows that we’re coming up on nine in the morning, but we’ve both been awake for a long, long time.

And yet somehow, being here with her, after all those terrible events, I don’t feel tired.

She smiles at me. “I’m not sleepy either,” she says, as though she read my mind again.

But I have to be sensible. “You need a shower and then you need to sleep for a long, long time. And then we need to talk about everything that’s happened, and figure out a plan.”

“But—”

I take her by the shoulders, smile, and turn her around. I point over her shoulder to the bathroom door. “Go,” I say, and swat her lightly on the butt, just for the pleasure of hearing her squeak.

At the door, she turns to level a look at me that makes my knees shake, and says, “You need to shower too, right? Why not?—”

“After you,” I say firmly.

She shuts the door with a pout, and my heart squeezes painfully. She’s been through hell and she’s still able to flirt?

I adore her.

I’d drink her damn shower water, that’s for sure.

And there’s only so much one woman can take, so if she opens that door again…