The Deeper Game (Taken Hostage by Hunky Bank Robbers Book 3) (8 page)

“Only proves you’re a slob,” Zeus said.

“How’d you know that was Wednesday’s crust?” Bolo asked, careful to look anywhere except at me. “Why not Tuesday’s or Thursday’s?”

“Shut up,” Thor said, ice blue eyes fixed on the guy’s face.

Odin came in with a to-go coffee. “This is today,” he said.

“Yes, yes!” Bolo exclaimed. “I bought it before I left, with a credit card.”

“You have a receipt?” Zeus asked.

“No, but online. I can prove it online.”

Odin pulled out his phone. “Go into your credit card. Can you do that?”

Bolo tapped the screen with shaking hands. Eventually, he got his password right and got into his account. “There! Six in the morning. Starbucks. Grand Mahaj hotel.”

“Where’s the hotel charge?” Odin asked.

“I paid cash for the room.”

Thor snorted. “You paid cash for the hotel room and not the coffee? What kind of asshole pays cash for a hotel room and charges coffee in the morning? It slows up the fucking line.”

“The kind of asshole who lost all his money the previous night,” Bolo said.

“Fine,” Odin said.

Eventually we left.

When we were back in the Nav, I asked, “How can you tell today’s coffee from yesterday’s?”

Zeus seemed calm for maybe the first time that day. “State of the dairy. Evaporation rate. In a heavily air-conditioned environment like that room, you’d have a ring above the liquid line. It was maybe five hours old. No more. And he has a coffee maker there. It did make me think he didn’t wake up there this morning.”

“And the pizza crust?”

He shrugged.

I said, “You have a mobile lab I didn’t see?”

“I have the power of observation,” he said.

“Now what?” Thor asked.

“Home. I’m going to check out his alibi, but I don’t think it was him,” Zeus said. “Once he’s cleared, we’re beating the bushes at Guvvey’s. This is somebody from our circle.”

“Agreed,” Odin said.

Thor nodded, snapping his holster.

My guys seemed energized, alive—sparkling, almost, in a way I had never seen and didn’t quite understand.

Most nightclubs in Los Angeles have things like, oh, valet parking and front doors. But not Guvvey’s, the nightclub of the crème de la crème of the criminal elite. Instead of a front door, there is a scary parking ramp to park in and a scuffed-up secret door that takes you underground into foreboding series of tunnels, eventually leading you to an elevator that whisks you upwards.

Even the floor Guvvey’s occupies isn’t a real floor. Zeus explained once that it’s a between-floors floor. The regular elevators don’t stop at it.

Zeus swung a protective arm around me, and Thor set a hand on the small of my back as we walked into Guvvey’s. Odin trailed behind, on the lookout no doubt. I was used to being flanked by my guys, but nothing like this. It gave me the shivers.

It was midnight—early still—but the place was full of people and thrumming with music. We moved across the dark expanse and took a booth, the four of us, with me sandwiched in between Zeus and Odin.

My guys were on high alert, looking discreetly all around. I ordered a champagne, and they ordered sodas.

“Wait,” I said, “change mine to soda if we’re not drinking.”

“No, keep her champagne,” Zeus said, sending the waiter away. “You deserve it,” he said. “You get to drink what you prefer. We’re on the job.” He touched a finger under my chin and lowered his voice. “We won’t let anything happen to you, Isis.” He paused, seeming like he was about to say something, and I had the wild thought that he was going to say
we love you
, but he simply let his hand slide to my bare shoulder where it rested, heavy and warm. He smiled and kissed me. “You look beautiful.”

“Thank you.” I was wearing a red, one-shoulder dress they all really liked. My guys were in sports coats, all the better to conceal lots of weaponry. Not that you needed to conceal at Guvvey’s, but they were packing an unusual amount.

“You think he’s going to show up?”

“Very likely,” Odin said. “He needs a reaction. That’s the only function that package served—to get a reaction. Once it circulates we’re here, he’s going to come.”

“Ugh,” I said.

“It’s shocking,” Thor said. “That anybody can possibly think they can get away with this. They know we have resources.”

“Not the extent of them, perhaps.” Odin said, and then he eyed Zeus. “It’s been so long. Playing the hunter.”

“It feels good,” Zeus said, waving at a man across the room, standing at the bar. “I’m going to talk to Clarence on the Dodgers aspect.” He got up and walked off.

Odin nudged Thor. “Look—Henry.”

“Who’s Henry?” I asked.

“Go-to gossip man,” Thor said, nodding at a blond man in a blue suit. “Anything going around the grapevine hits Henry. If anybody is unduly fascinated with you.”

“You talk to him, Thor,” Odin said. “He’s more comfortable with you.”

“He’s more frightened of you,” Thor said.

“Comfort is best for now. Go at him soft, and then I’ll go at him if you think he’s holding back.”

“Right.” Thor gave me a kiss on the cheek and went over to talk to Henry.

The drinks arrived. I was glad for the champagne now.

“We’ll find him,” Odin said. “It’s what we do. I think a lot of people don’t
fucking-g
understand that. We could find people on the other side of the world.”

Find them and kill them. But Odin didn’t say that. But it’s how they’d hooked up with Thor—Odin had been sent by their clandestine government agency ZOX to kill Thor, back when Thor was a relief organization doctor who’d had the bad fortune to witness something he shouldn’t have. When Odin learned who Thor was and what he’d seen—they would never tell me what, exactly—he’d decided to protect Thor from ZOX instead of executing him. Then Zeus had been sent to kill them both.

Odin had fought Zeus and brought him around to the idea that ZOX was fucking up and that Thor shouldn’t be killed. Eventually, another agent had been sent to kill all three of them. They killed that person. It was at that point they knew they’d have targets on their backs forever. Which was when their path of vengeance robbery began.

Matteo came over and slid in next to Odin, looking angry. “This stalker is still out there? Everybody’s talking about it.”

“What’d you hear?” Odin asked. “From who?”

“Vanessa Foy heard about it and she’s telling people.”

“From Bolo. Fuck,” Odin said. “That was fast.”

“We have big plans next week,” Matteo said. “Do we need to put them off?”

“Hell no.” Zeus slid in on the other side of me, squeezing in close. He brushed a strand of hair from my forehead and kissed me. “Heya, baby,” he said.

“Hey,” I whispered.

“Like that. We can’t have your attentions divided,” Matteo said. “There’s a lot of recon to do in the next few days, and here you are conducting some fucking side investigation? Not that I blame you.”

“We got this handled,” Zeus said. “You watch how sizzling fast we catch this guy.”

“I sat on the bank on my own all afternoon,” Matteo said. “I didn’t mind taking your shifts, but it can’t happen anymore.”

“The Prime is important to our family,” Zeus said. “We’ve got bandwidth to do both. Nobody fucks with us.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Matteo said, looking off at Thor across the room.

“Yeah, yeah,
yeah
?” Zeus said.

I stiffened in my seat, thinking Zeus might haul off and hit Matteo.

“Nobody fucks with you. We all get that,” Matteo said.

The veins on Zeus’s neck became dangerously defined.

“You trying to make a point, here, Matteo?” Zeus growled.

I was starting to feel dizzy off the sheer testosterone.

“Reacting
is
letting them fuck with you,” Matteo said. “They are fucking with you already.”

“You’re saying we should let this go unchallenged?” Zeus said.

“No, I’m saying somebody is fucking with you, and I’m pointing out that you’re dancing like a puppet. That is the feeling I’m getting off you right now.”

“A puppet?” Zeus said, voice all scary calm.

Gulp.

“Yeah, like a puppet,” Matteo said. “As in you’re not in control of your actions, and that has the potential to jam up our job with the Prime. So maybe we should postpone it so you can put your attention on this thing.”

“The HVAC project will be over with if we wait,” Odin said. “Zeus won’t be on the inside anymore. We lose our advantage if we postpone.”

“We make a new plan,” Matteo said. “We still have the codes. And not to be insensitive, but…” He looked over at me. “You’re the driver. We can’t be inside there relying on you if there’s a potential of somebody chasing you off or…”

“Raping and killing me?” I asked. “Because that would totally mess the job up.”

“Not to be
fucking-g
insensitive,” Odin bit out, offended.

Matteo shrugged. I liked that he was being forthright. And yes, I’d be alone out there. The guys would all be in the ducts.

I looked over at Zeus. “It’s not a bad point,” I said.

Zeus grunted. “That’s why we’ll nab this guy before the job.”

Matteo gazed across the bar. “I don’t want to postpone, either. But I want it to go right.”

I followed his gaze over to a tall black woman in a silver gown who was glaring at Matteo.

Black Gigi, also known as BeeGee. She was flanked by White Gigi and Brown Gigi. The girl jewel thief gang.

She pushed off the bar and headed our way, followed by her friends in a formation like three fighter jets.

Brown Gigi wore a yellow party dress with a tiara—she always seemed to go for tiaras. White Gigi had on a stripper dress. Practically poured onto her.

“Oh, God,” Matteo mumbled under his breath.

I sat up with the sudden sensation that I was in high school and the cool girls were coming. Even the way they walked was cool.

The Gigis had asked me to join up with them some time ago, when they had been down a driver. It had enraged my guys to no end, but I’d been flattered as hell. I didn’t want to join their gang, but I sort of wanted to be friends with them.

“I hear you found trouble, Isis,” BeeGee said to me. “Some asshole leaving a bloody feather for you.”

“Bloody feather and a creepy note,” I said.

She shook her head. “That’s fucked.”

She looked at Zeus. Then Odin. Then me. BeeGee was looking at everybody except for Matteo. “You all rustle up any leads?”

“We’re pursuing several good avenues,” Zeus said.

She snorted. “You sound like a cop.” Finally she eyed Matteo. “You all look pretty cozy.”

Matteo shrugged.

“Up to something?”

“You know we can’t divulge that, baby,” Matteo said.

“Don’t call me baby,” BeeGee snapped. “You lost that privilege.”

“I’ll stop saying it out loud, then,” Matteo said, “but I won’t stop saying it in my mind. Because you’re always going to be my baby. And every time I see you, I’ll be thinking,
‘Here’s the woman I love.’
And I fucked up, and I get that I’m in the doghouse now, but you won’t stop me from feeling how I do.”

“Could you not make a scene?” BeeGee said. “I’m just here to offer Ice some assistance.”

“I’m not making a scene,” Matteo said. “But fine, if it makes you feel better for me to posture and pretend, I can do that. Because I hear what you’re asking of me, and I’m going to honor that. I’ll sit here like a hard guy. You want that? For me to be a liar with my eyes? I’ll be a liar with my eyes, fine.” He crossed his arms and got a hard look in his eyes.

Brown Gigi said, “Too little, too late.”

“I was never a liar,” Matteo said.

“Just stop.” BeeGee threw up her hand and addressed me again. “If you need an assist in catching this creep, we’re all over it. Look, White Gigi had a stalker, and we put that guy down. This is a man’s game out here, or at least, a lot of guys think it is. I know you God Pack guys are cool, but—”

“We got it handled,” Zeus said. “But if you hear anything, or if anybody has been buzzing about Isis, we’re interested.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I really appreciate that.”

“Sure,” BeeGee said. “It’s not White Gigi’s guy, I’ll tell you that.”

Brown Gigi snorted.

Matteo grinned. “It was a motherfucking thing of beauty to behold. When they caught White’s stalker?”

BeeGee glared at him. “What happened to hard guy?”

“You know what happened to hard guy,” Matteo said.

Brown Gigi looked around the table. “You’re coming up on a job,” she said. “I can feel it.”

Thor strolled up behind them. “Sorry, ladies, you’ll have to read about it in the paper with everyone else.”

BeeGee rolled her eyes as Thor shoved in between them and sat on the other side of Zeus. Then she turned, and the three of them walked off, fighter jet style.

I narrowed my eyes at Matteo. “What
happened
with you and BeeGee?”

“He slept with another woman,” Odin said.

“Eeks,” I said.

“Don’t say it like that,” Matteo said. “It wasn’t my fault.”

“Not your fault?”

“No. We were gearing up to hit this mansion in Malibu, and I got an in as a cable guy, and the lady of the house, she wanted a go with me. I wasn’t going to fuck her. I was just acting into her, but when you’re acting into somebody? When you’re a guy? Sometimes biology just takes over.”

“That’s your excuse?” Odin asked, incredulous. “Biology took over? Is that what you told BeeGee?”

“Yeah that’s what I told BeeGee,” Matteo said.

“That’s your problem,” Odin said. “You’re not taking responsibility.”

“I’m not saying I didn’t do it. It was me,” Matteo said. “I did it, but it was biology. I wasn’t into her.”

Thor grinned. “Yet you were.”

“Biology,” I said, “didn’t fuck the woman.”

“This job’ll let me show her how I feel. That’s what giving her the Liz Taylor diamonds is.” He turned to me. “The Prime Royale was the pie in the sky bank for BeeGee and me because of the Liz Taylor diamonds. We planned it a bunch of times, but we never had an edge. Now with Zeus inside, that’s a major edge.”

“Are you sure she won’t be mad you’re robbing your pie-in-the-sky bank with somebody else?” I asked.