Sleepless in Las Vegas (35 page)

“No,” she said, shaking her head vehemently, “let’s go back inside the office where it’s cool and call Tony. Maybe he has the rest of those DNA results by now, which you seem certain will point to Yuri, and you two can alert the authorities to arrest Yuri.”

His taut nerves snapped. “Drop it, Val, it’s none of your business.”

* * *

V
AL
STARED
INTO
Drake’s dark, foreboding eyes, not believing that this was happening. “This involves
both
of us, but it’s none of my business? We’re a team, remember? Partners. There has to be another way to handle Yuri!”

“I said
drop it.
”

She met his defiance with an unflinching gaze. “You’re retreating into your I’ll-handle-this-by-myself cave again. As though nobody has the right to stand with you. But I won’t let you do this alone. I love you, damn it.” She blinked back angry tears. “Let’s go away. Move to another state, another country, where Yuri can never find us.”

“That’s implausible and you know it. My family’s here. So is yours. As are our careers.”

She threw her hands up into the air. “Then I’ll move away. If I’m gone, there’s no need to pay protection money.”

He snorted something rude under his breath. “Be a refugee again? Haven’t you been exiled enough for one lifetime?”

The words cut deep. But more than the words, his harsh, cold tone. As though they’d never shared a single intimate moment, never opened their hearts to each other.

Giving a low whistle to Hearsay, he yanked the handle on the passenger side of his pickup. The door creaked as he swung it open. “C’mon, buddy, get inside.”

Hearsay scrambled into the truck, then sat on the seat, watching her as though saying, “You coming with us?”

Drake jerked his head, motioning for her to get inside the pickup.

She didn’t move. Hot breezes rustled through the leaves.

“Val.” He pointed at the front seat, “Get in.”

“I’m not your dog,” she said quietly.

The words had left her mouth before she’d realized it, but hearing them, it’s exactly how she felt. He was treating her as though she were something he owned, who obeyed his dictates. She accepted his being her mentor, her temporary boss, but out here, at this moment, they were acting out their
personal
relationship.

Was this how a future with him would be? Had she been so blinded by her feelings for him, or by her intent to have her career, that she lost sight of who they really were?

He studied her, scathingly. “I’m a better man than that, and you know it.”

“Maybe I don’t know it.”

A long silence drew out between them. She held herself in place, her insides roiling with fury and hurt. At the same time, a part of her wanted to coax him out of his mood, make him laugh at their silliness, admit how they needed to be a team and brainstorm a way out of this.

He slammed shut the passenger door and turned his body, the one that only last night had been pressed against hers, and strode around the pickup and got inside.

She watched as the engine growled to life and he backed out of the parking lot.

For a moment she just stood there, alone, thinking how quickly life could change. How people and homes and friends were there one moment, gone the next. How loved ones disappeared or died. The lesson for survivors was to learn how to redo their lives and hopefully find another welcoming home.

Fishing her keys from her pocket, she headed to Drake’s back office door. She’d do a last check of the offices, then head out to her car and go home, figure out what to do next.

She spied the ball, bright and pink in the sun, and remembered Jayne saying it had been her ritual to always buy one to welcome her dog back home. She walked over and picked it up, wondering if Drake had ever guessed Val had bought it, not Jayne.

Inside Drake’s office, she set the ball where Hearsay would see it the moment he bounded in the door.

* * *

A
T
SEVEN-THIRTY
that night, Drake stood near the roulette table at the Mandalay Bay casino. He still wore his jeans and T-shirt, having spent the afternoon running around, calling people, trying to raise five grand. Eddie, who’d hit it big at the horse races, loaned him seven hundred, Li’l Bit donated a hundred and Braxton left an envelope with five hundred in it with a note: “I got your back.”

He’d called Tony, who didn’t answer. When it rolled over to voice mail, Drake left a message asking Tony to call him when he got the DNA test results.

He watched the players scatter their bets among the numbers and colors. He could sense their excitement as the dealer closed the bids and the ball clattered around and around until it lost momentum, falling into the winning slot.

Two of the players whooped loudly, raising their fists.

It was like old times, being surrounded by the smell of cigarettes, the bustling crowds and the beeps, whirs and clicks of slot machines. Like old times wrestling with the tangled feelings of excitement and despair before he gambled.

He also wrestled with the miserable, tortured feelings he’d had since leaving Val this afternoon. He hadn’t known how to defuse her anger. Hadn’t had the sense to keep his mouth shut. So he’d closed off and split.

He missed her. Missed that lax drawl, the way emotions paraded across her face, even missed those funny purple streaks in her hair. Her idea to uproot their lives wasn’t a solution—it was running away from a problem—but he hadn’t taken the time to discuss it with her. Truth was, he’d been scared for her life, wanted to get moving, find the money, but in his urgency, he’d lost what mattered the most. Val.

Maybe he’d blown their relationship, but he wasn’t going to fail at protecting her. He peeled off six one-hundred-dollar bills, shoved his wallet back into his jeans pocket. He needed three thousand, seven hundred dollars more to make twenty-five thousand. He hoped the old man forgave him for what he was about to do.

As he stepped toward the roulette table, someone gripped his arm. He stopped, looked down at the small hand, up the slender arm to the face that haunted his every thought.

Val wore a simple black dress, her sleek hair framing her face. It was all he could do to stare into those glistening brown eyes, amazed how his heart pounded just at the sight of her.

“Don’t,” she said, choking on the word.

“Bets are closing,” called out the dealer.

He flinched. She held on.

“We can get through this,” she said, sliding her hand into her pocket. She pulled out a wad of bills, put them into his hand. “A thousand cash from Marta’s last visit, four hundred left over from her first.” She shrugged. “If I hadn’t bought that minifridge, nearly five.”

He smiled. Couldn’t help himself. “After what I raised, we have two thousand, three hundred to go.”

“We,”
she repeated, her heart in her eyes, “that’s what this is about. The two of us. Let’s go to Yuri, together, negotiate how to pay the rest.”

“He doesn’t make deals,” Drake said coldly, “only enforces them.”

“Eighteen red,” called out the dealer at the roulette table.

“Yee-haw!” yelled a fiftysomething man wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a cowboy hat. “I just made me a mortgage payment!”

Drake lifted her hand off his arm, held it for a moment.

“If you go to that table,” she said, her face hardening, “it’s really over. For good.”

He peered at her, so beautiful and strong, the ultimatum flashing in her eyes, but this was bigger than his problems. This was about saving her life. He released her hand.

“Maybe someday you’ll realize how much I loved you.”

He turned and headed to the gambling table.

* * *

A
NGRY
AND
BROKEN
, Val walked away, her legs carrying her as far as an empty seat in front of a slot machine before she let herself crumble.

Slumping into the chair, she smothered back the sob in her throat. Her nerves were raw, her heart torn and the man she loved was falling, falling into an abyss that would be his undoing. How insane, how crazy, that both of them were willing to lose dignity, their love, for a worthless, conniving lowlife.

She missed Drake already, ached with regret that after spending long days together, overcoming problems and baring their souls to each other, their final parting was tense and chilly. What a waste of their time together for them to return to being the same two people who’d met that first night at Dino’s, caught up in self-justifications and personal agendas. But obviously they weren’t those two people anymore, otherwise she wouldn’t feel the misery of words left unsaid, the pain of two hearts ripped apart before their time.

For the next few minutes, she looked out at the crowd of people, thinking back to the Superdome. All those souls packed in a large room, all those stories of loss and pain. Yet she, and thousands of others, hadn’t let the devastation prescribe the rest of their lives. If she simply gave in to Yuri’s threat—and for that matter, Drake’s foolhardy risk to save her—everything she’d overcome, all the lessons she’d learned, lost their meaning.

She straightened, swiped the tears off her cheeks, knowing there was only one thing to do.

* * *

E
XITING
THE
CASINO
, Drake walked into the stifling-hot summer night. In the hazy sky, the thin smile of the waxing crescent moon seemed to jeer at him.

He headed to the gated entrance to the wave pool, which had closed several hours ago to the public. Yuri had connections to throw a “private party” here. He gave his name to the stocky shadow, who insisted Drake hand over his phone before opening the gate.

In the flickering light from several tiki torches, a dozen or so people mingled. Over the buzz of conversations and clinking of glasses, he recognized a local radio station’s jingle. Far in the background, dark waves rose and crashed on a sandy shore, as real as any Vegas magician’s illusion.

Major hotels like the Mandalay had surveillance cameras installed on their property, but with only the torches for light, it was too dark for any cameras to capture footage of the party. And with the bouncer taking his phone, Drake was shit out of luck recording Yuri.

He heard a familiar laugh. Braxton with his new buzz cut stood next to Vadim and Yuri, the three of them laughing, drinks in their hands.

A slim woman in tight black jeans, heels and a sparkly top walked up to Yuri and handed him a drink. He took it, kissed her on the lips. She laughed, nuzzled his cheek, then patted his ass before sashaying away.

Drake’s insides curdled. Sally. An item with
Yuri?

Scenes flashed in his mind. Sally, telling him the hours she’d seen Yuri’s car at Topaz. Of course, bogus information Yuri wanted her to feed to Drake. Sally asking Drake if he was going home, then picking up her phone. It sickened him to realize she must have called Yuri, who was probably also on his way to Drake’s house, ready to torch it.

He’d once thought he hadn’t picked up Sally’s signals. Now he realized he’d been picking them up all along. She was a fraud, a snake, and deep down he had known to back off.

Unlike Val, whom he’d met and immediately distrusted. But his gut instincts had known better. She was the real deal, and deep down in his heart he had known to keep chasing her.

He didn’t need a gut instinct to help him handle this next relationship, though.

Drake walked up to Yuri, Vadim and Braxton. Standing in front of his brother, he stared him square in the face. “You two-faced bastard.”

Clapping Drake on the back, Yuri laughed. He smelled of booze, cigarette smoke and too much cologne. He shooed away Brax and Vadim.

“Hello, Drake,” Yuri said, “care for drink?”

“No. Let’s get this over with.”

Even in the flickering light, Drake could see the greed on Yuri’s face. “Straight to business. I like that.”

“I have twenty-two thousand, seven hundred dollars.”

“I tell you twenty-
five.
” He belched.

“And I’m telling you twenty-two seven.”

He swayed forward, snarling, “Nobody cheat Yuri Glazkov.”

“I’ll pay you the rest over the next month.”

“No! You pay me
tonight!
” After fumbling in his shirt pocket, he held up the ring. “So sad, your father,” he said, dripping false concern, “very sick when he give to me. Tell me ring have much family history.”

“I’ll pay the thirty in six months.” He didn’t know how, but somehow he’d do it.

“I give you
two
hours to pay twenty-five thousand protection money,” he said darkly, “or girlfriend have unfortunate accident. As to ring…I teach you lesson for late payment.”

He staggered away, lumbering toward the crashing surf of the wave pool, yelling in Russian.

Drake, balling his hands into fists, followed Yuri into the shadows beyond the torch flares. The Russian lurched to the edge of the dark swelling waters, and stopped. Screaming a curse, he drew back his arm and threw the ring far into the waves.

“Damn you!” Drake ran forward, staring at another looming dark wave. “It will be sucked into the wave-making machinery within minutes!”

“That’s for being late with money.” Yuri laughed.

Drake strode over to the Russian and slammed a fist into his gut. “And that’s for Hearsay, you scumbag.”

As the Russian doubled over, coughing, a woman cried out.

“No!” Val yelled, “We can’t lose the ring!”

* * *

V
AL
HAD
WALKED
into the private party in time to see Yuri waving the ring at Drake, yelling threats. Terrified, she had followed the two of them to the wave pool. It had been too dark to see Yuri throw the ring, but after hearing Drake’s shout, she didn’t think twice about what to do.

“He won’t destroy your family history,” she cried, kicking off her shoes and tossing off her dress.

In her panties and bra, she ran across gritty sand, stumbling to a stop at the first jolt of cold water. For an instant she froze, watching a dark wall of water surge forward and crash, its icy spray burning her skin.