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“I don’t want to get used to it. And why do I have to wear a tie, anyway? Rico doesn’t,” he looked pointedly at the brunet.
“Rico is a law unto himself,” Jules said drily.
“Well, I’m not used to this.”
“What are you used to?” I asked, wondering where a guy like Fred fit into Mircea’s somewhat more . . . glossy . . . family.
“I just wear clothes, you know?” he said, pushing wispy brown hair out of his eyes. “I mean, nobody cares what an accountant looks like, as long as the books balance. Not that we use books anymore, but you know what I—”
“You’re an accountant?” Pritkin asked sharply.
Fred jumped and then regarded Pritkin warily. “Why shouldn’t I be an accountant?”
“Because you’re supposed to be a bodyguard!”
“Well, I am.” Pale gray eyes shifted. “I mean, I am at the moment. I mean—”
“He means that it’s none of your business,” Jules interjected.
“Well, it is mine,” I pointed out. “What is he doing here?”
I didn’t get an answer because Rico’s head snapped up. He didn’t move otherwise or even tense, as far as I could tell, but there was suddenly something dangerous about him.
Pritkin must have thought so, too, because his expression tightened. “Accountant?”
“Never said I was,” Rico said, his eyes on the empty street.
“Then what are you?”
“You could say I’m on the troubleshooting squad.”
“Troubleshooting?”
He put a hand on the back of his waistband. “I see trouble, and I shoot it.”
“Well, don’t shoot them,” Jules said irritably. “We have enough problems.”
“Shoot who?” I asked.
“Circle,” Rico told me, to the accompaniment of a car screeching around the corner and into the lot.
It was actually a limo, the kind that carted high rollers, honeymooners and anybody with a wad of cash all over Vegas. They were almost as ubiquitous as taxis, and often used back streets like this one as a way of avoiding clogged thoroughfares. But the ten or more grim-faced people piling out were too muffled up and too bulging with concealed weapons to be anything but the Circle’s favorite sons.
“Aren’t we supposed to be past this?” I asked Pritkin, as a familiar six foot five inches of pissed-off war mage got out of the limo and strode across the lot. The imposing mountain of muscle in the long leather trench had coffee-colored skin, a military-style buzz cut and a handsome face—when he wasn’t looking like he’d like to rip someone else’s off.
This wasn’t one of those times.
“What the hell?” he demanded in his deep voice, before he’d even reached us.
“Hi, Caleb,” I said, resigned.
“I was asked to get her out; I got her out,” Pritkin said obscurely.
“You were told to bring her in!”
“Bring me in where?” I asked.
“HQ,” Pritkin said. “After Jonas found out about this latest attack, he insisted—”
