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“Yeah.” I nodded. “I’m following you. Vegas is an easy city to hide in plain sight—constant turnover of faces, too bright to focus if you stay in the touristy areas, a bunch of sand and dirt otherwise…”
“Hey, I like it here!” Alicia laughed.
“I do too,” I agreed. “Just saying, there are reasons beyond a vague connection that would make it attractive to hide a family in. Get your tats covered, start a club that will be your protection, melt into a whole new life. It wasn’t a bad plan.”
“Not at all. Worked for what… thirty years?” Alicia said. “I wonder what, after all that time, would’ve pulled attention to Vegas?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Do you?”
“Obviously,” Alicia scowled. “What kind of question is that?”
“One I hoped would trigger some self-awareness.” I chuckled. “Alicia, give or take five years ago, you took downThe Gardenand put Etienne in prison for his crimes, and then you came back to the life you’d built here in Vegas and decided to multiply. You’ve been collecting strayThornsandRosesall that time.”
She huffed. “Well… yeah, but I’m not in the spotlight like that!”
“Maybe not, but people talk,” I told her. “I’m not saying it’s necessarily common knowledge, I just think that if you have certain connections, certain connections get made. Me? I was off on the other continents, not fucking with anybody, laying low. And then when Ididseek out the past, I was laser focused, which is how I got surprised by you being here too.”
“So youreallydidn’t know I was here?” she asked and I shook my head.
“Nah. I was trying to figure my own shit out, just following the thread as best I could. I didn’t even know my father was already dead until I got here a few months ago.”
Alicia nodded. “Okay. Last question for now, and then my brain needs a break, yours too. And probably food.”
“I wouldn’t turn it down. But what’s the question?”
She looked me in the face, eyes narrowed. “How didyouknow Jesse Garrett was here in Vegas?”
I scoffed, pulling myself up from my seated position. “Oh, that’s easy. Margeaux told me.”
