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Five
Abby was puttingthe finishing touches on a platter of olives, cheese, farm-fresh radishes, and pickled vegetables when the doorbell rang. She glanced up at Max, who had been pacing back and forth between the living room and the kitchen for the past halfhour.
He was wearing dark jeans just tight enough to give her a hint of his muscled thighs and the significant bulge between them. His gray button-down pulled around his biceps and hugged the expanse of his shoulders, the collar meeting a lock of dark hair, curled and still damp from the shower, at the back of hisneck.
She’d stopped being surprised at the way he still stole her breath. The attraction she’d always felt for him was only magnified by her now-intimate knowledge of his body, the memory of him between herthighs.
“You going to get that?” she asked him, her face suddenlyhot.
“Do I have achoice?”
She moved around the island, put a hand on his arm, and stood on tiptoe to kiss him. “You always have achoice.”
He muttered something under his breath and stalked toward thehall.
She returned to the tray of food and carried it into the living room. She would be able to throw everything else together while Max grilled the steaks, a menu choice he’d insisted on even though she’d wanted to servesalmon.
His stubbornness didn’t fool her: his plan to grill was a built-in opportunity to escape pre-dinner conversation by stepping out onto theterrace.
He’d resisted hosting the dinner for Carlos even as he’d been the one to arrange it. She’d gotten only bits of information, but from what she could discern, Nico had made it clear that Max needed help in Vegas — and that didn’t mean the receptionist Abby had hired for the office, or the men, many of whom were holdouts from DeLuca’s operation, who were now his soldiers on thestreets.
Nico wanted Max to have more of a right-hand man, someone who could act as a bodyguard and advisor. It made Abby nervous, but not because she disagreed. It was an acknowledgment of the danger Max would continue to be in as head of the Syndicate’s Vegas territory. He was like Fredo DeLuca now — a man with a perpetual target on his back, one who would be wanted by both the FBI and every criminal in the city looking to make a power play for its significant illegal cashflow.
It was the only thing Abby thought twice about, a fact that would once have alarmed her. She’d been straight and narrow, even more so than most people. She’d been determined to prove she was a productive member of society, to avoid any brush with the law, anything that might paint her as a member of the fringes she’d been part of almost her wholelife.
And yet, after everything Jason had done, she could only be relieved by Max’s new affiliation with the Syndicate. Jason was an enemy whose moves she hadn’t predicted, and she knew now that he wasn’t alone. The city — the world — was full of people like Jason and Fredo DeLuca: people who took what they wanted without regard for the innocent, who operated below the waterline of rules and laws that kept everyone else inline.
They were things she couldn’t un-know. She would never feel truly safe in the world again, not as one of the law-abiding members who went to work every day and looked forward to happy hour and a weekend watching TV or going to brunch or working around thehouse.
She wasn’t like them anymore. Could never be like them again. The only way to live in the world she now knew was to become part of it, to surround herself and Max with the kind of protection necessary to surviveit.
It shouldn’t have been a surprise. Understanding, demystifying, had always been a coping mechanism for her. It was why she’d gone into finance — that and the relative jobsecurity.
Learning everything she could about money, about the stock market and investing and interest, had given her control over her financial destiny, had guarded against the kind of poverty that had been a hallmark of herchildhood.
Max’s affiliation with the Syndicate wasn’t verydifferent.
She heard murmuring in the hall and looked up in time to see Max enter the living room ahead of CarlosRodriguez.
She smiled and walked toward them. “Carlos, it’s so nice to see you.” She kissed his cheek. “Can I get you adrink?”
He nodded. “Whiskey, if you haveit.”
She grinned. “We definitely havewhiskey.”
She walked to the bar and poured whiskey into two glasses while Max and Carlos made small talk about the house. She doubted Carlos could see it, but it was obvious that Max was uncomfortable. He didn’t want a right-hand man. He didn’t want any man except the ones he could keep at a distance the way he kept everyone at adistance.
Everyone buther.
The kind of man Nico thought Max needed would have to be in Max’s business. He would have to know things about Max, and about Abby too. He would have to be around the house, would have to know their schedules andhabits.
Max didn’t like people knowing him, and while Abby wasn’t crazy about it either, she saw Nico’s point: Max needed someone he could count on. Someone who could protect him if push came toshove.
They weren’t exactly overrun with possibilities. Other than Jason and Abby, Max had never had a lot of friends, and he’d kept to himself since returning fromAfghanistan.
Carlos was a good suggestion. Abby didn’t know him well — and neither did Max, which was made obvious by his attempt at small talk — but Carlos had always seemed solid to her. He’d been reliable since Max brought him on, and he was direct in his communications, something that was important toMax.
As a high-ranking soldier in DeLuca’s operation, Carlos had been looking for a way out when he heard DeLuca was involved in the weapons and trafficking trades, and he knew DeLuca’s operation, knew the players in and around it, understood the way illegal enterprise was run in thecity.
