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Twelve
Max waitedfor Carlos’s text before stepping into the elevator and making his way to the first floor of his office building. He was nowhere near used to having Carlos around all the time, let alone his insistence on driving Max around the city on business, but he was playingalong.
Carlos’s Audi was idling at the curb in front of the office when Max stepped out into the afternoon sun. He put on his sunglasses and stepped into the passengerseat.
“What’s theword?”
Carlos handed him a roll of papers bundled together with a rubber band. “Done.” He put the car in gear and pulled out intotraffic.
“Nice work,” Max said. “Anytrouble?”
“No trouble.” Carlos knew someone in the city’s planning office from his time with DeLuca. “Justcash.”
Max continued to be surprised by the layers of the city he’d thought he’d known. Apparently everybody and their mother took bribes inVegas.
“Cash we can do,” Max said. “How detailed isit?”
Carlos’s eyes were hidden by his sunglasses as he watched the road. “Everything they had — building, security, fire,transportation.”
If the plans included everything Carlos mentioned, it was even more than they’d hoped for, encompassing every piece of the Tangier’s construction, every camera, every exit and sprinkler and fire alarm, every road leading into and out of thecomplex.
“Will it be enough?” Carlosasked.
Max hesitated, still in the habit of choosing his words carefully with everyone but Abby. In spite of his instincts to keep things close to the vest, Max had let Carlos in on the plans to eliminate Jason. As one of DeLuca’s former soldiers, it wouldn’t be the first time Carlos had been involved in a hit, and this one probably had more moral high ground than theothers.
But that didn’t mean it was easy to fork over thedetails.
“If this isn’t enough, nothing is,” Maxsaid.
They didn’t speak the rest of the way to the Bellagio. It was one of the things Max liked about Carlos — he didn’t talk aimlessly or ask needlessquestions.
They left the car with the valet and headed up to the Presidential suite. Max braced himself for Farrell’s smirking presence, but when the door opened, it was Nico who stood on the other side ofit.
“Max, Carlos.” He opened the door wider. “Comein.”
Nico locked the door behind them — a precaution given the ever-present guard in the hall — and they continued into the suite’s living room. Max stopped in his tracks when he saw an unfamiliar man standing near thesofa.
“Sean Bolton,” Nico said, “this is Max Cartwright and Carlos Rodriguez. Max runs the Vegas operation, Carlos is his underboss. Sean is with theFBI.”
Max looked from Nico to the man named Sean and back again. “Care toexplain?”
“Sean’s one of our sources at the Bureau,” Nicosaid.
The man held out his hand. “To be clear, I don’t work for the Syndicate. My first loyalty is always to theBureau.”
Max reluctantly shook his hand. “Hard to see it thatway.”
The man’s face hardened. “You’re entitled to youropinion.”
He had law enforcement written all over him, his dark hair cut short, a pair of aviators sticking out of his shirt pocket. His eyes were cautious and world-weary, the eyes of someone who’d seen it all, who would check for himself if you told him the sky wasblue.
Nico looked at Max and Carlos. “Drink?”
“Not for me,” Maxsaid.
Carlos shook his head. “No,thanks.”
Nico’s gaze dropped to the roll of paper in Max’s hand. “I take it those are theplans?”
