Sticky (16 page)

“
W
hat the fuck
did you let her do.” I don’t phrase it like a question, as I crash through the door of Freddie’s apartment, fists clenched. He’s huddled over something on his kitchen counter, back to me, though at least he flinches when I barrel inside. Least he could do, when he seemed utterly unsurprised after I called him an hour ago to tell him about Sloan being kidnapped, and he just calmly invited me over to his apartment.

“I didn’t let her do anything. If you know my sister at all, you’d know that she does what she feels is necessary, whatever the situation.”

“You don’t know Aaron like I do—”

“I know him plenty,” Freddie snaps.

“You don’t even fucking sound concerned. She could be
dying
in there right now, and you’re—what are you doing?” I stop short at the edge of the kitchen, having just crossed over to it ready to throw Freddie off his stool.

Until I see the mess of wiring spread on the table before him. What looks like a short-range radio, attached to his computer, and a few other bits of metal equipment everywhere.

“Of course I’m concerned. She’s my sister, Gage. I’m fucking scared shitless right now. But freaking out is not going to help her.”

I grit my teeth. Mostly because there
isn’t
a way to help her, not that I can figure. Short of going back to Aaron and killing him. I’d die in the process, but I could trade myself for her. My life for hers.

I could bust in there guns blazing, but I wouldn’t make it farther than the front door. I clench my fists, because I fucking hate feeling so helpless. Especially when it’s Sloan at risk.

“Help me with this?” Freddie says, and I finally realize what he’s doing.

“Is that . . . ?”

“The wire radio the FBI gave me. Sloan stole the wire this morning, from my car. Left me a note at the motel, which I found when I brought back lunch for both of us. It’s transmitting.”

“Let me hear her.”

Freddie shakes his head. “There’s nothing now. I think they’ve gagged her.”

I shut my eyes tight. It takes me several slow, deep breaths to recover from that memory. The sight of her on the couch, eyes wide and frightened. “They had her gagged from the minute I got there.”

“Well, they had one conversation, between gaggings, then.” Freddie hits a few buttons on the computer, and her voice pours through the speakers.

I wrench a chair around and drop into it beside him, leaning over the laptop to listen to every word she says.

And every word Aaron says.

I didn’t think I could hate him any more than I already did. Oh, I was so wrong. I will tear that man’s head from his neck the next time I see him. Fuck his goonies; I’ll destroy them all. And if they kill me in the process, so fucking be it. But I’m taking him down with me.

“There,” Freddie says, hitting pause, just as a high-pitched, muffled scream shoots over the microphone, and makes my whole body turn to water.

Sloan
. Fucking hell. What are they doing to her?

“Right before that scream. I think she’s calling our attention to something, but it’s quiet.” Freddie taps a few more buttons, and the background sounds amplify to a much higher volume.

Take her down the back exit. Basement level.

My eyebrows furrow as I listen. Back exit. The Revel doesn’t have a back exit. Not on the floor where Aaron does drops like this, the second story, away from the casino floor and wide windows of the first floor. He’ll use one of the private rooms, probably the big one so that he can post his hit men in every corner of it.

But if there’s a second entrance on that floor, another way in that I don’t know about—and that less people would be watching . . . 

Freddie and I exchange glances.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I ask.

Freddie dips his head into a nod. “I think I might be. Just got off the phone with my contact, though. He can get me the money—not the additional hundred thou that asshole is suddenly demanding but at least the base five hundred K.”

“But no backup,” I reply. It’s not really a question. I’ve worked in the underground for long enough to know how incompetent and under-resourced the FBI are. There’s a reason crime lords like Aaron keep their thrones as long as they do.

“No backup,” Freddie confirms.

I nod a few times. “Well. Then we’ve got some planning to do.”

It takes us the better part of the afternoon. It’s already sundown by the time we shake on the final plan. And now comes the hardest part.

I’ve pulled a lot of tricks before. Lied and cheated and gambled my way through dozens of dangerous, even deadly situations. But I’ve never dared to try those lies on the man who taught me everything I know about crime.

I’ve never used Aaron O’Malley’s own tricks on him.

First time for everything, I guess. I hole up in Freddie’s back room, perch on the edge of his bed, the door locked, all distractions shut down. And I dial Aaron’s number from memory, on the burner phone we picked up during a Taco Bell run at dinner time.

“Aaron speaking,” he answers. Same way he always does to strange numbers. No last name, common as hell first name. Give no identifying features that you don’t have to.

“It’s me,” I say, my voice gruff with annoyance.

“Why, Gage. I didn’t think I’d be hearing from you so soon. Aren’t you halfway to Cuba by now, buying a beach house somewhere unreachable?”

I bark out a laugh. “Like I can travel. You know what ties me here.”

“You should let her go, Gage,” he says, and I swear to god the fuck almost manages to sound sympathetic.

“This isn’t about her,” I snap. Then I mollify my tone. Dial it down. He’ll be suspicious if I sound too generous right now. Too nice. I’m doing this out of duty, not any sense of affection, and he’ll damn well know that. “Not directly, anyway. It’s . . . ”

“What’s the matter, do you miss me already?”

I scowl. “I would like nothing more than to see you swing this, Aaron.”

“After all these years, still no care. I’m wounded.” He sounds amused, actually, but whatever.

“I just know how you are. You like your technicalities. Your contracts. You like your people to finish the jobs they start. So I don’t want this shit blowing back on me, not if it hits the fan like I think it will. This was my last job for you, so I’ll finish it out proper, and then we’re more than square. Fair?”

“Who knew you had such magnanimous leanings, Hunter. Fine, that seems fair. What do you need to tell me with such burning urgency, then?”

“It’s about the brother. Fred Casey.” I glance at the closed bedroom door. Picturing him crouched on the other side, still bent over the laptop on his kitchen counter. Trusting me. Putting all his faith in me, to save his ass and his sister’s both. “He’s working with the FBI,” I say.

I
wake
up to the sound of heavy footsteps outside my cell.

Well. Technically I guess it’s a boiler room. But it might as well pass for a jail cell. I slept curled up on the concrete, huddled as close to the burning hot water heater as I could get, because it’s the only warmth in this damp, leaking basement. My arms are still tied behind me, and I’m pretty sure I’ve permanently lost feeling in at least one pinky. My cheek is wet from drool, the gag between my lips soaked through, and my lips themselves chapped raw from it.

Every inch of my body hurts. But worse than the physical pain, worse than anything Aaron could order his men to do to me, is the full-body nervous panic that seized me all night, kept me awake and staring at the tiny blinking red Exit light above the door they shoved me through. I think I slept maybe two or three hours, and only then because I basically fainted, delirious. It’s hard to tell down here, though. There are no windows. No clocks. No sense of time passing, or any sign of life at all aside from the odd wheeze or sigh of the boilers.

But now, footsteps.

I push myself upright, using my elbow to lever myself up. It takes a couple of tries. My pinky starts to burn and tingle. Well, I guess it’s not completely dead. I wince as pins and needles race up my arms, through my legs, through every inch of my body that was not built for sleeping between a rock and a hard place.

Luckily adrenaline spikes fast enough in my brain to wake me up, even if I’d much rather remain unconscious through this next ordeal.

Showtime, it seems.

Two bodyguards shove open the door to the boiler room. Different guys from the ones last night, I think, though it’s hard to tell. They really do all look alike, faceless, nameless gym rats with no personality or thoughts of their own. They grab me under the armpits, one on each side, and haul me to my feet. It takes me a moment to get my footing, my legs still pins and needles from the toes up, but they don’t give me that moment. They’re already yanking me forward, frog-matching me out of the room and toward the distant staircase.

As we exit the boiler room, I shoot one last glance down the hallway, the same one I memorized last night. Two lefts from Aaron’s office, through an unmarked door that blends into the wood paneling of the casino, down a long staircase, and into this basement. This basement with a door at the far end, a glowing red emergency exit sign above it, and sunlight showing through the tiniest crack at the bottom of it now.

I jerk my head forward fast. Last thing I want is for these guards to catch me staring. For the moment, this hallway seems empty. Quiet as a churchyard. Aaron talked yesterday about posting guards down here, but if he didn’t remember to do it, I’m not going to be the one to remind him.

The stairs up to the second floor of the Revel are long and arduous. Not so much because they’re any steeper or higher than any other two-story climb, but because dread weighs heavy on my shoulders, knowing what’s awaiting me at the top of them.

Likely the end of the road. For me and my brother. Learning about the back exit was my last-ditch attempt at trying to save him. God knows if he even picked it up on the wire, though, or if he’ll be able to figure out a way to use it.

Knowing Aaron, it seems unlikely.

The guards shove me out of the unmarked door, slamming it behind us, and then we’re shuffling down another carpeted hallway, the color a hideous beige-yellow this time, which reminds me of puke. Honestly, the least Aaron could’ve done would be to kill us somewhere nicely decorated.

A hysterical laugh bubbles up in the back of my throat, but I tamp it down. Bite down hard on the gag to subdue the tremors that threaten to overtake me. I’m losing my damn mind.

Oh well. Not like I was going to live to be sane for very much longer anyway.

I think I’ve come to terms with my fate. I think I’m ready for this moment. But when the guards push open double doors into a private gaming room, and the first thing I see is him, standing beside Aaron, suited up like all the other bodyguards, hands deep in his pockets, a fresh wave of marrow-deep pain nearly keels me over.

Gage.

For some reason, I expected him to be long gone by now. I heard Aaron set him free yesterday. He seemed more than happy to be done with this case, with me. To throw us all behind him in the rearview mirror and high-tail it out of town.

So why is he here now? Just to witness the shit he set in motion?

I don’t have time to think too hard about it. Voices in the hallway snap me to attention, and the next thing I know, the doors part again, and it’s all coming to a head.

There stands my brother, framed by another pair of guards, clutching a briefcase in both tight, pale hands.

His eyes find mine immediately. I widen mine, trying to plead with him without being able to speak.
Run, Freddie. Drop the money and run. Leave me.

He offers me a faint smile, and the slightest shake of his head, so tiny that no one else likely even noticed it. He knows what I’d say to him if I could. And he’s telling me no. He’s refusing to abandon me.

Even if it will only result in us both dying, instead of just me.

God damn it, Freddie
.

But his gaze has already moved on. It sweeps the room. Passes right over Gage like he doesn’t even register. Maybe he doesn’t. There are a dozen guards in here, all of them in the same black suit that Gage has put on, something I’ve never seen him wear before. Dressed like that, faces blank and patient, he blends into the crowd. He could be just another one of them.

He
is
, I remind myself.
You know that now.

“Frederick. So glad you could join us.” Aaron spreads his arms wide, and everyone else in the room zeroes in on him. That’s one thing I’ll grant him. The man knows how to suck up all the attention in a room, while hardly even breaking a sweat.

“The pleasure’s all mine,” my brother says, his tone forcedly congenial. Like he doesn’t really mind this all that much. Like he gets himself into situations like this one all the time.

Back in his bad days, he did.

“Sorry that your friends won’t be able to make it, by the way,” Aaron adds. “They seem to have run into a bit more of a holdup than they expected.”

Freddie stutters to a halt, halfway across the room which he’d been crossing. His face blanches, and my heart sinks into my shoes.
Oh no
.

“What . . . what do you mean?” he asks, his voice a little too shaky to come across convincingly. He’s trying to look brave, but he looks scared shitless at that comment. Like he’s had the wind knocked out of his sails in one foul breath.

“Well, you know. Your friends at the bureau. The ones who had planned to storm through the front entrance as soon as you pass me that briefcase full of tagged bills.” Aaron smiles so politely it looks borderline deranged.

My eyes shoot straight to Gage. No one else knew about Freddie working for the FBI. No one else knew that there was backup coming, to help extract him after this drop. Only one person could have told Aaron. And it explains what he’s doing standing at his right hand like a favored son right now.

I can’t help myself. I launch toward them both, screeching through the gag. The guards to either side of me react a second too late, and I get a few steps across the room before they grab me again, holding me back. I stomp on their feet and knee one in the balls, smirking hard as he doubles over, before the other one wrestles me into an armbar that forces me to freeze, tears stinging at the corners of my eyes as my elbow strains in its joint.

“Ah ah, Ms. Casey. That’s not very ladylike.” Aaron tuts softly. “I thought we discussed yesterday that favors would get you much better treatment.” He clucks his tongue, and I swear, I actually see red.

“Let her go,” Freddie interrupts. “She has nothing to do with this.”

“On the contrary, my friend, your lovely sister has everything to do with this. She is, after all, the pawn who brought you, the knight, sailing in here to rescue her. Is she not?” Aaron’s eyes flash with triumph.

“I brought your money. Everything I owe you,” Freddie says.

“The price has just gone up. An extra hundred grand, for my troubles.”

“That was never agreed upon,” my brother spits.

“Well, then perhaps you should learn not to make deals with the devil.” Gage extends a hand. “Let’s see what you have.”

Freddie’s fist tightens around the handle, stalling. “Let her go first.”

“She’ll be released as soon as I have what’s mine. And not a moment before.”

Freddie shakes his head. “At least let me talk to her. Let me hear from her lips that you haven’t . . . ” He trails off, his voice tightening. “That you’ve kept up your end of the deal.”

“Very well.” Aaron nods his head, and the gag falls from my mouth.

I spit it on the floor, sucking in a deep breath. “Freddie, run. Get out of here.
Now
.”

Aaron’s sharp laughter cuts through my voice easily. “Ah, sisterly love. Such a wonderful thing to behold. Not all siblings are so loyal, you know.”

“Seriously, Fred. Go.” I catch his eye, plead with him silently. I’m already doomed. He doesn’t need to be.

Instead, he catches my gaze, and slowly, slowly, extends the briefcase toward Aaron.

I want to scream. But the world seems to have narrowed down to slow motion. I watch my brother’s eyelid, just one of them, twitch, and I stutter into a frown. Was that . . .  a wink?

But the moment’s already gone, and Aaron has the suitcase in his hand, has what he’s wanted from us all along, has no need for us anymore.

And then the shit hits the fan.