The big fix, p.24
The Big Fix, page 24
“Thank you, kind sir.”
“My pleasure. Now, who on this floor are we going to take to school tonight?”
We both gazed out at the options. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I’d gambled only once before, and would not be taking anyone to school, unless he meant giving them a lecture on probability sampling.
“Ah! Craps, my favorite,” Gio said, and nodded toward an oblong table near the room’s center.
I followed on his heels, making sure I could still see the elevators. “Craps? When you said a real game, I thought you meant one that involved actual skill and not just random chance.”
“Craps does involve skill. You’ve got to guess right. That’s a skill.”
“Perhaps, if you’re skilled at lucky guesses.”
“I’m skilled at all sorts of things.” He gave me a devilish grin and approached a table. Other gamblers easily cleared space for us to join. I positioned myself to keep an eye on the elevators. “Stop looking, Professor. He’s not even here yet.”
I flinched in embarrassment. “How did you know I was looking?”
“Because you haven’t taken your eyes off that corner since we got down here. Relax. And he’s not going to show up with FBI written on his forehead, so you don’t even know who you’re looking for.” He casually threw down some chips on the table. “This is going to take a while, so you might as well throw in.”
I knew he was right, but the thought of waiting and hoping it all went off without a hitch had me feeling helpless. I didn’t know how long it took to give a statement to the FBI, but I imagined it wasn’t instant.
I sighed and dropped a few chips on the table.
“Now we’re talking,” Gio cheered me on right as a cocktail waitress materialized at my elbow.
“Something to drink?” she asked in a honey-sweet voice. She had cleavage up to her chin and eye shadow the color of a peacock. She balanced a tray on one hand littered in empty glasses bobbing with melted ice and lipsticked straws. A tip jar stuffed with singles sat between two expired lime wedges.
“Um, vodka soda, please,” I said. “With a splash of lime.”
“Sure, hon. And for you?” She turned her adoring gaze onto Gio.
“G and T if you please.”
“Of course, sugar. Be right back.” She winked at him and squeezed his arm.
“I think you have a fan,” I said when she sauntered off.
He shrugged. “They treat everyone like that to keep them on the floor. Nothing like free booze and flirting to get people to spend cash.”
“Sounds like you speak from experience.”
“I’ve been around the block. Now let me show you how this is done.” When it came his turn to throw the dice, they looked like something out of a child’s toy set in his hand. The waitress eventually returned with our drinks, and despite the circumstances, I found myself having fun after a while. It may have been the booze. Or Gio’s belly laugh. Or the fact he was actually really good at craps, despite logic suggesting that wasn’t possible, and his enthusiasm was contagious.
I’d lost track of how much time had passed, but was feeling a little tipsy by the time Gio had a small mountain of chips in front of him. I turned away from the table for a breather.
“He has to be here by now, right?” I muttered, recalling why we were even in a casino in the first place.
“What?” Gio muttered over his shoulder, still facing the table.
“Ives. We’ve been down here for twenty minutes? A half hour?”
“Long enough for me to double my winnings so Tony won’t notice the cash missing from his suitcase,” he said, and playfully stuck his tongue out sideways.
I sucked the end of my drink through the straw until it made a sputtering sound. The waitress with the peacock eyes was likely to appear any second to offer to refill it, but I didn’t need another. Not until we were in the clear.
“I want to go check on them,” I said.
“Definitely not. We can’t go up there until it’s done. Tony is going to come find us after.”
Discomfort hung over me like an itchy blanket. I was suddenly antsy.
“Professor, relax. Throw in another bid.”
“Sorry. I’m not very good at standing by and waiting. I just want to know what’s happening.”
“We are destroying the house at craps, that’s what’s happening. Ooh!” he shouted to a round of cheers from the small crowd at our table. I glanced backward to see another little mountain of chips being pushed his way.
When I turned back to face the elevators, a face in the crowd caught my eye, and I thought I might be hallucinating.
“What?” I murmured in shock.
I blinked several times, thinking maybe my vision had betrayed me, but no. It was still him.
“Gio!” I whispered, and clawed at his bulky arm. He was busy high-fiving the man next to him. “Gio!” I called more desperately, and yanked on him.
“What?” He turned to me, and the look of confused excitement melted from his face at the look on mine. “What’s wrong?”
I knew I’d had alcohol, and I knew I was in a hot room crowded with smoke and noise and flashing lights, but I knew I wasn’t imagining things.
“Is that Connor Slate walking toward the elevators?”
Gio instantly tensed and whipped his head around, all signs of frivolity gone. He followed my pointing finger, and his mouth fell open. “Ho-ly shit.”
Connor stalked the edge of the room with the threat of a shark swimming in dark water. He wore an open jacket over jeans and a collared shirt and looked both like he didn’t care about being seen and like he would flatten anyone who got in his way. Notably, he was alone.
“What the fuck is he doing here?” Gio whispered under his breath as Connor made his way to the elevator bank.
I scrambled for an answer, still struggling to believe what I was seeing and understand it. The chances of Connor Slate randomly booking a room at the same hotel we were at on a Thursday night were slim to none—and no one even knew we were here. Anthony had called in a favor for the room, but whoever was on the other end of it had no idea why. I didn’t tell anyone. Gio didn’t tell anyone. Of course Portia and Anthony didn’t. That only left—
“Shit,” Gio said at the same second I figured it out. He looked down at me with a tempered rage in his eyes. “That FBI agent is dirty. He told Connor we’re here.”
My horror seemed to dissolve the alcohol in my system, instantly sobering me. I slapped a hand over my mouth. “Limitless resources,” I muttered.
“What?” Gio asked, having completely turned his back on the craps game.
The pieces unscrambled and snapped sharply in place. I suddenly saw it all. I gripped Gio’s arms in a desperate panic. “Gio, Connor must have bought him. He was afraid Portia was going to talk, so he bought off the agent she was going to talk to. That night in New York, he saw them together, Anthony told me. Connor knew Ives was a threat, so he put him in his pocket. He cut off Portia’s resource before she even tried to use it.”
Gio had gone rigid in shock. I could see thoughts tumbling in his eyes as he tried to work it all out.
But I was two steps ahead of him. “Gio, this meeting was a setup. Connor must be here to . . . finish this. They have no idea he’s coming. They are sitting ducks up in that room. We have to warn them before he kills them both.”
I spun away from the table, abandoning the chips and all sense of self-preservation. My only thoughts were of Anthony and Portia not knowing they’d walked into a trap.
“Penny, wait!” Gio called after me. He caught up in a few steps and, to my relief, didn’t grab my arm and try to stop me. I knew I liked him for a reason. He was definitely a run toward the danger in an emergency type of person. And we were running. Heads briefly turned to see what the fuss was, but everyone went back to their games once we passed.
I was out of breath and fighting the booze bubbling in my veins when we reached the elevators.
“Where’d he go?” Gio asked as he scanned the area.
I’d lost sight of him too, but the bank of elevators was in full use, and he had to be in one of them. “Up! He went up!” I said, and smashed my finger into the call button. I paced in a circle, sweating and swearing. The swarm of guests getting ready to go out for the night was working against us. Everyone had somewhere to be, and the elevators were jammed. The lights above each closed door indicated which floor the elevator was on, and none on either side of the bank were even close.
“Stairs?” I turned to Gio with a desperate hope.
“That’s twenty floors, Penny. We’ll never make it.”
It wasn’t a real suggestion; I would have died by floor five, no doubt, but I still had to say it. “Call Anthony,” I said with a gasp. “The burner phone; you have that number, right?”
“Yes.” Gio nodded and reached for his phone as I jammed the elevator call button again.
I tuned out his attempt and paced again. “Come on, come on, come on!” I growled at the wall of still-closed doors. I willed one of them to open while at the same time, I willed Anthony to somehow hear my desperate warning. He’s coming. Get out. I thought it as hard as I could in case there was a remote possibility he could sense it.
“He’s not answering,” Gio reported with a shake of his head.
“Damn it.”
Visions of the worst-case scenario swam in my mind. Connor showing up with a gun, catching them off guard. Anthony dead. Portia gone. Agent Ives never even having materialized at all.
“Hurry up!” I shouted at the wall. I’d lost my cool completely. Furious tears blurred my eyes. A fiery rage pushed heat into my face and made me want to scream.
Finally, mercifully, an elevator dinged behind us.
We both spun around and threw ourselves at it. A loud, fragrant crowd of women in glittery dresses with TEAM BRIDE sashes stepped out in a clatter of heels. I shoved my way through them, parting a sea of Chanel Number 5.
“Hey, watch it!” one of them snapped at me when I nearly stepped on her foot.
“Sorry!” I flung myself into the empty lift and pressed the button for the twentieth floor, over and over.
Gio stepped in behind me and turned to face the open doors. He spread his arms out to prevent anyone else from entering. “Sorry, this is an emergency, folks.” He said it calmly and rationally and looked like he could snap over his knee anyone who protested, so, thankfully, none of the annoyed guests dared argue.
The doors slid shut, and I prayed no one between us and floor twenty was waiting for a ride to go up.
“Call him again,” I commanded. My hands were slicked with sweat. I shook all over.
“I don’t have a signal in here,” Gio said, and jammed his phone back in his pocket.
I watched the floors light up as we rose into the sky, all the while my heart beating faster and harder. “What are we going to do when we get there?” I asked.
“Assess the situation and then come up with a plan of action.” He sounded like he was reciting tactical orders.
“Right. Of course,” I said, fully intending to follow his lead, but then we arrived on our floor with a ding, and all sense abandoned me.
I shoved my way around him and ran into the hall. “Anthony!” I cried. Panic had taken over again. I had to get to him. I had to save him.
“Penny! Get back here!” Gio hollered behind me. I heard his thunderous steps crashing down the hall as I ran.
Our room wasn’t far from the elevators. I had to turn left and then left again; then it was a straight shot down a hall with an emergency exit at the end.
I was halfway down the hall when I heard a door slam, followed by a gunshot.
“No!” I screamed, and froze in my tracks.
Gio caught up and passed me. He shoved by and headed toward our door with a gun, which he’d apparently had the whole time, drawn at his hip. He paused to listen and held a finger to his lips as I caught up on trembling legs. My heart was in my throat and my eyes swimming with tears again.
There was nothing but silence on the other side.
Gio got out his keycard and reached for the handle right as the door flew open.
Anthony came tumbling out into the hall, gasping and swearing. He crashed into Gio and tripped before Gio caught him and set him on his feet.
“Anthony!” I cried, and lunged for him.
He was struggling to breathe. Maybe he’d been punched in the gut? But I didn’t see any gaping gunshot wounds.
“Are you okay?! What happened?” I gripped his arms and saw he had a gun in his hand.
“He took Portia!” he gasped on a pained breath. “Connor. Is. Here. The FBI agent is—” He cut off with another gasp and doubled over, pointing behind him back into the room. “Setup.”
I quickly pieced together his broken sentence and looked through the open door. Someone in a suit writhed on the floor, gripping his right leg. The agent had shown up after all.
I hunched over to meet Anthony’s eyes. He was still gasping and holding his side in pain. “Did you shoot someone in the leg again?”
He nodded, his eyes alight with understanding. “And he . . .” he trailed off with a wince. “Ribs.”
It all made sense. “And he hit you in the ribs, and now you can’t breathe?”
“Yes,” he forced out with another wince. “And Portia. Gone.”
I glanced over my shoulder to look for them and make sure we weren’t drawing attention. Hopefully, no one else heard the gunshot. No doors flew open, so I assumed we were in the clear.
“Where’d he take her?” Gio asked. “We just came from the elevators, and there was no one else there.”
Anthony stood and fought for a full breath. He squeezed his eyes shut in pain, but pushed through it. “They just left, so if they weren’t at the elevators, then . . .” He looked over at the emergency exit. “They took the stairs.”
The implication hadn’t fully settled over me before he was twisting out of my grip and shoving his gun into his waistband. He met Gio’s gaze for a silent conversation.
“Go, man,” Gio said. “I’ll take care of this asshole.” He nodded at the man still on the floor losing blood.
“Thank you,” Anthony said, and started for the stairwell.
“Wait, are you serious?!” I blurted, hurrying to keep up. “Anthony, we’re twenty floors up, and you can hardly walk!”
“We’ll lose them otherwise!” he called over his shoulder.
Of course it would end with a staircase. Of course it would. Because climbing walls and running through the woods wasn’t enough. And I, of course, wasn’t going to let him go alone. Not after all we’d been through, and not when he looked minutes from collapsing.
I grumbled and followed after him.
“What are you doing?” he said, picking up his pace to a trot now. “Stay here with Gio.”
“Are you kidding me? You don’t get to play Rambo without supervision in your condition.”
“Penny, go back!”
“Shut up, Anthony! I’m coming with you!”
He cast a scowl over his shoulder when he reached the door to the stairwell and pushed it open.
“Professor!” I heard Gio shout from behind me.
I turned to see him partway down the hall. He held up his gun, indicating he was going to toss it to me; and then to my horror, he tossed it to me. “Just in case!”
I caught it with a zing of terror. I considered dropping it and running away. Just booking it to the elevators and finding a flight home or maybe to someplace warm, tropical, and very far away—but as soon as I had the thought, I knew I wouldn’t do it. No. I’d grown too attached to this ragtag group, and putting an end to this mess was the only way to get my life back.
So, convincing myself I possessed even an ounce of the courage they all had, I shoved the gun into my waistband and followed my no-longer-fake boyfriend as he chased a madman into the stairwell.
CHAPTER 15
Twenty flights of stairs was a truly monstrous task. Going down was at least better than going up, and Anthony had been right. We weren’t the only ones in the stairwell. There was another set of footsteps clamoring down below us, punctuated by intermittent sounds of protest.
I had to imagine Connor was dragging Portia, and the sounds of her struggling only made me want to run faster.
But wanting to run and being able to run were two different things. My legs were trembling and my lungs heaving. I kept one hand on the railing as we spiraled down at a dizzying angle. I quickly fell behind. When I stopped to catch my breath somewhere around the tenth floor, I heard a pitiful yelp, which made me lean over the railing.
At the bottom of the narrow chamber, I saw Portia sprawled on her hands and knees, looking like she’d tripped or perhaps been shoved. Connor came into view and squatted beside her. He spoke in a low tone, but given the shape of the stairwell, his voice carried like he was standing right beside me.
“You think you can run from me? After everything I’ve given you? And not only run, but turn me in?” He grabbed her ponytail and yanked her head back.
“Connor, please,” she begged. Tears mangled her voice.
“Please what, darling?” he hissed. My skin crawled at the sound. The menace in his voice was sharp as a sword.
“Please. I won’t tell anyone anything! I swear,” she sobbed.
“Well, it’s a little late for that, don’t you think? How am I ever supposed to trust you again?” He stroked her hair and said it with a facetiously loving coo, which turned my stomach. “Turns out I can’t trust anyone to do anything right. That’s why I’m here on my own—to clean up this mess you’ve made.”
He released her with a shove, and then stood from his crouch and kicked her in the stomach.
“Stop!”
I didn’t even realize the word had come from my mouth until Connor whipped his head up to look at me. Anthony appeared over the railing five floors below me to do the same.
I gulped when they both saw me, and I hardly jumped out of the way in time when Connor pulled a gun and shot at me.
The ringing shattered off the walls of the echo chamber. I’d never heard anything so loud before, and I feared I’d never hear anything else again, but a second gunshot assured me I had not lost the sense completely.
