The screen on the video slot machine tried desperately to capture her attention. Panthers prowled through a jungle scene, tigers snarled and claw marks slashed out to mark the matches in the indecipherable grid that fell into place each time she pushed the button. But she moved automatically and her divided mind had no space for the game.
Javier sat next to her, both of them angled away from each other so it didn’t look like they were together. She spoke just loud enough to be heard over the din of the machines, but kept her words contained to just the two of them. “3:30 a.m. departure. We have to be somewhere in LA by 8:00 a.m. for the pickup. We’re delivering—”
A cocktail waitress came by and Stephanie declined. Javier stopped her. “Beer, and a lot of luck.”
“I’ll see if we have any left.” The white woman with an Eastern European accent flashed an easy smile.
She continued her rounds and Stephanie resumed her debrief, focusing on the details in order to keep her emotions from spiraling her into darkness. “Delivering to an airfield. Wheels up at 11:00 a.m., so have Vincent check registered flight plans for every small airport in the county.”
Javier murmured back, “I got that, but I’m sure he knows his job, being a Fed and all.”
She ignored his correction. “No indication if the Seventh will be there.”
“They’re not going to leave a job this big unsupervised,” Javier exclaimed with disappointment and tried to show people how close he was to a jackpot on the screen, but no one paid attention. When he brought his attention back to the machine, he sassed, “I met your man.”
She choked out, “He’s not my man.”
“He was all puffed up and postured like he was a few minutes ago.”
“Things changed.” She’d known that telling the crew the truth about her father could get David off her back. It was a stick of dynamite, and the blast wrecked the best thing she had with Arash.
The cocktail waitress returned with Javier’s beer and he overtipped her. The woman thanked him and added, “They’re brewing up a fresh batch of luck right now, so it shouldn’t be long.”
“I’m good, thanks.” He toasted her with the beer. “But bring some to this woman here.” He hooked his thumb at Stephanie. “I think she could use it.”
“Coming right up.” The cocktail waitress smiled her way off.
Javier darkened in her peripheral vision. He barely said, “Things always change.” She didn’t know the man that well but had heard from his closer friend Ty that he’d gone through a rough breakup within the last few months.
It would’ve meant the world to get a beer of her own and allow the two of them to pour out their feelings, but the mission was far from over. Her throat was so tight she could only manage to say, “I hadn’t told him who my father was.”
“And he found out?” Javier stood to put more cash in the machine.
“When I told the rest of the gang. I had to get out from under some leverage David Huang was putting on me.” Saved her skin. Paid a huge price.
“Damn...” Javier put his empty beer down and kept playing. “And Arash gets KO’d.” He punched the button on the machine and spun on his stool before returning to the screen.
“Totaled.” She hit the cash-out button and stood to leave. Time was up; she knew to avoid suspicion from any STR members who might see her, she couldn’t sit next to Javier too long. And if she kept talking about how she’d just shattered Arash’s trust, she wouldn’t be able to keep herself composed.
Her machine spit out her ticket and Javier handed it to her. “You won.”
“I lost.” She gave the ticket back to him and disappeared into the noise of the casino.
Frontier Justice knew everything she did. All the intel collected over the course of these grinding, tense days drained out of her. The job wasn’t done yet, though. She had to keep her energy up for at least another sixteen hours. Los Angeles would determine if this mission was a success.
Everything else rang hollow with failure. She drifted through the casino and into an expansive multilayer indoor mall. Artfully crafted displays highlighted expensive purses and clothing. No color was bright enough, no metal shiny enough or matte smooth enough to catch her eye.
The trust between her and Arash had fused under such harsh conditions that it was stronger than she’d known with anyone else. Like he knew her. But he hadn’t, and when he learned, their connection snapped like a bone.
Arash had been focused on his revenge throughout their time in the STR and she didn’t see him wavering now. The mission for both of them would likely move forward. What it meant for the two of them, though, she couldn’t predict.
The last person on earth she wanted to see came striding up the walkway. David wore a fake smile and fury in his eyes. She stood and waited for him to reach her, knowing that there were far too many security guards and cameras for him to try anything physical.
He attacked with a hiss, “You think you’re so smart.”
All emotion drained from her face. “This was all your idea. And now you’ve learned what the few people stupid enough to try have learned.” She sharpened her voice. “No one corners me.”
“But it doesn’t end that easy.” His fists remained at his sides. “Not after you messed with me in front of Olesk.”
“You lit the fuse, David.” She wanted to condemn him for what had happened with Arash, but she knew it was her own fault for not telling Arash about that detail of her history sooner. “Don’t blame me for getting burned.”
David sneered a laugh. “We’ll see who’s still intact after all this.” He leaned close. “If it’s just you and me without your boyfriend...” Trepidation shimmered in his eyes when he looked over her shoulder. He tried to maintain his swagger as he took a step backward. “Watch your rearview,” he warned, but it didn’t have much impact as he was retreating.
After David strutted off into the mall and slipped around a corner, she turned to look where he’d been staring. A flush of heat wrapped around her ribs when she saw Arash standing a few dozen yards away. His hair was down, surrounding a still, dark face. No wonder David turned tail. The menace emanating from Arash could move mountains. The glow in her chest twisted to an ache. He’d been looking out for her, but now that David was gone, Arash turned and joined the masses of people at the edge of the casino. As he disappeared, all the warmth in her body left with him.
THE MOST EXPENSIVE meal of his life and Arash didn’t taste a bite. He sat at the crowded bar of an Asian–South American fusion restaurant in the hotel while small plates appeared before him. The artfully prepared high-concept food might’ve been delicious. High television screens showed sporting events, but his attention was on the mirror behind the bar, where he could scan the room and a little bit into the casino.
Stephanie was in the restaurant, at a table with her back to the wall. He couldn’t remember if he’d followed her or if she’d appeared after he’d taken his seat. None of the other STR members showed up. He’d kept a specific look out for David, but that man had been a no-show after the brief incident in the mall. The snake had sent this whole situation into a skid. Arash still didn’t know what to think about Stephanie’s latest secret, but he did know that he was a day away from finally getting Olesk and he couldn’t miss this chance.
Arash watched her in the mirror. He didn’t want to. He wanted to be seated across from her at the table, experiencing the food with her. Or they could order room service and spend the night discovering. There was no freedom for that now. Time was in short supply, and he didn’t know how long it would take for him to trust her again. If ever.
He continued to eat, but nothing filled the cold, hollow space in his chest. All the bottles of booze glowing on their lit shelves tempted him with a night of numbness. 3:00 a.m. would come fast, though, and he had to be ready.
It took only a split second of him looking down at the dish of fried plantains and tempura shrimp being delivered to discover that Stephanie had disappeared from her table. She was standing next to him, by the empty seat at the bar. “May I?” The place was busy all around her, and she was so very still.
“Sure.” But what could she say that would change any of this?
“I’m sorry.” She sat next to him. The bartender came by, and she ordered a cocktail and waited for him to leave. She looked at Arash in the mirror. “I should’ve told you. I didn’t want it to be important. I wanted it to just be you and me.”
“And Frontier Justice.” He kept his voice down.
“No.” She turned to him. “Not when we were alone in the dark. That was me.”
“Not all of you.” He stared forward, seeing her straighten her posture in the reflection.
“You don’t know.” Emotion shook her voice. “You don’t know how much of me you saw. I showed you more than anyone...” She steadied herself and faced the mirror again. “My father isn’t who I am. He doesn’t know about Frontier Justice. He trusts me because he knows that my decisions are my own.” The bartender slid her drink in front of her. She pulled out too much cash for it and laid it on the bar. She edged closer to Arash, sparks of heat arcing between them, and he couldn’t tell if they fed the emptiness inside him or highlighted how deep it was. “I should’ve told you. Now you know.”
The drink remained untouched. She stepped from the bar and left the restaurant.
Arash pushed the plates away from him and settled his bill with cash. It didn’t seem like he’d ever be hungry again. He picked up his backpack and threaded his way from the restaurant and into the casino. Halfway to the elevators he spotted Javier at a bank of video slot machines. The man glanced pointedly at the empty space next to him, then resumed playing. Arash went there and slipped cash into the machine, expecting more tactical information from the shady vigilante group.
Javier asked casually, “What’s the name of the first teacher you had a crush on?”
It took some effort to keep from turning to Javier. Instead, Arash growled back, “I’m not telling you that.”
“So you have secrets, too, like Stephanie.” Javier didn’t take his gaze from the machine in front of him. “Some things aren’t easy to bring up, right? I mean, I could tell you all about Mrs. Dominguez and the way she looked when she sat on the edge of her desk, but you don’t want to tell me your stories.”
“I get it.” Great, now he was getting schooled by a guy he barely knew. Even if Javier was right.
“Then don’t screw it up.” Javier revealed the skull tattooed on the back of his right hand when he slipped another bill into the machine. “Remember who the bad guys are.”
“I know who they are.” Their grinning, heartless faces had been burned into his mind as soon as he’d met them. “I didn’t know who she was.”
“Do you now? Learning who her father is explains her?” Javier drank from a bottle of water and snuck a glance at him.
The question rang in Arash’s head. “No.” Discovering her had been the thrill. She was more than he’d ever know.
“Watch her back.” Javier cashed out. “Vincent the Fed will be in LA by the time you get there. Kick ass tomorrow.” He wove into the crowd.
Arash left his machine with money remaining. Maybe it would bring someone else luck. Better than him holding on to the cash from Olesk’s jobs. He made his way to the elevators, then the eighth floor.
Stephanie was already in the room. The lights were off and the curtains were open to show the glittering landscape below. She sat on the edge of the large bed facing him, with her coat and boots off, but otherwise dressed. Flashing video displays outside glinted off her pistol on the nightstand.
Arash closed and locked the door, then double-checked the lock. He walked deeper into the room, feeling her gaze on him, and dropped his backpack by the long couch before looking about the room. “Are we alone?”
“We are.” She shifted, curling one leg onto the bed to angle toward him.
“Did David make another play?” Arash took off his jacket and laid it over the arm of the couch. He sat to take his boots off and stretched out his feet once they were free.
“No sign of him. He probably won’t try something until tomorrow’s gig is over.” Half of her face was in shadow, half was painted with the dim colors from outside. “Did you have any trouble?”
“Just Javier telling me to tell you Vincent will be in LA by the time we get there. Then he schooled me.”
“About Frontier Justice?”
“About you.” The room settled quiet.
She adjusted her posture, defensive, and straightened the sides of her hair. “What did he say?”
“He said all the right things, which is better than you and I had been doing.” A thousand miles separated them. He was a heartbeat away from reaching for her.
Stephanie moved again, brought both legs up onto the bed and leaned back into a stack of pillows. The rustle of the blankets and crisp cotton should’ve been surrounding him, instead of being that far in the distance. He turned on the couch and extended himself along the length. Checking the watch that she had bought him, he saw that if he fell asleep in the next nine minutes, he’d have five hours of rest until the alarm rang.
He asked, “Did your father want you to get into the family business?”
“He wouldn’t have fought it if I’d gone into the management side.” She settled deeper into her nest. “But he was furious when I was running with his street-level crew.”
“That’s where the real action is.”
“And the real trouble,” she said. “I learned the stakes, the consequences of what we were doing. I learned that I’d be better at helping people than taking from them.”
“The last car I stole for a joyride had a faulty starter and the driver’s-side window didn’t roll down. I took it two blocks, parked it and walked away when all I wanted to do was fix it.” He’d fixed a lot of cars since then. He couldn’t help fix Marcos’s life before it was cut short.
“You’re going to make that shop happen.”
“Sometime after tomorrow.” Neither of them knew what would happen in the next twelve hours.
His own garage had been a secret fantasy. If he lived past the next day, it might still be a possibility. But it seemed as if the metal and concrete would be that much colder if Stephanie wasn’t there, sleeves of her coveralls rolled up, bringing a broken engine to life.
Stephanie worked her phone. The glow shined in her eyes. “3:00 a.m. alarm.”
He got up from the couch and pulled the folded blanket that lay across the foot of the bed. She curled the remaining blanket up from where he should’ve been lying next to her and brought it across her clothed body. He got back on the couch and dragged his blanket over him. “Can’t wait.” Revenge. Finally. But what would that leave him with afterward?
“Good night.” Her phone went dark, and so did her face.
He hated how the air cooled and stilled between them. His mind had processed all the new information about her, but the shocked burn of betrayal still lingered in places he couldn’t find to extinguish. They were deep and had remained unknown until he’d met Stephanie. “I’ve got your back.”
“Thank you.” Her voice glided through the quiet room like slow lightning. “I’m with you.”
“Good night.” He wrapped her words around him. They were warm from her breath and body, and slowed his heart until he could close his eyes and sink into the couch.
They both woke before the alarm. He heard her shifting in the bed and opened his eyes to the same level of darkness as when he’d fallen asleep. The sun wasn’t close to rising, but he stretched his body to standing and flexed his muscles to pump blood into them. Stephanie holstered her pistol and pulled on her jacket. He washed up in the bathroom, then traded places with her. By the time she was returning to the bed, he had his boots and jacket on, his backpack over his shoulder. She laced up her boots, grabbed her bag and picked up her phone to cancel the alarm.
“Los Angeles?” His pulse kicked into a higher gear.
“You drive,” she said. “I’ll navigate. We won’t wreck.”
On the other side of the door they were criminals, secret vigilantes and seekers of vengeance. There were no guarantees once they crossed that threshold. He stepped to her and she moved closer. Her face tipped to his and he leaned down. They kissed. A simple, small gesture that concentrated all the heat in his chest. She balled her fist in his jacket and he gripped her shoulders.
The kiss parted, they separated and walked through the door.