I was supposed to be having dinner with Armand. Just the two of us. The thought made my skin crawl.
Yesterday at work right in front of everyone, he’d slapped my ass and asked for a blow job. Right when I was checking a customer into the hotel. Then he followed me home like he did the nights before and sickened me by jerking off right in front of me when I wouldn’t sleep with him.
I didn’t know anyone who did that.
I knew then that me wishing for death wasn’t too bad an idea.
The taxi dropped me off in the parking lot of the casino and I fired off a message to Frankie to let him know I was back.
A second later the blue dots jumped and he messaged back with a thumbs up emoji.
I started heading back to the entrance but stopped when I saw Armand.
He was ahead in the distance and looked like he was sneaking off. Bastard.
I followed him and stopped to hide behind the wall when he turned the corner and a limo pulled up to him.
A man got out, a man I’d never seen before. He looked Italian and had those hard features of a mob boss. If he was one I’d know about it. So who was he?
Was this something to do with Pa?
Maybe whatever Xander was working on.
I continued to gaze ahead and sucked in a sharp breath when the man landed a punch in Armand’s face. Armand staggered backward and the man held out his hand for something.
Armand responded by reaching into his pocket and handed him a package.
The man smiled, tipped his head and got back in the limo.
I continued watching the shady as fuck scene unfold.
Somehow I didn’t think it was to do with Pa, it looked like something else entirely.
Armand walked back to the side entrance.
As he went inside, a hand clamped down on my arm and made me jump.
I whirled around freaked half to death, but my heart steadied when I saw Frankie.
“Frankie, my God, you frightened the life out of me.” I gasped.
He raised his brows and gave me a hard stare. “Jia, I’m going to give you some advice you need to take. Don’t snoop when it comes to that guy.”
“Armand? Frankie don’t you think I should know a little more about my soon to be husband’s activities?” Sarcasm was me today.
“You heard me Jia. Don’t smart mouth me. I’ve been good to you.”
I nodded feeling bad. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”
“I get it. You’re upset, but trust me don’t snoop when it comes to him and be careful.”
“Why?”
He gazed ahead of me at where I’d seen Armand and his expression hardened. “There’s an ugly distrustful side to him. You need to remember who you are. You’re collateral and if the wrong people see you snooping that could be your lot. Remember the shoot out?” He looked back to me.
How could I forget?
He wasn’t asking me if I remembered the shootout at the casino the other week because it was so horrible. He was asking me a different question.
Pa ran various high stakes poker games. On the night of the shootout a man just opened fire right at the start. It was awful.
The first suspicious part of the whole event was that nobody could just get into an event like that without being thoroughly searched. Yet, the guy had a gun and he wasn’t alone. There were five of them. All were shooting. Someone allowed them to come in and get that close to Pa.
Frankie knew as well as me that only a handful of people could have let those guys in, only a handful of people Pa trusted.
With everything going on I’d kind of pushed it to the back of my mind. Not because it didn’t matter. It was just my way of dealing with one problem at a time.
That was all.
I’d never suspected a knight. They were Pa’s trusted. His capos.
Frankie was asking me if I remembered the shoot out because he suspected Armand of foul play.
It was in his eyes. Frankie suspected Armand and truthfully, of all the knights, Armand was the one who’d disgusted me the most and had been consistent in his actions.
Wonderful… it was just one more thing to add to the list of things I hated about my soon-to-be husband.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Xander
No success last night. No fucking success.
I’d spent the whole of last night looking through another hundred fucking vaults and coming up blank.
Nada.
Now I was starting to wonder if I’d gotten it wrong.
Like I’d gotten everything wrong and heard wrong when The Chameleon dropped the comment about the blueprints being hidden at the casino.
It was the same time, same conversation where I learned about the Ra involvement. Had I been so shocked that I was hearing stuff?
It wasn’t like me to do that, but lately I’d been doing a lot of things that weren’t like me one bit. A lot of shit that didn’t make sense, or adding to a situation like being with Jia last night.
I’d decided that I couldn’t have another night like last night in the chamber, no way. There had to be a better way or if there wasn’t then maybe the problem was simply that I’d gone wrong somewhere.
I figured we needed to go back to the drawing board so I arranged to meet up with Wes before we got together with the others later.
We sat together around the worktable at the warehouse, brainstorming ideas. We went over the maps and everything I’d done so far, checking over things to see if I’d missed something.
I just needed to talk to Wes. Only him right now. Couldn’t have Ethan or the other agents breathing down my neck.
I needed clarity of mind to brainstorm.
“Maybe we just have to keep looking?” Wes asked with his palms up. He’d been walking around the room, pacing as we thrashed out ideas.
When I didn’t answer he pulled up a chair and swiveled it around so he could sit on it backwards.
“It feels fruitless Wes. It doesn’t feel like I’m on the right path at all. Not one bit. Hundreds of vaults searched and nothing, and we don’t know how many more in the place because there’s no listing of how many vaults, what’s in the vaults, or shit.”
Shit was the right word. That was exactly what it all was, shit.
We were dealing with shit that I felt would lead us nowhere if we continued as we were.
“So we missed something, but what?”
“What if we’re completely wrong about the location.” I’d be realistic and cut myself some slack. When The Chameleon mentioned that the prints were at the casino I’d heard right, that wasn’t something I would have missed or misheard. The part I was talking about in terms of location was the chamber. Maybe it wasn’t there. “What if it’s somewhere else in the casino?”
Wes shook his head. “I don’t know Xander. The chamber feels perfect to hide something like that. I think it’s there. It’s just the madness of having to look through every fucking vault to find it. Think about it. Where else would he be keeping it?”
I had thought. I’d thought long and hard but come up with nothing that felt suitable. Nothing that fit everything else in terms of what had happened so far.
On one hand there was Balthazar and his guys. They knew Giovanni had the blueprints but they didn’t know where he was keeping them. That was backed up by the fact that someone who was part of Giovanni’s crew was a rat feeding them intel. The rat couldn’t have known the location of the prints because if he did then the Balthazar and his people would know.