ACE:Las Vegas Bad Boys(65)

There are only a few people left.

When I met Janie, I knew she was trouble. She sauntered out to my car high as a kite—by the looks of it, she had the same appearance as this cokehead across from me. She’d clearly been doing hardcore drugs.

I need to know her connection with Grotto. Whatever Janie and Grotto are doing to try and frame me is going to bite them in the ass.

I own this town, and it’s time they motherfucking remembered that.

One thing that eases my fear, as I sit on this stone cold bench in a fucking City of Las Vegas jumpsuit, is that whatever shit Grotto says he has on my family, on me, isn’t so deep. He doesn’t know about my true connections with the mob; if he did, he’d have told the cops my real name, told them some actual shit.

Not this story he fed them about me driving the car the night of the accident.

And that eases some of my worry.

But when the afternoon turns to night, turns to the early morning hours, and I’m still in this cell, my worry is replaced with anger. With rage.

What doesn’t sit right, the thing gnawing at the back of my mind, is Emmy.

She’s is hell-bent on not trusting me, and she hasn’t been fully on my side since the get-go. Then the moment her druggy sister woke up, sounds like she believed her. And why, when everything Emmy has said over the past few weeks about Janie is criminal? She ran out on Emmy years ago, never calls. Has never reached out to her sister once.

So why would Emmy trust her over me?

Unless.

Unless Emmy is in on this.

Unless Emmy has been drawing me in, ready to pounce.

And maybe she’s getting ready to hit me where it will hurt the most.

My fucking heart.





24





EMMY


I hated ending the call with Ace. I hated talking to Detective Clark. I hated sitting with Janie, trying to understand the situation.

It’s the day after the phone call, and I’m still reeling from it.

Maybe I’m a selfish girl. Maybe I want everything and that’s not fair. Life up until I met Ace sure seemed like a fucking disaster—and then he showed up, promised to pick up the pieces ... and I believed him.

Against my better judgment. Against everything I’d been taught about men. I believed.

Why? Because I’m beyond tired. Beyond the point of no return. I’m ready for easy. I’m ready to live somewhere beside the edge all the time.

I want to sit back, away from danger. I want to sit back, and be held.

And fuck me now. The one person I wanted to have hold me was Ace.

And then Janie drops this.

It’s like I lost everything I never really had.

“Janie,” I say. I’m in her room; she’s been sitting up for awhile now, still clearly struggling, but also not out of it completely. I can’t wait any longer for this conversation, even though the doctor warned me not to stay long. “Why were you with Ace the night of the crash, anyways?”

“Emmy, I was with him because he was trying to hire me to be his prostitute.” She doesn’t look me in the eyes, and I can’t tell if it’s shame or if it’s because there’s more to this story.

“Like his escort, or for a company that had a contract with his hotel?” I ask, shaking my head. “Because he told me it was–”

“Wait, you know him? Bullet?”

“Yeah, Janie,” I say. “I do. I’m sort of ... like, with him.”

“With the man who almost murdered me?” Janie asks, her voice rising to a pitch I remember from back when we were little.

“You weren’t almost murdered. It as a car accident, a crash. It wasn’t—”

“It wasn’t what?” Janie asks. “You weren’t there. It was no accident. That’s why I need to speak with the detective. I need to make sure he knows the truth.”

“Well, Detective Clark will be here any minute,” I tell her.

“Good. I need to speak with him privately,” she tells me. “And I can’t see you right now. Not if you’re fucking the man who tried to kill me. I know Vegas is a small town but, Emmy, this is too close to home. We’re family, and you were fucking my murderer.”

Home? Family? Does Janie even know what those words mean? Do I? Because my whole life I’ve been trying to figure them out. Home and family have always been desperate words I’ve clung to with a crazy hope. I’m here for Janie now because I’m still holding onto that same flawed logic.

Janie didn’t want me before ... why do I think she’ll want me now?

I wanted her. Want her. I am so tired of being alone.

“Janie, no one was murdered,” I say, trying to talk sense into her. Not that I have all that much sense in my own brain at the moment, but I swear, Janie must be doped up on whatever is running through her IV. She seems determined to upset me.