Half Empty(47)
Avery turned her head. “I’ll be fine.”
“Avery?”
“What?” Avery might be able to fool many people, but she didn’t fake well with Trina.
“I know you.”
“I’ll be fine. I won’t let Scarface own me.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Says who? I’m only sorry I didn’t get a punch at the man who altered my appearance for the rest of my life. If it would make a difference, I’d dig him up and kick him in the face to show him how it felt.”
The image had Trina swallowing hard.
Trina snapped out of her grave-digging trance almost as fast as she popped into it. “So Wade . . .”
She didn’t want to change the subject but didn’t quite know what to say following Avery’s dip into the macabre. “I’m bummed I’m not there.”
Avery shrugged. “It’s good to have time apart.”
“I know that.”
“But you miss him.”
“I’ve leaned on him a lot since we met. It wasn’t that I looked for him to answer my questions so much as support me in asking them.”
“I get that.”
“I realize that Fedor and I . . . that we weren’t . . .” Trina glanced toward the open room, to whoever might be listening. “But we did talk. It was nice to bounce ideas off someone you shared something with.”
Avery sighed. “Bernie and I had that, too.”
Trina lowered her voice. “With Wade, it’s that friendship and a lover in the same person. I can’t help but think that’s rare.” She paused, sipped her wine. “I’m falling in love, Avery.”
Her friend moaned. “I know.” Over her bandaged nose, Avery glared. “I really want to hate your guy . . . you know that, right?”
Trina laughed and hung her head. “How is that working for you?”
“It isn’t!”
Trina laughed louder.
Sometimes, when you wanted things done right, you needed to do them yourself.
Ruslan pulled the cuff of his jacket and squared his shoulders.
“Find her, bring her to me.”
Zakhar disappeared into the thick crowd of rowdy, drunk urban cowboys toward the front of the stage.
“Hello, Las Vegas!” Mr. Famous himself tilted his hat to the crowd.
A chaotic cheer went up.
“How’s everybody doin’ tonight?”
Ruslan weaved his way through the crowd.
“Hope you don’t mind if I take a couple of pictures. I have someone back home who really wanted to come.” Wade turned his back to his audience, lifted his phone in the air. “Say country!”
He turned back around, waved his phone in the air. “Not sure how I’m gonna get this to all of you. Guess I’ll upload it on Instagram.” He fiddled with his phone before setting it aside on the stage. “Let’s get this party started.”
The band struck a note, and the noise in the arena made it impossible to think.
Trina opened the image on her phone and enjoyed the giddy buzz inside her body. Wade was onstage, an arena full of fans with bright lights and cell phones was a sea behind him. He captioned it, Wishin’ you were here!
The fact that he was onstage right then, doing his thing, and taking even a second out of that to text her a picture gave her hope that they could work.
She snapped a selfie in her reply. Wish I was, too.
She hit send, knowing he probably wouldn’t respond until after the show.
She set her phone aside and reached to refill her glass.
“Someone is all smiles over there.” Avery looked up from her phone and the game she was playing on it.
Trina showed her the picture. “I can’t wait to watch him in person.”
“I’m sure we can pull up some YouTube videos to tide you over.”
Trina set the bottle down, took a sip. “I’ll wait.”
Avery didn’t look convinced.
Her phone pinged with an incoming message.
Trina’s heart fluttered. He wasn’t really texting her, was he?
She smiled, prematurely, before the image came into focus.
Then she dropped her glass of wine and yelled, “Cooper?”
Avery jumped. “Jesus, Trina.”
Cooper ran into the room, gun in hand.
Trina’s hand shook as she showed him her phone. “Ruslan is there.”
Cooper turned a full circle.
Trina pointed on her phone. “At the concert. This is him.”
Avery pushed to her feet and limped over to see.
“Who sent you this text?”
“I don’t recognize the number.”
Cooper put his gun away and picked up his phone as the one in Trina’s hand rang.
It was Lori.
“Reed just got a text.”
“So did I.”
“Ruslan is in Vegas.”
Trina tried to calm her breathing down. “I know. What do we do?”
“Reed will be on a plane and in Vegas before the show lets out.”
The phone beeped in her hand, and Trina pulled it away from her ear to see who was trying to break through. “It’s from that number again. A video call.”
Trina didn’t hesitate as she disconnected with Lori and picked up from the anonymous caller. She half expected to see her ex-father-in-law on the other side of the line.
She didn’t.
Sasha’s image flickered into place. “Are you both there?”
“I am.” Trina heard Reed’s voice but didn’t see his face.
“I am,” Trina said.
The noise in the background where Sasha was calling blared into the phone.
“First thing. Calm the hell down. I have him in my sight. Second . . . get off your fucking phones. I can’t jam all your shit at once. Reed, you’re secure, Trina’s phone isn’t on the map yet. I take it someone yakked on a text about the information at the bank.”
“Lori took pictures.”
“Which means Ruslan knows what you have on him.” Sasha had a half smile on her face. “And he’s nervous.”
“What is he doing there, Sasha?” Reed asked.
“Right now he is watching the cowboy’s show from the back east end of the arena.”
“He isn’t there for a social visit.”
“No, he’s grasping at a lifeline. How soon will you be here, Reed?”
“I’m getting in my car now, forty minutes in the air once I’m on a plane. I’m an hour and a half out, sooner if I can push the pilot.”
“Bring reinforcements. He’s reaching the end of his freedom, and he won’t go out alone if he can take someone with him. He has tabs on all of you. Radar on the locations of your phones, texts, and e-mails. Lori, Avery, Shannon, Wade . . . everyone. The only secure contacts are these three lines. Do I make myself clear?”
Trina couldn’t stop shaking.
“Yes.”
“He has five men. Two flanking him, two on the side of his main man.”
“We need to warn Wade,” Reed said.
“I’ll take care of that. Telephone conversations only. No texting, no e-mails. Now get on the plane, Reed. You owe me. This is going down tonight. It ends, tonight!”
Just when Trina was about to hang up, Sasha spoke to her in Russian. “I have waited a lifetime for this day, don’t panic and fuck everything up.”
“Don’t let anything happen to him,” Trina pleaded.
Sasha hung up without comment.
Chapter Thirty
He loved his job. The screaming women calling his name and telling him they wanted to have his babies, the men waving their hats in the air, his audience never got old. From ballads to songs meant to swing your honey around the dance floor, Wade sang and danced around on the stage. Much as he tried to pick out a face here or there toward the back of the crowd, he couldn’t make out much past the first ten or twenty rows. Those fans screaming and taking videos of him in the first few were given plenty of winks and smiles.
Before he finished his fourth song, Wade tracked a familiar face in the second row.
What was Jordyn doing there?
The woman didn’t know when to quit.
He didn’t think anything outside of putting a ring on Trina’s finger would stop her from trying. Even then, he could see Jordyn flirting with a push-up bra and a smile.
Wade shook his head when she made eye contact, and then directed his attention beyond the second row.
The band worked their way into the fifth song, and Wade lost himself in the music. Forty minutes into his set, Sebastian began his drum solo, giving the three of them a couple of minutes offstage.
“The crowd’s on fire,” Luke said when one of the stagehands gave him a cold water.
Wade found Jeb within spitting distance. “How are we doin’?”
Jeb gave him a thumbs-up.
“I saw Jordyn down there. You know about her being here?”
Jeb shook his head. “I can keep her away if you want.”
“No. I’ll take care of it after the show.”
“You got it, Boss.”
Wade rolled his eyes while someone handed him a fresh shirt. He stripped down to his jeans and shoved his arms in right as Sebastian was finishing up. He managed one button before taking the stage again.
The ladies roared.
You can look, he mused. But I have someone special that gets to touch.
They played into the second half of the show.
When Wade scanned the first couple of rows, Jordyn wasn’t there.
Maybe she got the hint.
Or maybe she was waiting in the wings to corner him.