Luther had seen him, shaking his head in disgust. “When Alex finds out, he won’t like it.”
“He’s not gonna find out, is he?”
“Not from me,” Luther said. “But Alex has the power. Knows all, sees all. And I think maybe Sara’s got it, too.”
Nemo looked at him, continuing to stuff his pockets. Luther was definitely a dim bulb in a dark room. “What Alex has is a smooth line that only suckers like you fall for,” Nemo said. “As for Sara, don’t get me started. She’s got rich relatives and a nice ass. That’s about it.”
Luther scowled at him then. Nemo knew the dimwit had tapped Sara’s ass a couple times himself, knew that he and Alex and Sara had a freaky little threesome thing going on, but that had been more about control than anything else. Alex playing puppet master, Sara the willing apprentice. Luther was either too stupid or too horny to realize he was being managed.
Nemo was his own man, thank you, and Alex or no Alex, he figured it never hurt to carry some insurance. Unfortunately, his pockets could only fit so much.
Two days after he’d moved in with Carla, he had removed her toilet tank, punched a hole in the wall behind it, stuffed the cash inside, and replaced the tank. Nice and neat. His own personal bank vault.
Now all he had to do was make a withdrawal.
Escalante had told him that no charges had been brought against Carla, that the Feds had released her shortly after he was taken into custody. He supposed he could just head over to her apartment and grab his stash, but why not take a few minutes for a proper goodbye? After a couple days in stir, he figured he deserved it.
He stepped over a fresh stream of urine and crossed the alley to the backstage door. Faded letters across it read TALENT ONLY. He pounded on the door and waited. A moment later, it creaked open and music spilled out, a guy in leather pants frowning at him. “What the fuck you want?”
“I’m looking for Carla.”
Leather Boy nodded toward the door and started to pull it shut. “Read the sign, asshole.”
Nemo caught the door with his right hand. “I forgot my glasses.”
“Look, you wanna see the show, go around front like everybody el-”
Nemo swung his left hand up between the guy’s legs and grabbed his balls, applying just enough pressure to send a clear message.
“Carla,” he said. “She here or not?”
Leather Boy’s eyes bulged, his whole body going stiff. You could almost see his brain working, trying to figure out how to extricate himself from this delicate situation without getting his nads crushed. “Uhhh,” he said involuntarily.
Nemo applied more pressure. “What was that? I didn’t hear you.”
“S-she won’t be in tonight,” Leather Boy croaked. “Called and said something came up.”
“She say what that something was?”
Leather Boy’s face had lost all color. He looked and sounded like a guy passing a gallstone. “That’s all I know, man. I swear.”
Nemo released him and Leather Boy stumbled back, gasping, grabbing his package to make sure everything was still in one piece. “Asshole,” he muttered.
“Strike two,” Nemo said, then stepped inside, grabbing him by the shirt. An imitation-silk number.
He spun the guy around and slammed him against a wall, pinning him there. “Now give me twenty bucks. I need cab fare.”
When the knock came on the door, Carla Devito sucked in a breath and let it out again. She hadn’t been this nervous since she’d turned her first trick.
Not that Bobby made her nervous. He had a temper, sure, but he could be tamed the way most men could, a lesson Carla had learned when she was thirteen years old.
It was the situation that was getting to her. The Fed showing up at her doorstep, telling her what a badass Bobby was-like that was news-saying she’d better cooperate or she’d be facing charges of obstruction and harboring a fugitive and God knows what else.
The Fed had looked sick, all pale and stuff, with dark, crazy-looking eyes. He was one of the ones who’d come busting in the day before, the one in charge, and Carla didn’t doubt he meant business.
He’d told her that Bobby was getting released from jail and would probably come knocking before the night was over. And, sure enough, here Bobby was, standing at her door, looking kind of small and distorted through the peephole, but still sexy as hell.
Carla sucked in another breath, then flipped the latch and yanked the door open, hoping she could pull this off, knowing she had to, because jail was not an option.
“Ohhh, my God,” she said, putting it on extra thick.
Bobby smiled, looking her over. She wore a tight black T-shirt and a tiny lavender thong, and he seemed to like what he saw. “Hey, baby.”
“Oh my God,” she repeated, then threw her arms around him and pushed her face into his. She found his mouth and sucked his tongue between her lips, pressing up against him, feeling his hands crawl over her, feeling him grow hard against her thigh.
Pulling him inside, she shut the door. “They told me I’d never see you again.”
“I ain’t no ghost,” Bobby said.
And then she had his pants undone and his zipper down and Bobby’s beast in her mouth, Bobby moaning, “Oh, yeah, baby,” and before she knew it, they were on the floor, Bobby yanking the thong aside, using the Beast like a weapon, impaling her, radiating heat like she’d never felt it before, radiating it right up into her brain. The pressure built and built and boom, there it was, firecracker number one, and then boom, firecracker number two, followed by a whole series of firecrackers popping off inside her head.
But deep down, all she could think about was how nervous she was and how sad she felt, because she was about to betray the best damn thing she’d ever had.
I gotta piss,” Bobby said.
They were in bed now, round three and counting, the sheets all torn up and soaked with sweat. Feeling both whipped and wired, Carla realized that this was her cue.
“Do it in the shower,” she said, the nerves coming back, a knuckle of tension in her stomach.
Bobby frowned at her. “What the hell for?”
“Toilet’s broke.”
He got up on his elbows. “What do you mean, it’s broke? Broke how?”
Carla hesitated, wondering again if she could pull this off. “There’s something I gotta tell you, Bobby. Something bad.”
And then he was sitting upright, the frown deeper, his eyes starting to cloud. All of a sudden she wanted to dump this whole scam and tell him the truth. But that would mean jail time, and despite her past, Carla had never done a day of jail in her life. Not one.
Sensing her hesitation, Bobby was out of bed before she could say anything more, crossing toward the bathroom, his beautiful bare ass flexing as he walked.
The moment he stepped through the doorway, he made a sound, something guttural and unpleasant, and she knew he was staring at the hole in the wall-the hole that had been hidden by the toilet tank that now sat off to the side-the hole she hadn’t known about until she’d come home last night and found it just like the Feds had left it: empty.
When she’d gone to pee, she’d had to squat over the shower drain like some third world orphan. Her landlord was missing in action and she sure as hell didn’t know how to put a toilet back together. Then the Fed showed up and told her what was what. Now all she wanted to do was crawl under the bedsheets and stay there.
When Bobby came out of the bathroom, he had a look on his face she’d never seen before. A heat in his eyes that had nothing to do with sex or desire. “Where the fuck is my money, bitch?”
Bobby may not have made her nervous, but now he was scaring her, so much so that all the details of the story she’d been rehearsing suddenly vacated her brain.
His skin was two shades darker, a deep crimson stain spreading all the way down to the Beast, which seemed to be twitching with an anger all its own.