A Chip and a Chair (Seven of Spades, #5)(18)

“Settle.” He stroked her head, scratching the sweet spot behind her ear, and refocused on his laptop.

His next step was to research the house’s property information. It belonged not to Watts’s family, but to a man named Roger Carson. A cursory background check proved Carson to be clean-ostensibly, anyway. Dominic could think of no good reason for an upstanding citizen to have a neo-Nazi college student in their home, especially when the two men weren’t related by either blood or marriage as far as he could tell.

He ran the other two cars in the driveway. One belonged to Carson, while the other was registered to a woman named Maggie Spencer, who shared Watts’s known Utopia affiliation but was much older.

There was no way that hand-off in the park had been a drug payment. Even if Watts or Spencer had drug offenses on their records-which they didn’t-Utopia only dealt in meth and diverted narcotics, neither of which were Bishop’s drug of choice.

So why was a wealthy real estate developer like Conrad Bishop passing envelopes full of cash to a college kid with Utopia connections? And why had that kid brought the money straight to the home of a man who seemed to have no connection to Utopia at all?

A short while later, Watts emerged from the house and drove away. Dominic let him go, more interested in the house itself. Roger Carson may have evaded suspicion until today, but Dominic knew there was something shady going on in there.

Though he was itching with curiosity, his options were limited while there were people inside, and nothing happened after Watts left. As the evening wound down uneventfully, he had no choice but to let the matter rest-for now.

He started his truck and headed back to the city, his mind racing with possibilities.



Dominic met Levi for dinner at a restaurant with outdoor seating, where Rebel lay perfectly well-mannered beneath their table. Training with Adriana had done wonders for Levi, even more than brunch. His cheeks had regained their color, he was leaned back in his chair instead of perching at the very edge, and he actually ate his meal rather than pushing it around his plate.

When they arrived home in the late evening, walking up the path to their building side by side, Dominic caught Levi’s hand and pressed a kiss to the back. Levi gave him the small, private smile that he treasured.

Rebel stopped short, pricked her ears forward, and let out two sharp barks-her “stranger danger” warning.

Dominic’s hand flew to the butt of his gun under his jacket, and he crouched to unclip Rebel’s leash so she was free to attack. Levi shifted his grip on his keys so he was holding them like a weapon, even though he was armed as well.

They advanced up the path, Dominic comforted by the weight of his second gun in his ankle holster, as well as the sense of Levi’s lethal strength beside him.

And then he saw Leila sitting on the staircase of their building, her legs crossed and her arms folded.

God, we were wrong, and she’s here to kill us.

He heard Levi’s strangled gasp and knew they were thinking the same thing. Fighting the urge to put himself between Levi and possible danger, he firmed his hold on his gun, ready to draw and fire in seconds if Leila made one threatening move.

All she did was sit there, regarding them coolly.

Logic reasserted itself. Leila couldn’t be the Seven of Spades. The fact that she’d lived in St. Louis for years before moving to Vegas was beyond doubt; she’d never have been able to kill all those people and bury them in the desert.

Unless they’d been mistaken, and those bodies weren’t the Seven of Spades’s victims at all-

“Leila.” Levi’s voice was unsteady. “What are you doing here?”

“I think I’ll be asking the questions, thanks.” She placed a plastic bag in her lap and dug out a handful of small electronic devices, letting Levi and Dominic get a good look before she dumped them back into the bag.

When Dominic had set up his surveillance of Leila, he’d taken his cue from when the Seven of Spades had spied on him and Levi, figuring turnabout was fair play. He’d bugged her home, office, and car in multiple places, and had planted a GPS tracker in her car as well.

It looked like she’d found everything.

Dominic released his gun, his face blank. Levi, however, had never been skilled at repressing strong emotional reactions.

“How did you-” He cut himself off too late, and Leila laughed without humor.

“You’ve been acting weird around me for weeks. I had my suspicions as to why, but I didn’t want to believe it.” She rose to her feet and descended the last few steps.

Dominic and Levi both tensed. Leila was a proficient fighter, a master of the Filipino discipline Arnis, and highly dangerous even without her batons in hand. Neither of them retreated, but it was a near thing. Dominic had to clench his fist to keep from going for his gun again; that would only escalate the situation.

“Still, I know the kind of tricks the two of you get up to.” She glared at Levi. “So once you started behaving so strangely, I hired a specialist to regularly sweep my home and office for surveillance devices. Imagine my surprise when he came up with all of this.”

She shook the bag for emphasis, then pulled out the GPS device.

“A GPS tracker in my car?” she said to Dominic. “Really?”

Before either he or Levi could respond, she dropped the device on the ground and smashed it with the heel of her boot. He winced.