Six(63)

There were a tiny handful of people, maybe four including the bartender, inside. One of them was the man who’d been sitting at the blackjack table with us.

“Nice night for a race,” Six said as he sat, pulling me onto his lap.

“You’re looking good.” The man’s eyes never left the screen.

Six ran his hand up and down my thigh. “Retirement has aged you.”

“Nah, just age catching up to me. I’m trying to live the good life in my golden years.”

Six chuckled. I hated to admit how the deep, resonating sound made me tingly. Flashes of alternative scenarios jumped around my brain of a regular life, of making him laugh.

Of being with him longer than my death sentence.

What the actual f*ck?

“Your boy was down at the Golden Nugget, but that was nearly a week ago.”

“Nothing since?”

The man shook his head.

“Did he finish his work here?”

The man nodded. “Two days ago. That was the last I could find of him.”

“Any idea on where the meeting was?”

“Say, do you two like tacos?” he asked. Segue much? “There is this fantastic taco truck that drives around. I sometimes see it just outside of town headin’ to this industrial complex.”

“We may have to go for a drive, then.”

“Watch out, though, there are some rats that hang out in those things.”

Six nodded and stood. “Good luck.”

“You, too. Take care.”

Six stood and wrapped his arm around my waist, guiding me back out to the madhouse of the casino floor. Diving between gaps of people, we wove through throngs of mindless walkers the entire way back out to the front to pick the car up from valet.

Standing and waiting for them to run and get it was strange. Surrounded by people, next to a sociopathic hitman, I realized I would rather be standing there with him then just about anywhere else.

When we were back in the car and headed back to the motel, I turned in my seat. “Okay, we’re out of there. What’s going on? Who was that guy?”

“He’s an informant.”

I gave a slow nod. “And what did we learn?”

“Three and Eight are dead and that’s all that they know.”

I threw my hands up. “We already knew about them. How did you get that anyway?”

“The dealer.”

My eyes widened. “The dealer was an informant as well?” He looked like any other dealer in town. Guess informants were everywhere.

“Yes.”

“All right,” I said with a nod as I caught up. “What was all the cryptic talk in the sports bar?”

“Four was last seen in an industrial area about an hour outside of town.”

Two down, possibly three.

Six didn’t say anything more, instead lost in his thoughts. Probably calculating fifty different next moves and analyzing them.

But more than that, his brow was knitted together. For the first time, he was showing me the slightest hint that beneath his cool, calm exterior were rough seas.





For hours I watched Six meticulously clean each piece of the arsenal he picked up. Boxes of bullets emptied, pushed one by one into a clip for backup.

He had a shoulder holster, and as soon as two guns were ready, he strapped them in, setting it aside. What looked like a smaller pistol was slipped into some other type of holster and set next to the other one. That left one more along with half a dozen full clips and at least two knives.

“Are you going into battle?” I asked, completely enthralled and totally terrified.

He stopped and glanced at me. “Preparing for as much as I can.”

Preparing.

I continued to watch him and realized that it was for that rarity he talked about—a firefight. If there was, what would happen to me? Caught in the middle, nowhere to go and no way to defend myself?

“What about me?”

He quirked his brow. “What about you?”

“I’m just going to be left undefended?”

“Lacey, this is a precaution. This is being prepared for the what ifs I can’t answer. The control I’m lacking going in there with little to no information other than this is where Four last was seen.”

There was no John Doe in the area, no found bodies. No evidence Four was alive or dead.

I nodded, but I couldn’t help but worry. I was on board for Six killing me, but the prospect that it could happen by someone else didn’t sit well.

It all may have been a precaution, but as I watched him put a vest over his T-shirt, the panic began to grow.

“You’re wearing a bulletproof vest?” I scrunched my brow at him while he pulled on the Velcro straps.

“We’re going into the unknown. I don’t like that. I’m a killer, not stupid.”

Fair point.

“I hadn’t seen you wear one, so I guess I assumed you were that badass.”

“I am that badass. But I’m also a badass who has enough bullet wounds in his torso.”

True. There were at least five.

He threw another shirt on top of the vest, then paired it with some cargo pants in which he stuffed the extra clips. Setting his foot on the chair, he attached the smaller gun with what appeared to be an ankle holster.