other half of Glass. His silent partner is my brother. Might as well get my shit from him there instead of him having to make a trip to Kingdom where Bones can see the exchange.
Luca: Sounds good. I’m here.
APRIL
“What are you doing, Princess?”
I plop down on the barstool and look up at my best friend working the bar. She has her bleach blond hair up in her usual high ponytail and a smile on her face, but her green eyes look tired. Running two businesses will do that to you.
“Needing a drink,” I answer. It’s been a long day.
She frowns. “You mean you didn’t come just to see me?”
I chuckle. “Afraid not.”
“Sis, we both know that she only comes here to see me.” Derek walks out of the fridge behind the bar, closing the door behind him. “How are you doing, sexy?” he asks, and I don’t miss the way his dark eyes fall to my chest.
Derek and I went on one date. It didn’t work out. But we’re both adults and were able to stay friends. Thank God because his younger sister has been my best friend since we were in grade school.
“You wish.” She smiles brightly, showing me those teeth that took three years of braces to straighten. She hated every second of it. I remember her having to cut up everything she ate. It took forever for her to eat.
“Always,” I tease.
She laughs and turns to grab a frosted mug and pours me a Corona. Knowing what I like. She places it on the bar in front of me and then leans over on her forearms. “I’m slow. Fill me in on your day.”
“It started off with me getting in a fight with Ethan this morning. It didn’t get any better after that,” I state and take a drink.
“Girl, I don’t know why you don’t just beat him into submission. We both know that you could take him.”
I snort into my beer. “True, but I’m trying to teach him that violence is not the answer.”
Now she’s the one who snorts. “Since when? You beat the crap out of him when he got into your computer and stole your research paper and used it as his own.”
“That’s different,” I argue.
“How?”
I set my beer down. “Because Mr. Walden thought I had just freely given it to him, thinking he wouldn’t remember.” I sigh.
“Anything you need me to do?” Derek asks. “Want me to talk to him about something? Is it girls?”
I shake my head. “I found a key card of some sort from Kingdom at the shop today. I think it fell out of his jacket pocket.”
“What?” she asks. “How the hell would he get in there?”
I shrug. “I’m not sure what the hell he would be doing with that.”
Derek’s dark eyes look around before he leans forward and whispers, “Kingdom is bad fucking news, April.”
I wave him off. “It’s just a casino.”
“No. I hear shit in here. Kingdom is into some bad shit.”
I’ve lived in Vegas most of my life, but I know nothing about the casinos or nightlife. I have always lived in my own world. From the moment my mother opened Roses, I worked there with her. Before school. After school. Even after I turned twenty-one, I never ventured out onto the Strip. It’s just not my scene. “Like what?” I frown.
“Yeah? Like what?” she asks him.
“I hear that the guy, Bones, is in big with the mafia. Whatever they want, he gets them. Vice versa. And they bury bodies in the desert.”
“Mafia? Really?” I laugh. “Since when do you believe in that shit?” I know they exist. But in Vegas? They’re in places like New York, Chicago, and Italy. “And what could this Bones guy get them?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know exactly. I just know that anything goes there. I guess there’s some sort of black market that the guys run.”
“Illegally?”
He rolls his dark eyes. “That’s what black market stands for.”
I’m still not sure I believe it. But even if I did, I ask, “What would Ethan have to do with that?”
He shakes his head. “You need to find out. And better hope that it’s not too late to get him out of it.”
Alexa frowns. “He’s a teenage boy. Maybe some friends of his had a party there or something.” She shrugs. “Kids do it all the time.”
“Or it’s something much worse,” Derek argues.
I sigh and tip back my beer as he goes to help a man who just walked up to the bar.