Seth did not look happy and asked, “I thought you boys had Donny on tape torching her gallery?”

“We’re after him, the police are after him but he’s proving difficult to find,” Hector replied.

At that news, Seth looked even less happy.

“What’s the deal?” he ground out.

“You back off, let me handle it. That’s the deal.”

“You must be joking,” Seth returned.

Hector shook his head.

“That’s not a deal,” Seth snapped.

“Only one you got,” Hector shot back.

“You want me to stand back and –”

“No, you tell me everything, everything the Feds didn’t find. The location of your safe house, any other property you own, where your money’s comin’ from, what soldiers you got left workin’ for you, where I can find ‘em. You keep tryin’ to contact Sadie but, you get hold of her, you don’t f**kin’ tell her shit.”

“And what, you hand this over to the Feds?”

“No, the boys go huntin’. The Balduccis are hidden, we figure Jerry’s helpin’. They’re usin’ your own resources to f**k you.”

“This doesn’t make any f**king sense. The Balduccis want my business. They can’t waltz around Denver being the big men now. They f**ked up, got caught on camera committing arson, Ricky’s –”

“Seth, they don’t want your business. They don’t intend to stay in town. They get your money, they live off your back for the rest of their lives knowin’ they got everything you had, including bringin’ Sadie low.”

Seth stared at Hector then his mouth got tight.

“God damn it,” he muttered.

“We got a deal?” Hector pushed.

Seth kept staring at Hector, his gaze sliced to Vance then his eyes cut back and locked on Hector.

“Deal.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Code One

Sadie

“Yahtzee!” I yelled, bouncing on my bottom on the couch that was situated in the front window of Fortnum’s.

“Girlie, you’re on a hot streak!” Stevie cried, leaning forward and giving me a high five.

He wasn’t wrong, it was my third Yahtzee that game and I’d had two the game before. I was kicking Yahtzee butt.

“Three yahtzees in one game, two the game before. That’s unheard of. Fuck this shit, we need to go to DIA and get a direct flight to Vegas. With the way Sadie’s rollin’, we hit the craps table, we’ll all retire,” Shirleen announced.

“I could go to Vegas,” I told Shirleen and I could. Why not? It sounded fun. I’d only been to Vegas once and that was with my father. It was a business trip and I had to entertain almost the whole time I was there. I’d been able to see a few of the sights but I hadn’t been able to gamble at all.

And I was on a hot streak.

I already had enough money to retire but more never hurt.

Right?

“You’re not going to Vegas.” Bobby frowned at me.

I looked at Bobby (a.k.a. Alaskan Hottie), opened my mouth to say something then decided to close it.

I’d only just met him that morning and practically the first thing I did (after drinking coffee and making toast) was make him help me goo the fireplace and then scrape paint out of grooves.

He didn’t mind this but then I’d made him help me sand the whole fireplace down (by hand).

He didn’t mind this either.

Then I’d made him sit in a bridal shop with Jet, Nancy, Blanca, Tod and Stevie.

He minded that.

Tod and Stevie, I found out, were the officially unofficial Rock Chick Wedding Planners or, at least, Tod was (and, by the by, Tod didn’t like the idea of a hayride either but, he declared magnanimously, he was going to “work with it”).

Jet had chosen the color but all her bridesmaids could pick their style. I’d decided which style I wanted immediately but Tod made me try on seven more dresses, just in case. Then they made Nancy and Blanca try on mother-of-the-bride and mother-of-the-groom gowns even though Nancy and Blanca both were going to get something at a department store (Tod changed their mind about this and all three of us ordered gowns that day). Then we got into a complicated discussion about accessories. Tiara, veil or both? Gloves, yes or no? If yes, full length, half length, only hand? And if gloves at all, fingerless or not?

Needless to say, I was not Bobby’s favorite person at that moment.

After the three hour bridal shop session, Nancy and Blanca had gone their separate ways and Jet, Bobby, Tod, Stevie and I went back to Fortnum’s to play Yahtzee. Tex, Indy, Duke and Jane (another of Indy’s employees, she was a painfully quiet, equally painfully thin and even more painfully shy woman of indeterminate age) were working. Once we arrived, Indy and Jet mostly played Yahtzee with Tod, Stevie and I. Jane disappeared into the shelves with an armload of books only to come back and get another armload and disappear again. Tex stayed at his post behind the espresso counter with a steady stream of customers he was supremely ungracious to (but, bizarrely, they didn’t seem to mind). Duke played wingman behind the espresso counter or manned the book counter when a book was sold. Finally, Shirleen arrived half an hour ago and joined the Yahtzee marathon.

Ralphie phoned in between Yahtzee games four and five to tell me he was cooking dinner for Double H and me the next night and since this was his cooking premiere, if we didn’t show, he was disowning us (his words).

Not wanting to be disowned, I called Hector to ask him about Ralphie’s invitation. He accepted without reservation, even after I explained to him that Ralphie was most definitely not the cook in the family. I also let him know I was hanging out at Fortnum’s.

Between my turns with the fake velvet lined Yahtzee cup (it was, Tod informed me, the Yahtzee “Deluxe” edition), I was struggling with the decision of which was my second best day ever, yesterday or today.

Trying on bridesmaid dresses and looking at tiaras and veils was fun and I’d never done it. And, with Tod taking charge and Nancy and Blanca not scaring me, it was good spending time with them. It was neat watching Jet with Nancy, the mother/daughter banter, the familiarity, the way they made it obvious they were close. But what was almost better was the way Blanca was with Jet, how it was clear she was already a member of the family, accepted, loved and even, sometimes (I noticed), precious.

That last part, and the hope I held in the very, very back of my mind that I’d have that too (one day), edged out yesterday as my best day.