Unwanted

  The tellers, the bankers, the guards. Their eyes narrowed, and their sharp, accusing gazes focused on me the second I stepped into the lobby with Gin. I squared my shoulders, lifted my chin, and nodded politely to everyone, even though every sour, hostile, suspicious glare was like a punch to my gut. Everyone knew that my mother had tried to rob the bank, and most folks thought that I’d been in on it. That I’d just stood by that day, let Deirdre and Rodrigo Santos waltz right in the bank and kill all the guards without lifting a finger to try to stop them.

  Of course, that wasn’t true. I’d fought Santos and his crew, but they’d quickly overpowered me, executed the guards, and dragged me down to the basement so Deirdre could try to torture the vault’s door codes out of me. I would have told my coworkers exactly what had happened, but none of them had bothered to ask me about it. Their friends were dead, and I was not, so I was guilty, guilty, guilty.

  Even among the few folks who gave me the benefit of the doubt, their viewing me as a clueless idiot who hadn’t realized that his own mother was scamming him wasn’t any better.

  I much preferred being hated to being pitied.

  Thinking about my own stupidity made a hot, embarrassed blush creep up my neck, but I screwed a smile onto my face and walked on, ignoring the cruel whispers that sprang up in my wake. No one wanted me to keep working here, and I’d overheard more than one muttered conversation about why I didn’t just quit already. People went out of their way to avoid any contact with me, like I was a black cat that was going to jinx them if our paths crossed. Just about the only way I could get folks to communicate with me, even about important bank business, was through email. Even then, all the responses were terse and to the point. No polite chitchat, no funny stories about customers, not so much as a silly cat video anymore.

  I glanced behind the tellers’ counter, wondering if my latest doughnut peace offering had been accepted. But all the boxes were shut and stacked up in exactly the same position as when I’d first dropped them off this morning. It was a sad, sad day when you couldn’t even bribe people with sugar to be civil to you.

  Yep, it was official. I, Finnegan Lane, was the most unwanted man in Ashland.

  Gin picked up on the angry, hostile vibe, and she glared back at people, daring them to make some snide remark about me. I loved her for wanting to protect me, but being stared down by a notorious assassin wasn’t exactly going to help my popularity.

  A man stepped right in front of me. I was so busy just trying to get through this latest walk of shame that I almost plowed straight into his back. At the last second, I managed to catch myself.

  He saw me out of the corner of his eye, stopped, and turned toward me. The man was a dwarf, a little more than five feet tall, with a thick stocky body, wavy silver hair, and a lined face with a hooked nose that looked like it had been broken multiple times.

  I winced. I’d almost mowed down Stuart Mosley, my boss, someone with whom I was on very thin ice these days.

  And he wasn’t alone. Mosley was escorting a slender woman in a black pantsuit and heels across the lobby. Her dark brown hair was pulled back into a bun, showing off her high cheekbones and lovely bronze skin, although her hazel eyes were red and puffy, as though she’d been crying. I recognized her too: Isabelle Vargas, the widow of Peter Vargas, one of the giant guards who’d been murdered during the bank robbery.

  The sight of her almost knocked me to my knees.

  “Ah, there you are, Finn,” Mosley said in his deep, rumbling voice. “I’m sure you remember Mrs. Vargas. Mrs. Vargas, this is Finnegan Lane.”

  Even though I wanted nothing more than to drop my head and slink away, I nodded politely at her. “Of course. I’m very sorry for your loss, Mrs. Vargas.”

  Anger sparked in her eyes, and her red lips tightened into a thin line in her beautiful face. She knew exactly who I was—and that I was responsible for her husband’s death. But instead of screaming curses at me the way she had every right to, she gave me a short, sharp nod in return and dropped her gaze to the floor, as though she couldn’t even stand to look at me.

  I didn’t blame her. I could barely look at myself in the mirror.

  Gin stepped up beside me in a silent show of support. She nodded at Mosley, who tipped his head back at her before pivoting to me again.

  “Mrs. Vargas and I were just meeting about her husband’s life-insurance policy,” Mosley said. “I was telling her that the settlement should come through any day now.”

  One thing I’d always admired about Stuart Mosley was how well he took care of his employees. Even though First Trust had never even come close to being successfully robbed before Deirdre showed up, Mosley had realized that it was always a potential target, and so he made sure all his employees, especially the guards, had hefty life-insurance policies that would provide for their families in case anything happened to them.

  Too many of those policies had been cashed in lately, thanks to me.

  “I would appreciate it if I could get the money as soon as possible,” Isabelle Vargas said in a low, strained voice. “I have some . . . bills that need paying, and I haven’t been at work because of . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she blinked several times, holding back a fresh wave of tears.

  “Of course,” Mosley murmured. “I’ll call you as soon as I receive the money. And, of course, we’ll all be at the funeral later today to pay our respects.” He paused. “Won’t we, Finn?”

  It wasn’t a request.

  “Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”

  Just like with Gin, Stuart Mosley didn’t yell or scream or berate me for how thoroughly I’d destroyed his bank and its reputation. He didn’t even threaten to fire me. Not even once. He just made sure that I realized the full, devastating consequences of putting my foolish trust in Deirdre, and one of the ways he did that was by having me attend the funerals of all the murdered guards. I would have done that anyway, since I’d known and been friendly with all of them. But standing at their graves, watching their families weep, and seeing their caskets slowly lowered into the cold, frozen ground . . .

  It was the worst part of this whole damn thing.

  Knowing that innocent people were dead because of me and that their families would suffer the pain of their loss for the rest of their lives was worse than my mother’s betrayal, worse than her brutal torture of me, worse even than letting down Gin, Bria, and the rest of my friends.

  If Deirdre had been here, I would have strangled her with my bare hands and killed her all over again for all the heartache she’d caused.

  Sensing my roller coaster of emotions, Gin put her hand on my shoulder. But with Mosley watching me like a hawk, she also realized that this was bank business now, something I needed to handle myself.

  “I’ll let you guys talk,” she said. “I’ll text you later after my meetings. Okay, Finn?”

  I forced myself to smile at her again. “Okay. Thanks again for lunch.”

  Gin squeezed my shoulder, nodded at Mosley and Isabelle, then headed for the double doors, pushed through them, and left the bank.

  A teller hurried up and drew Mosley off to the side, whispering to him about some problem and leaving me standing in the middle of the lobby with Isabelle. All the other tellers, bankers, and guards stared at the two of us, wondering if Isabelle would start screaming at me. Other people had done so, both here at the bank and at their loved ones’ funerals. I wanted her to scream and yell at me. I deserved it. I deserved all her anger, disgust, and hate, and then some.

  “I need to go,” she finally muttered, still not looking at me. “I have things to do before the . . . funeral.” Her breath hitched on the last word, and I could tell that she was fighting back a sob.

  Guilt stabbed through my gut again, as sharp and painful as one of Gin’s silverstone knives.

  “Finn,” Mosley called out. “I need to take care of this. Please escor
t Mrs. Vargas outside.”

  Another nonrequest.

  “Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”

  Isabelle opened her mouth like she was going to say no way, that she was perfectly capable of seeing herself out, and that she didn’t want me within a hundred miles of her. But in the end, her shoulders slumped, and she just sighed, nodded, and moved toward the doors, too heartsick to argue about this one small thing when so many other larger, more important, far more painful things were before her.

  We walked across the lobby in silence. The other employees still watched us with rapt attention, hoping that Isabelle would yell out all the horrible things they were secretly thinking about me. When that didn’t happen, they slowly lost interest and returned to their own clients and work.

  I opened one of the double doors for her, and we stepped outside. The sun was shining, but the December air was still cold, and the wind had a particularly harsh, bitter bite to it. Isabelle wasn’t wearing a coat, and she shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. I started to shrug out of my suit jacket to offer it to her, but she realized what I was doing and sidestepped away, still not wanting to have anything to do with me.

  I swallowed my guilt, reached into my jacket pocket, and drew out one of my business cards. “If you ever need anything, anything at all, please call me. Day or night, it doesn’t matter.”

  Her lips curled, and she stared at the card like it was a rattlesnake. “I don’t want your help.”

  “I know, but if you ever need anything—”

  “What I need is my husband back.” Her voice was soft and sad, without a hint of blame in it, which was worse than if she had started yelling at me.

  She was right. Nothing I could do would ever bring her husband back. I slowly dropped my hand and the card down to my side, as more of those knives of guilt sliced through my stomach, cutting every which way.

  A large, expensive black SUV pulled up to the curb, and Isabelle tensed, looking even more miserable than before, but she made no move to approach the idling vehicle.

  “Is that your ride?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  She hesitated another moment, then slowly trudged down the bank steps and over to the vehicle.

  The rear door opened, and a man got out of the car. He was a giant, roughly seven feet tall, with a strong, muscular body and an impressive styled mane of ink-black hair. His dark gray suit was even more expensive than mine, and large gold rings studded with diamonds flashed on each and every one of his fingers.

  Of course, the gold-nugget-size rings absolutely ruined the rest of his sleek, fashion-plate look. Wearing gaudy man jewelry with such a classic, tailored suit was a faux pas of epic proportions. Still, I frowned and studied the giant closely. Something about all those gold rings seemed familiar, like I’d heard of someone with that unfortunate style choice, but I couldn’t remember who.

  Isabelle went over to the giant, who crossed his arms over his chest and stared down his nose at her. He murmured something that I couldn’t hear, and she bit her lip and shook her head. His eyes narrowed, and his lips puckered, indicating that he didn’t like her response. He stared at her for a few more seconds before jerking his thumb over his shoulder, telling her to get into the car.

  Isabelle slowly shuffled past the man and climbed into the back of the SUV, disappearing from sight. The giant realized that I was watching them, and he stared at me, his pale blue gaze flicking over me from head to toe.

  “Nice suit,” he called out. “Is that a Fiona Fine original?”

  “Yeah,” I replied. “But it’s not as nice as yours.”

  “You’re right. It’s not nearly as nice as mine.” He reached up and infinitesimally adjusted his dark gray silk tie, even though it was already perfectly in place. “Next time, do yourself a favor. Be a real man, and don’t cheap out on your threads.”

  Cheap out? My suit had set me back more than three grand. It hadn’t cost five large like his, but it also hadn’t come out of a trash bin. Anger spurted through me at his casual dismissal, but before I could open my mouth to snipe back at him, the giant waggled his fingers at me in a mocking good-bye, making his gold rings glimmer. Then he turned around, slid into the back of the SUV, and closed the door.

  The vehicle moved away from the curb and eased into the flow of downtown traffic, leaving me fuming on the sidewalk. Not just at the giant but also at myself. I couldn’t do anything right these days, not even think of a witty comeback to put a pompous jackass in his place.

  And the giant’s sneering attitude wasn’t the only thing that bothered me. I might not be a bona fide assassin like Gin, but Dad had trained me right along with her, and I’d lived in Ashland long enough to recognize trouble when I saw it. And that guy was trouble with a capital T.

  I pulled my phone out of my pants pocket, angled it at the back of the SUV, and snapped a photo of the license plate. I’d find out exactly who that giant was and, more important, what he was doing with Isabelle.

  The anger slowly leaked out of me, replaced by a growing sense of dread and melancholy, and there was nothing left for me to do but face the inevitable.

  Sighing, I headed back into the bank to get ready for another innocent man’s funeral.

  3

  Mosley was still talking to the teller, although he glanced at me as I moved past him. I nodded at the dwarf, then did my best to ignore my coworkers’ hostile glowers. I went back downstairs to my office, shut the door, and changed into my black funeral suit, along with a dark gray shirt and a black tie.

  I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror. Dark brown hair, green eyes, handsome face, muscled body, not-so-cheap suit. I looked the same as always, and no scars remained from the brutal, prolonged beating that Rodrigo Santos had given me or the blue-white Ice burns that Deirdre had blasted all over my body.

  Not on the outside, anyway.

  The Ice burns might be gone, but just the thought of them made my eyes twitch, my palms sweat, and my stomach churn. I remembered where she had put each mark on my skin, how horribly they had all hurt, and, worst of all, how much my own mother had enjoyed torturing me. I shivered, dropped my gaze from the mirror, and left the bathroom.

  There was one more thing I needed to do before I left for the funeral. I went over to my desk, sat down in my chair, grabbed my landline phone, and hit one of the speed-dial buttons. The call went through, and she answered on the second ring.

  “Hello, gorgeous,” I drawled.

  “Hello there, yourself, handsome.” Detective Bria Coolidge’s light, lilting voice sounded through the phone. “How are you? Gin told me you had another funeral this afternoon.”

  “Yeah.”

  Even though Peter Vargas and the other guards had died during the bank robbery a couple of weeks ago, the police had only recently released their bodies to their families. So all the funeral services and burials had taken place over the last few days, with Peter’s being the final one.

  “Finn?” Bria asked. “Are you okay?”

  I grimaced. Gin and Bria had been tag-teaming me for the last several days, with Gin coming over to the bank for lunch and Bria bringing me dinner at night, or vice versa. Even when they weren’t around, the two of them were still talking and texting about me, debating how I was handling everything, and plotting ways to cheer me up. I knew they meant well and that it was all part of their plan to Make Finn Feel Better About His Colossal Fuckup, but their care and concern only made me feel worse. Especially since I’d treated them both so badly when Deirdre had been around.

  “I’m okay. Actually, I was wondering if you could do me a favor and run a license plate,” I said, changing the subject and pulling up my email on my cell phone. “I’m sending you the photo now.”

  “Sure,” Bria said. “What’s up?”

  “Oh, it’s probably nothing,” I lied. “Just a car I saw sitting outside
the bank. But Mosley asked me to check it out, and I can’t let the big boss down again, now, can I?” I tried to make my tone teasing and lighthearted, but even I could hear the tension in my voice.

  “Okay,” Bria said. “Give me just a second.”

  Through the phone, I could hear her typing, along with the distant murmurs of other conversations in the police station.

  “Got it,” she said a few seconds later. “That SUV is registered to Bartholomew Wilcox. I’ve seen that name before. Isn’t he some sort of bookie? Have you heard of him?”

  Oh, I’d heard of him all right. Bart the Butcher. That had been his nickname back when he’d been a professional boxer, and it had stuck, even after his retirement from the ring. Now he was a powerful bookie who ran a massive gambling operation and would bet on anything and lend money to anyone—provided you paid him back with fifty-percent interest.

  And if you didn’t pay up in a timely fashion, well, Bart liked getting his hands dirty. Instead of killing people, he had a reputation for being a sadist who enjoyed crippling folks—and then demanding seventy-five-percent interest as a “service fee” for needing to beat you down.

  I should have known who he was the second I saw all those ugly gold rings flashing on his fingers. Not so much gaudy baubles as his own personalized set of brass knuckles. Bartholomew Wilcox was trouble, all right, the most dangerous kind.

  But the real question was, what was Isabelle Vargas doing with a hard-core gangster like that?

  “Finn?” Bria asked. “Are you still there?”

  “Yeah, I’m here. Just making a note. Now that you mention it, the name does sound familiar. I think he has some accounts here at the bank. So it’s nothing, just like I thought.”

  “Yeah. Nothing.” Disbelief colored Bria’s voice, but she didn’t press me for answers. Instead, she changed the topic. “You want me to come over tonight? After you get back from the service?”

  The last thing I wanted to do was go to another funeral, much less see anyone after it, but Bria was just trying to help, the same way Gin was with her boxes of barbecue.