Page 10 of Hard Luck (Blackstone House)

Priest chuckled. “Entertaining though this discussion is, let’s not forget why we’re here. We need to ascertain whether this was an attempt on Jezebel’s life, and if so, who was behind it.”

“Hey, is that the Cleaners?”

Tulsa flipped her mane of red hair back and rose to her feet. “I’ll get the garage door.”

If I was going to end the night with a pile of bodies, Vegas was the place to do it. Or LA, or NYC, or DC, Austin, Denver, Des Moines, Seattle, Richmond, Jackson, or Miami. The Cleaners had teams based in a number of major cities, plus they’d travel if the need arose. They’d remove the corpses, clean up the bodily fluids, and fix any damage, and they’d do it so well that nobody would ever know there was a crime scene. Remember the time a president’s son smashed up his hotel room in a fit of rage after a hooker overdosed in his en-suite? No, of course you don’t. Because the Cleaners were good at their job.

Valeria pulled the easily forgettable white cargo van into the attached garage, and a minute later, she led her team into the house. We’d already sent over photos and video via a secure link, so they knew what they were dealing with. Those images would erase themselves after twenty-four hours, and the Cleaners would be finished long before that.

“What happened this time?” Valeria cast her gaze over the room, assessing the damage. “You couldn’t have spilled white wine? It had to be red?”

“It was dark.”

“Not dark enough for you to miss the targets. Who are they?”

“We don’t know. Can you put them on ice while we work that out?”

Valeria tutted but nodded her agreement, and then she walked around the room, poking at bullet holes and picking up brass.

“How many shots?” she asked.

“I fired eight. We’re guessing eleven collectively from the others, assuming they were each carrying a round in the chamber.”

We’d gathered up the weapons—all semi-auto .22s—counted how many rounds were left in each magazine, and worked out the number fired. There was a lot to be said for revolvers.

“Then we’re missing three cartridge cases. Your team can help to look for them while we wrap up the bodies and spackle the bullet holes.”

“The medic told me to stay put.”

“Always an excuse. You make the mess, and then you don’t want to clean it up.”

Valeria grumbled some more and then turned away to organise her people. Priest said she’d been in this role for over twenty years, and I knew from unfortunate experience that she’d do an excellent job. I spent my life working out the best way to destroy things, and she did the opposite. In a drab warehouse in North Las Vegas, there was a whole collection of paint, wood, tiles, building materials, tools, fabric, furniture, and so on, just waiting for situations like this one. When Cole woke in the morning, tonight would be nothing but a distant dream.

At least, I hoped it would.

If those gunmen had been here for him rather than me, I wasn’t certain what my next steps would be.

“Nebula 68 is a subsidiary of Nebula Holdings,” Echo said on speaker as I lay in the hospital. “And Nebula Holdings owns the Galaxy.”

Echo wasn’t a full-time member of the Choir—her choice—but she was my closest friend. We’d met long before Priest came into our lives, eleven years ago in fact, when she was a teenage runaway and I’d still been trying to find my place in life. Those days in Blackstone House had been fun, at least until one of our roommates was murdered.

The worst part? Ruby’s killer had never been caught. Echo and I had talked about it many times over the years, and nothing about her death made sense.

But that was all in the past.

Today, we had a new fuckup to deal with.

“Cole had a room card for the Galaxy in his wallet.”

“So maybe he knows the owner?”

“The owner died,” Sin said, putting her feet up on my bed. She’d claimed the visitor chair while Tulsa went to hunt food. “About two months ago. Had a heart attack in his office, so I heard.”

“What was the guy’s name?” Echo asked.

“Michael Trevino. Folks called him Uncle Mike. Nice old dude, by all accounts, but not much of a businessman. Maybe the house was his? It has the feel of an old-man home, and he could have bought it back in the days when real estate was cheaper.”

“Then why is Cole staying there?” I mused.

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