Page 14 of Broken Saint

5

Rock

"We need to talk."

I bristled at the tone those words were delivered in. Let alone who they'd come from.

"I don't have time." I said to his back, and that was the truth. I needed to get home, catch a shower, and change into a fresh suit before I was due downtown for a debriefing with my boss.

Asshole had impeccable timing, texting me just as I was trying to talk to Nova about our night. I'd bolted awake after crashing way too hard to find her tucked into the corner of her terrace, furiously scribbling across a sketch pad.

Her demeanor had been off, as had her words, but I'd had no time to investigate. Tonight, when I was able to return, she'd have a few questions to answer.

Gabe, the hotel manager, stopped and turned slightly in my direction, giving me only a cursory once over. "Considering I have video surveillance of you leaving one of my employee’s suites no less than eight times in the last few weeks, I think we do."

His presumptuousness fueled the annoyance already firing through my blood. The idea that he'd taken so much notice of my comings and goings made me err on the side of caution and follow him. Whatever the manager of The Sinclair needed to get off his chest could affect the outcome of the case I was trying to build against several of the guests at this hotel.

Checking my surroundings, as well as the gun I had holstered at my back, I followed Michaels to the security office where he entered a code to open the door. Not using a keycard to access this portion of the hotel was definitely a smart idea. Keycards weren't particularly difficult to reproduce and left a building twenty-three percent more likely to be breached over a private code with restricted access that got changed on a daily basis.

Most of the hotel casinos in Vegas took their security to the extreme, but I'd heard the Sinclair was still head and shoulders above the rest. Under different circumstances, I might have enjoyed discussing the various high-tech security measures the casino employed.

He led the way inside and down a web of corridors that eventually led to a private office. It took me by surprise that Gabe Michaels had taken me this far into his inner sanctum. From my experience, the hotels in Vegas liked to keep every aspect of their security under tight wrap.

Even a federal agent wouldn't be welcome under most circumstances.

When he opened the door, he froze in the doorway. “Lana. What the hell? I told you that you couldn’t stay down here. Minors aren’t allowed to linger near the casino floor and your incessant need to break the rules could cost me my gaming license. Go home.”

“You suck,” she spat from somewhere inside the office I couldn’t see yet. “I’m not supposed to be a prisoner.”

“You’re hardly a prisoner. But I’m not doing this right now,” he hissed under his breath. “I’m in the middle of something and you’re interrupting.”

The next thing I knew, I heard tears amid commotion that might have been her scraping a chair across the floor, and then a beautiful young girl who did not look underage pushed past me and fled down the hallway.

“Excuse my sister. She’s a little testy about having to move to Vegas.”

I had no experience with teenage girls and I was especially glad for it.

"Have a seat." Michaels indicated the chair in front of his desk before taking the one behind it for himself.

"Do you want to explain what's going on?" he asked, wasting no time in getting to the point.

As usual, I schooled my face to be devoid of all emotion. If he had hoped to intimidate me into some sort of conversation about Nova, he was mistaken. I had no intention of getting into the details of our encounters.

"Not at all. Do you?"

The man laughed and reached into his desk.

I automatically tensed, expecting the worst. I leaned forward in my chair. I could have my gun cleared from my holster before he could do anything to stop me.

Instead of a gun, he produced two cigars.

He froze when he noticed my posture and where I'd been heading. "Whoa. That's a serious case of paranoia you've got going if you think I'm going to pull a gun or worse on a federal agent in a building surveilled to the skin of its teeth."

I relaxed into my chair, pulling my jacket back over my gun again. He had no idea.

"These days, it pays to be cautious."

Michaels smirked. "There's cautious, and then there's out of line. I don't think I've seen a record of you checking in that weapon when you arrived here tonight."

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