The question hung between us. I couldn't answer. Saying yes would be a lie. Saying no would be admitting too much.
I left without answering, taking the service corridor back to my quarters. But we both knew something fundamental had shifted. The careful distance we'd maintained was gone. We'd tasted possibility, and there was no unknown to hide behind anymore.
Back in my quarters, I touched my lips and felt the echo of his. Vonni would have laughed. I could only wonder if she was right.
VARRICK
The mission. Focus on the mission.
I stood in my suite, studying holographic blueprints of the casino's infrastructure. Level 20, the vault area. Level 18, Qeth's operations center. Level 16, the security hubs. The Regalia had to be in one of those locations. Probability suggested the vault, but Qeth had always been unconventional.
The failing algorithms would force his hand soon, given the acceleration. He would need me to fix them. An act that would reveal his location, his desperation, his weaknesses.
Strategic. Tactical. Professional.
Everything I should have been doing from the start instead of kissing dealers in observation decks.
Her lips had been softer than?—
No. The mission.
I pulled up security rotation schedules I had downloaded from a maintenance terminal. Guards changed at every shift transition. The final shift rotation had a twelve minute gap in coverage on Level 19. Useful information. Actionable intelligence.
Nothing to do with the way she had pressed against me, hands finding my chest, making that small sound when I had?—
The mission. Only the mission.
Her shift started with the second rotation. I knew because I had memorized her schedule. For strategic reasons. Obviously.
I stayed away from the casino floor.
I spent the morning in the lower levels, mapping service corridors and emergency exits. I found three ways to reach the vault that bypassed main security. Located two hidden passages between Level 18 and 19. Identified which maintenance panels hid camera blind spots.
Professional reconnaissance. Finally.
Just as the high rollers of the second shift began to settle in, I entered the main casino floor to access a security substation I had identified. I had to cross the mezzanine to reach it. Pure coincidence that it took me past her table.
Our eyes met across thirty meters of noise and chaos.
Time stuttered. One heartbeat. Two. The memory of her mouth under mine, the taste of her, the way she had?—
We both looked away.
The absence felt wrong. Like an equation missing a fundamental variable. Like a calculation that could not resolve without a key piece of data. I forced myself to continue to the substation, downloaded what I needed, and left without looking back.
That evening, I went to a bar on Level 12. Not the observation lounge. Not anywhere we had been together. Just a grimy hole where criminals drank and nobody asked questions.
“—that human dealer on the high stakes floor.”
My attention snapped to a table of guards. Three of them, off duty, drinking hard.
“The pretty one?” Another guard laughed. “Been watching her for weeks. Lives on Level 14, Section B.”
“Alone?”
“Far as I can tell. No protection. No friends.”
“Thinking of paying a visit?”
