“That guest with the mustache is getting belligerent again,” Stella—one of the Irons—said beside him. “I told him to leave, but he won’t. Should I ask James—”
“Yeah, sure,” Levi told her, distracted.
She raised her eyebrows. “I wasn’t sure you’d want to kick a guest out during, you know, the big pre-opening party.”
The last thing on Levi’s mind was good business practice. “Just get him out. We want everything running...” His voice trailed off when he caught eyes with Enne across the room. Poppy and Delaney had transformed her for this event, her once chestnut hair cut to her chin and bleached into a shade of brassy blond, her eyes hidden behind green contacts, her makeup so heavy that she appeared an entirely different person...at least from far away.
Even Levi’s gaze slipped over her slightly. But then she nodded, her determination so unmistakablyEnnethat he felt the same burn in his stomach. He liked her however she looked.
But he needed to focus. Her nod meant the others were also at the ready.
Levi felt as though he were setting up a game of chess. Poppy had taken Lola away to a location known only to her, him, and Enne. That left everyone else scattered across the Legendary, waiting for the Bargainer to make her move. They each waited in pairs: him and Enne in the lobby, Harrison and Sophia upstairs, Tock and Delaney in the back, Harvey and Narinder in the cardroom, Grace and Roy on the roof.
It won’t work, his father whispered. They were playing an opponent with ten times as many cards in their hands, cards they could barely begin to guess.
Beside him, Stella muttered something irritated under her breath and stalked off.
“What’s wrong?” Enne asked, appearing beside him and eyeing Stella as she disappeared into the cardroom. Her eyes were slightly bloodshot. “Did she see the Bargainer? Or—”
“No. Just some drunk,” Levi grumbled, rubbing his temples. “Tonight was supposed to be...everything. Owning my own casino. Being free of Vianca.”
Enne reached for his hand, then, seeming to remember where they were, jerked it back. It would do no good for their plansorthe Legendary should she be recognized tonight. “I’m sorry we took this night from you for this. This should’ve been...” She looked around the lobby sadly. “Well, for what it’s worth, you did it. Your dream. I’m sorry you don’t get to live it.”
“I think my dream was inherently mucked up,” Levi told her, sighing. “Even if all the other gangsters of the North Side were killed violently, I thought there was something romantic about dying that way. Turns out there’s no way of dying that’s romantic. Turns out tragedy is always tragic.”
She smiled weakly. “Good thing this isn’t a tragedy, then.”
Oh, but we have all the makings of one,murmured the voice that was not his father’s, but his alone.
“Lola will never forgive me,” Enne murmured, then she sniffled.
Enne, he realized, had also sacrificed something precious tonight.
“I’m sorry,” he told her, wishing they were in private so he could hold her. He hoped she had the chance to truly apologize to Lola, but even if Lola forgave them for kidnapping her, would she—should they manage it—forgive them for killing her friend? He didn’t see a happy ending in this one.
Someone tapped his shoulder, and he whipped around to face another Iron, Hwan. At Levi’s expectant expression, Hwan flushed and looked at his shoes.
“They’re s-saying you should deal a game,” Hwan stammered. “Or make a toast. You know, to thank people for coming out.”
But Levi didn’t think he could deal a game of Tropps, or raise a glass to anything other than surviving the night. He should’ve known the pre-opening would demand more from him. With Tock as occupied as he was, there was no one to oversee the casino on its very first night. If the event was a disaster, then this dream would be, too. Ruined before it had even begun.
“Just do it,” Enne whispered to him.
“We’re postedhere—”
“We’ll switch with Narinder and Harvey.” She looked at him seriously. “You deserve this chance. Take it.”
It was thickheaded and childish, and Levi preferred to think of himself as neither. If he was really going to be optimistic, then there would be other nights.
But it didn’t feel that way. There was something unsettling in the air, sharp and metallic like unspilled blood.
“Don’t you trust me?” Enne asked him.
More than anyone. They were in this together.
“Fine,” he murmured, then he followed Hwan into the cardroom.
Levi took a seat at the head of a card table and plastered on a smile, so practiced that it almost felt natural again. The others around him—all strangers—grinned back.
