I’m a shadow among the glitter and noise, taking a seat at the bar with a clear view of Oleg and his entourage.He plays with the confidence of a man who believes luck is on his side, unaware of the predator lurking in his midst.
I take a barstool with a clean angle, nurse a soda, and take meticulous mental notes.He favors the main entrance, keeps clocking the side corridor, hates not seeing his six.I log the exits, the likely problem points, the telltales on his detail.The way he interacts with the staff, his body language, each detail is a piece of the puzzle.
Knife tap.One, two, three.My phone buzzes in my pocket.Not possible.I had Adrian hard-block the feed, her cams, her dot on my map and every other nerve I kept touching.The screen lights anyway.A stack of bubbles my dickhead of a brotherforwarded.
Lindy:
I’m sorry about earlier.
Are you mad at me?
(Twenty minutes later.)
I won’t talk to her again if you don’t want me to.
Ever.
Are you okay?You went quiet.
(Ten minutes later.)
Please tell me you’re safe.
(Five minutes later.)
Cassius, please.
(Forty minutes later.)
I won’t text again tonight.Goodnight, Cassius.
Heat spikes under my skin.I thumb Adrian’s number, voice flat as a trigger.“Why would you show me all that?I’m on a job goddamnit.”
“You told me to block your access,” he says, bored.“You didn’t tell me to let you pretend she stopped wanting you.Consider it data.”
“This is not data you idiot.”Knife, hip.One, two, three.“You don’t get to curate what I feel.”
“I’m not curating anything.I’m reminding you that though the detective is still a variable, I doubt your silence is doing anything other than hurting Melinda.”
“Holy shit.You feel bad for her.”
“Why is that surprising?”
“You’ve done nothing but tell me how dumb this is since the start.”
“That was before I realized how much she clearly cares for you.”
“Done talking,” I say, and kill the call.I am about to kill a man.The last thing I can be thinking about is Lindy caring for me.Fucking Adrian.I put the phone face-down.The ache doesn’t move.I set the timer even though I won’t be available in thirty minutes.No contact.If I can hold a blade steady in a man’s throat, I can hold my thumbs still.
Oleg laughs, and it carries over the din of the casino, as he rakes in another large pot.The people around him are caught up in his orbit, but they’re background noise to me.My focus narrows on Oleg, observing the security detail that tries to blend in, their eyes never straying far from him.
I don’t usually work under tight time constraints, and to Travis’s credit, he does usually try to give me more notice.Men like Oleg, stay alive by doing things seemingly spur of the moment.
As Oleg continues to gamble, I ready myself for what must be done.Tonight, the house doesn’t hold the advantage.Hours of surveillance and it's time to make my move.The soda I've been sipping remains mostly untouched, ice completely gone, and the napkin soaked underneath it.Sobriety is my closest ally tonight, ensuring my senses stay as sharp as the blade I carry.There’s a reasonMachineis attached to me as a nickname.My blades are my signature.Sure, I have used a gun when I’ve had no other choice, but they’re loud and frankly, a lazy way to kill someone.Unless you can kill a person from a thousand plus yards away, it doesn’t take skill.
Leaving the casino behind, I head toward the elevators, blending in with the late-night crowd.The keycard, that I swiped earlier from a guard in the men’s bathroom, grants me access to Oleg's floor.Thanks to Adrian’s digital clone, it’ll open whatever I want.The silence of the hallway is a stark contrast to the chaos below, my footsteps muffled by the plush carpet as I approach his suite.
The door gives way under the gentle persuasion of my lock picks.What greets me is not Oleg’s empty room, as expected, but a scene that tightens my chest with cold fury.A woman, battered and unconscious, is bound with duct tape to a chair.The cruelty of her condition, a stark testament to the monster Oleg truly is, ignites a fire within me.
