“The—” My phone buzzed in my pocket and I tugged it out of my pants.
Your money is ready. We’re ready whenever you are. Let me know when you’ll be over.
I held up the phone to show Jayce, and he huffed out a breath. “You okay to do this?”
“Do I have a choice?”
He leaned around so he could glare at me. “Yes. I wouldn’t put you in harm’s way.”
I shrugged. “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”
“We’ll go tomorrow.”
“What?”
“Come here.” He patted his leg and I stood, a little unsure since I wasn’t small, but he tugged me down across his lap and wrapped his arms around me. I sighed into his hold. “You’re going to be fine, and this will all work out.”
“Yes, Sir,” I whispered, and I hoped like hell he was right.
17
Jayce
River pulled at his suit jacket, glaring between me and the door of the illegal casino we were standing near. A lot of rumors circled the police stations about a gambling ring, but the NGPD wasn’t made of the type of cops who followed up on a lot of things. It was part of why I joined Slater’s business as a private investigator. Not all my coworkers were bad men, but they chose to close their eyes when it came to criminals around town. I guessed it came with never really being able to throw the book at them, or the courts letting them free without charges.
The casino was located in the seedier part of New Gothenburg, down a long alleyway with dim lighting. To anyone who didn’t know the truth it looked like some kind of club. On the door was a largeKeep Outsign, and the men standing beside it regarded us carefully when we gave them the password King had tracked down for us. Those men let us in, and we were greeted by another man, who asked to see our cash. We had expected this. King already warned us that they only let people overflowing with money in.
The bouncer pursed his lips when I opened the duffel bag to show him the cash and eyed me carefully. “First time?”
I nodded with a smile. “Yes. We were invited by a friend.”
The bouncer grunted. “He tell you the rules? You rat on us, we’ll feed you to the rats.”
River touched my shoulder and leaned closer, sending the guard a charming grin I knew had won over juries plenty of times. “Our lips are sealed. You might know me.”
“No idea who you are, no. I need to check your IDs,” the bouncer said. We passed our licenses over and he stared at them longer than I would have liked. Another man came up with a list on a clipboard and our names were checked against it. A minute later we had our belongings back. The second bouncer with the clipboard escorted us inside and waved toward a set of black curtains hanging over a door. “Go ahead. We got your names, don’t do anything stupid.”
I pressed my hand against River’s lower back and guided him through the curtain and into a brightly lit, noisy room. The walls were plain white and there wasn’t much going on by way of decoration around the gaming area big enough to hold maybe two hundred people if necessary, but I supposed that wasn’t why folks came here. Men and women were spread out across the first floor, taking up different gambling tables, from poker to blackjack. I was a little surprised as we wandered away from the doorway that one corner of the room seemed to be dedicated to mahjong; I’d never thought of it as a gambling game. Several graying Asian men were seated around a low table there with one young man, who seemed to be in charge of taking money at the beginning of the round. I’d never seen such looks of concentration on anyone before as those men had as they pulled their tiles. A set of stairs in the corner of the room had a black board with white plastic letters and an arrow pointing up, the wordRoulettestuck on it.
“He didn’t pat us down.” I glanced back toward the curtain we’d come through with a frown. I expected to at least be searched for weapons before we entered.
River shook his head. “You’d have to be an idiot to have any guns or knives on you in this place. Derek’s not a man to fuck around with.”
What had he done to have people so afraid of him? Other than the rumors that River and King shared with gusto, I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary from a normal casino. Guards patrolled the edges of the room, and like anyone would expect, they wore a handgun strapped to their waist. They were no bigger or scarier than ordinary security men, though.
“How many floors is this, Lamb?” I asked River quietly.
He shrugged. “I think three, but I’m not sure. I haven’t been here in a long time.”
“How do they get away with it?” I shook my head in surprise and stared at a gentleman by one of the poker tables. He had on a white cowboy hat and had his arm around a beautiful woman with a sparkly gold dress that barely covered her arse. I couldn’t tell if she was a hooker or a young thing he’d managed to wrangle into a relationship. She couldn’t be part of the ring we were investigating because she looked too comfortable.
“Derek has the right friends, just like a lot of high-end criminals.” River shrugged and stared at me suspiciously. “He’s a powerful man, Sir. You can’t get the cops sniffing around this. It won’t work, and being a hero will get you killed…uskilled.”
“What if he’s the one behind the trafficking ring?” I kept my voice low and leaned into him. “We’ll need to get law enforcement involved.”
River snorted. “King and Sapphira will handle him. Trust me. The cops won’t have time to get to him.”
Disgust curled in my gut. A piece of me—the cop part—wanted to arrest every single person in here. “Is this how you take care of things in New Gothenburg? You let criminals handle other criminals?”
