A hand clamps down on my shoulder like a vise, spinning me around so hard I nearly lose my balance. Big Guy’s face is a mask of rage, and up close I can see the scar running from his left ear to his jaw. This is a man who’s intimately familiar with violence.
“Let me go,” I snap, but my voice cracks on the words.
We’re surrounded by people, but no one’s paying attention to us. Just another Vegas drama playing out between the poker tables and slot machines. In a city built on illusions, reality has a way of sliding by unnoticed.
Before I can scream or fight or do anything, I’m being dragged toward an exit I didn’t even know existed. The crowd parts around us like water, everyone too focused on their own temporary escapes to notice mine ending.
The alley behind the casino is darker than I expected, lit only by a single flickering streetlight that makes everything look like a noir film. The desert air hits me like a furnace, but I’m shivering anyway as both men close in on me.
Their faces promise pain. The kind Eric used to deliver when he’d had too much to drink and needed someone smaller to take it out on.
I press my back against the brick wall and try to remember how to breathe. The rough texture catches on my uniform shirt, and I think absurdly about whether they’ll dock my pay for damage to company property.
Assuming I live long enough for it to matter.
“Well?” Big Guy crosses his arms over his chest. “Where is he?”
My mouth is dry as bone, but I force the words out: “I don’t know.”
The silence that follows is the kind that comes right before the storm hits. And looking at their faces, I can tell this storm is going to be Biblical.
2
ALESSIO
Las Vegas is home,and tonight she’s looking particularly sinful.
I’m leaning against the bar of the casino I manage for my family—and when I say family, I mean the kind that solves problems with baseball bats and concrete shoes. The Andretti name opens doors in this city. Sometimes it also closes them permanently, but that’s neither here nor there.
The casino floor spreads out before me like a glittering battlefield. Winners and losers, dreams made and shattered, all under the watchful eye of security cameras and my personal oversight. It’s intoxicating, really. All this beautiful chaos, and I get to orchestrate it.
My scotch is expensive, my suit is Italian, and my mood is decent for a Saturday night. The pit boss catches my eye and nods. Everything’s running smooth as silk. Good. Last night we had some college kids trying to count cards, and I had to have them dragged out kicking and screaming. Bad for business when the customers start wondering if they’ll make it home with all their teeth.
I’m scanning the floor out of habit when I see her.
Holy shit.
A woman is cutting through the crowd like her life depends on it, and from the look of raw terror on her face, it probably does.
She's dressed in black pants and a white button-up shirt. The little black apron around her waist makes me think she must be a waitress at one of the many restaurants in the casino, not one of my casino floor servers.
She’s tall, athletic, with curly black hair that’s coming loose from whatever she used to pin it back. Even in full panic mode, she moves like a dancer. Or a fighter.
My cock takes immediate interest, which is inconvenient timing considering she’s clearly running from something.
That something turns out to be Tony and Leon, two of our soldiers who apparently think chasing terrified women through my casino is acceptable behavior.
It’s not.
The woman—waitress, judging by her uniform—looks over her shoulder and nearly trips when she sees how close they’ve gotten. The fear in her eyes does something weird to my chest, something I don’t particularly want to examine. I’ve seen fear before. Hell, I’ve caused most of it. But this woman’s terror makes me want to break things.
Starting with Tony and Leon.
I abandon my drink and follow them into the alley behind the casino. It’s where we usually take people who need attitudeadjustments, and the irony isn’t lost on me that I’m about to provide one myself.
They have her pressed against the brick wall, boxing her in.
“I don’t know where he is,” she’s saying, and I can hear the fire underneath the fear. “He wouldn’t tell me.”
