"Ever heard the name Castellano?" he says. "In eight years of moving through casinos, did you ever encounter anyone connected to them? Even peripherally."
"I know the name. Everyone does.” My stomach sinks. I hope like hell that’s not who is behind this.
“Why come back?”
"It’s been years. I wanted to take a break from everywhere else. I thought a night or two at a high-traffic casino wouldn't be a problem."
He looks at me. I look at him. The lounge feels like it’s getting smaller and his scent is filling it. I breathe through my mouth because I can't afford to lose focus right now.
"I'm not working for anyone," I say. "I've never worked for anyone and I don’t want to."
He leans back in his chair.
"I'm going to bring you into the operation," he says. "Not just the data. The whole thing. Viktor, me, you. Three people. Nobody else knows what we know."
I study him. He’s telling the truth. It’s the logical choice. He doesn’t know who to trust.
If the Castellanos are involved, then he can’t trust anyone. I want to tell him he probably shouldn’t trust Viktor either, but then, he shouldn’t trust me either.
“What’s in it for me? Why should I help? You’ve made it clear you won’t let me leave.”
He shrugs. “It’s too late for you. You’re my prime match. The Castellanos will know about you soon if they don’t already. Your best bet is to throw in your lot with me and hope we win. If you leave, they’ll grab you and try use you to persuade me.”
My skin turns cold.It’s too late for you. It’s the truth in the words that grips my heart so tight that it feels as if it has stopped beating.
The realization hits that it was too late for me the moment that the prime match notification came through. I’ve managed to steal eight years for myself, but it was too late the moment that the system matched me to Dominic Novikov.
The knowledge must be showing on my face because something shifts behind Novikov’s eyes. "You stay close to me. You don't go past the boundaries I set. The monitor stays on."
This time he says it in a way that is meant to be comforting.
"And if they come for me?"
"They won't get to you."
He says it the way he says everything, as if the outcome has already been decided and reality just needs to catch up. I have never met anyone as sure of himself as Novikov. There is something weirdly reassuring about that.
14. Dom
It's been a month and he’s gone back to the sofa. I could insist on the bedroom. I don't. The sofa is a line he's drawn and crossing it would cost me more than it's worth. He's still here. He's still working. He hasn't tried to run.
Theo has pulled every piece of data from the surveillance archive and he says he has all the names. He’s given me his last one today, but it took a lot of persuading. He trades them like chips, one at a time, each one attached to a negotiation. More access to the building. I suppose small freedoms add up to something that almost looks like a life, if you don't look too closely at the ankle monitor or the locked front door.
He's bored. I can see it in the way he moves through the building, restless, pacing the floors he's allowed on. I know that he has memorized the hotel layout, the restaurant schedules, the shift patterns of the housekeeping staff. He knows which corridors are empty at which times and which stairwells have cameras and which don't.
He's started spending time on the rooftop terrace of the twenty-fourth floor restaurant. It's an open-air space, glass-walled, with views over the city in every direction.
He sits out there for hours, even when it's cold. I watch him on the feeds sometimes, a slight figure in a chair by the railing, his face turned up to the sky.
Every part of me also knows that if I let him walk out the front door, the Castellanos will have him within a week. It’s for hisown good. At least that’s what I tell myself. I’m not being selfish at all. It doesn’t matter. I’m never giving him up, no matter what happens.
Viktor's office is on the second floor, behind the main surveillance suite. It’s half the size of mine – his choice -- and twice as functional. No bar, no view, no leather furniture. He has a metal desk bolted to the wall, two chairs with cracked vinyl seats, a monitor bank showing rotating feeds from the casino floor. The carpet is industrial gray, worn thin near the door where Viktor paces when he's on the phone. The overhead fluorescents turn everything the same flat, honest color.
I smell Theo in the corridor before I see him. He's in the doorway of Viktor's office, one shoulder against the frame, studying the space the way he studies everything.
His hair has grown and it falls across his forehead. He keeps reaching up to move it away.
He's in the dark jeans and the gray pullover I bought him, the neckline too wide, slipping off one shoulder to show the ridge of his collarbone and the pale skin underneath.
