"I don't know," I say, which is the truth and I don't like it. Not knowing is a luxury I can't afford. "Could be. The timing fits. Luca has been asking for a sit-down. Friendly terms. He says he wants to confirm territory boundaries."
"Confirm or change?" Viktor asks. It’s not really a question. We both know Luca is up to something.
My phone rings. The internal line this time — casino floor.
"Sir." It's one of the shift managers. "We've got a counter on table fourteen. Security's pulled him."
I pinch the bridge of my nose. Another one. "Profile?"
"Male, mid-twenties maybe. Name on it says Theodore Garnett. He won about two grand before the pit boss flagged him. He's good, sir. Took us longer than usual to spot him."
"Process him. Standard protocol. Get his photo for the database and walk him out."
"Already in hand, sir. But given the current... situation... I thought you'd want to know."
He's right to flag it, even if the odds are that this is just another small-timer with a good memory and a bad sense of self-preservation.
I should tell the shift manager to handle it. That's what floor staff are for. That's the hierarchy.
"I'll come down," I hear myself say. "Hold him in the security room. I want to talk to him myself."
There's a pause. The shift manager is smart enough not to question it but surprised enough that the silence lasts a beat too long. "Yes, sir."
I hang up. Viktor is looking at me.
"A card counter," he says.
"Could be connected."
"Could be a kid who read a book about blackjack and got lucky."
"Then it'll be a short conversation." He’s probably no one, but we’re being robbed.
I’m not going to catch the people who are doing it by ignoring the people doing it right in front of me.
Viktor stands when I stand, which is habit for him. He goes where I go, has done for years. We take the elevator down without speaking. The security room is on the second floor, tucked behind the main surveillance office.
It's a plain room: table, chairs, no windows. Functional. The kind of room designed to make people uncomfortable without being overtly threatening, though the distinction is mostly academic.
When you're sitting in a room in the basement of a casino owned by the Novikov family, the absence of overt threats is not particularly reassuring.
I reach the door. The shift manager is waiting outside. He gives me a nod and steps aside.
I open the door and walk in.
The smell hits me and the world stops.
Omega.Mine.
It’s so sharp and clean and so vivid that for a fraction of a second I can actually taste it on the back of my tongue. It bypasses every rational process in my brain and goes straight into my blood.
I stop in the doorway. My hand is on the frame. I am gripping the door frame because if I don't grip the door frame my legs are going to make a decision that the rest of me is not prepared for.
My vision has gone strange at the edges. The room is suddenly very small and very bright and there is an omega sitting at the table and he is the only thing in it.
He’s maybe mid-twenties. Slight build. Dirty blond hair that doesn't quite match his coloring, which means it's dyed, which means the disguise extends beyond the fake ID and the clear-lens glasses sitting slightly crooked on his face. He's wearing a shirt that's too big for him and his hands are flat on the table and he's sitting very, very still.
I know what I'm smelling. I know what this is. The knowledge slams into me with a deeply primal surety.Mine.
