He turns and runs.
I push off the desk and chase him toward the hallway, but the moment I put weight on my foot, my ankle screams. It twists under me and I stagger, grabbing the wall to keep from going down again.
By the time I limp into the hall, he’s already at the elevator, hitting the button. The doors slide shut just as I get there, giving me one last glimpse of his desperate face through the narrowing crack.
I stand there on shaking legs, breathing hard as the elevator descends.
He’s gone. The money is gone.
I limp back into my office in a daze, falling into my chair and letting the silence crush me.
The empty safe all but taunts me.
“Fuck!”
My hand sweeps across the desk before I can stop myself. Papers scatter. A pen clatters to the floor. My chest heaves like I’ve just run a mile.
Slowly, my eyes drift to a picture on my desk. My mother smiles back at me.
A cold shiver runs down my spine. For once, my father didn't sound like an addict chasing a win. He sounded like a hopeless man with a gun to his head.
Who is he so afraid of?
I turn my chair to face the window again. The sun has set, plunging the harbor into darkness.
Somewhere out there, my father is walking into a room with fifty thousand dollars of stolen money.
He said he was going to find a "whale." A rich foreigner he could trick.
I shake my head, accepting the hard truth that it was just another story. Another excuse to chase a high at any cost.
He truly believes he’s the hunter tonight. He thinks he can outsmart a millionaire.
But I know how the business works. Rich men don't get rich by handing their money to desperate drunks. They get rich by eating people like us alive.
It’s the same hope he had last week. The same hope he had last month.
You aren't going to win, Dad. You’re just going to lose it all again.
2
KONSTANTIN
I watch the rat scurry into the maze.
From the dark observation deck overlooking the casino floor, Arthur Blackwood looks even smaller than I remember. Time hasn’t been kind to him. He’s graying, and his shoulders are slumped under the weight of a bespoke suit that hangs loose on his frame.
He wipes sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief, his eyes darting around the room like a cornered animal.
He looks like a man running from ghosts. He has no idea he’s running straight toward the one ghost whoisreal. Me.
I see the bulge in his jacket pocket. The outline of a thick, folded document.
Good. He followed the instructions.
It wasn't hard to make him bring it. I had my intermediary tell him thatMr. Volkovonly plays against men of substance. I demanded that anyone sitting at my table bring proof of assets equal to the potential pot.
Arthur thinks he brought the deed to prove he belongs in the room with no intention of betting it.
