The storm is waiting.
And we’re walking straight into it.
Dicks swinging in a hurricane.
The second the suite door opens, we move.
Niko’s men are already in position, forming a solid wall of black suits and earpieces, their bodies creating a corridor down the hallway and into the private elevator like we’re walking through a tunnel carved from muscle and intent. I don’t release Sera’s hand. I don’t even loosen my grip. My fingers stay threaded with hers, my thumb dragging slow, steady strokes across her knuckles because I can feel the tremor she’s trying to hide.
The elevator doors close.
“Remember everyone. They are going to be saying all kinds of things to provoke a reaction. Nobody say anything stupid.” I say with a nod. All eyes in the lift are on me. Jaws, slightly agape, even my wife. Shit, even Igor looked fucking dumbstruck, like they walked in on their dog reading a newspaper.
“What? Have I got something on my face?” I ask confused.
“I not known you long, but you remind me of rabbit and polite moose. Is surprise.” A few of the other guards start to laugh.
“Rabbit and polite moose?” I ask.
“You don’t want to hear it, bro.” Chace says, something between a smile and grimace in place.
Now I do…I look at him expectantly. Wanting to know the joke I am part of.
“I will…tone it down. Shit, not really sure I can? So, the Rabbit was at Bear's place. It got very late in the evening, and he decided to go home.
"Don't", the Bear said, "the Polite Moose will rape you".
"It’s okay, I will put a carrot in my ass" the Rabbit answered, "and run fast."
So, he did. But as he was running through the forest, the sun set and darkness fell. The Rabbit was nervous, slowed and decided to hide in a bush. He sat there, trembling using his big ears to listen to the nights call, the crickets, the owl hooting, wind rustling the leaves.
POP. Chace stuck his fucking finger in his mouth, pressing it against his cheek making a loud popping sound…
"Good evening, sir."
The Russian guards roar in laughter. I feel dumbstruck. It was funny…I think? Either way, when a box full of six-foot, heavily armed Russians starts laughing, you don’t question it—you just join in.
I still don’t get how I am the rabbit…
Silence settles for all of three seconds before the noise begins to bleed through the walls as we descend. It starts as a low vibration. Then it grows, swelling beneath our feet.
By the time the doors open into the lower level, I know exactly what’s waiting for us outside.
Chaos.
Las Vegas in February greets us with bright, merciless daylight. The sky is a hard, endless blue, the desert air cool but sharp in my lungs as we step out.
The hotel’s blue-glass exterior gleams like it’s reflecting something cleaner than what’s gathered at its base. Our suite was so high up it turned the world into ants—blurred, unreal, like tilt-shift photography. Down here, it feels like the city has come to drag us into the street.
The noise hits.
Cameras erupt in rapid-fire bursts. Microphones are shoved forward. News vans line the curb, satellite dishes angled towardthe sky. Reporters shout over one another, desperate to be heard, to be first, to be the one who catches me slipping.
“Did you corrupt Seraphina?”
“Are the accusations true?”
“Did you manipulate her?”
