If this had been her permanent place of employment, Amy would have been tempted to suggest that some simple signage on the walls might make life a little easier for everybody. But it wasn’t—and the lack of signage would be her excuse if she was discovered here. While there were cameras in these back areas, they were not as prevalent as they were in the rest of the casino. What few existed were heavily focused on the obvious areas: the vaults, the liquor storage areas, the employee locker rooms.
Staying in character, she painted a pained look on her face and filled a plastic cup with cold water from the water fountain. She put the back of her palm to her forehead and walked toward the exit that led to the staff parking lot.
Two security team members stood by the open door. One turned and looked at her. “Can I help you?”
Amy shook her head. “I felt a little faint. Mr. Ortega suggested I just come back here and get some water and a little air.”
“You need a chair or something?”
“Please,” she said as pathetically as she could muster and smiled when he led her behind the security desk to a chair pushed into the corner. She wouldn’t be fully hidden, but would be spotted only if someone approached the desk directly.
Through the gap between the two men, she could see cars in the employee parking area that were way outside the pay scale of the majority of the employees. The guard shook hands with two men and let them in through the employee entrance without passes or name badges.
A long limousine pulled up, and Faulkner Woods strode down the corridor to it, presumably to welcome the woman who was being helped out of the vehicle by the driver. Where inside were all these people going, and why?
If it was simply a high roller service they were attending, the casino should probably do some work on the back of the place. Coming in through a half-lit doorway couldn’t hold a candle to the secret rear entrance of the MGM hotel that led to The Mansion. Ninety-nine percent of visitors to Vegas didn’t even know the boutique hotel existed, let alone housed the entrance to the VIP high roller welcome suite.
But they weren’t heading toward the private suites.
The security guards closed the door and resumed their seats at the security monitors. Amy waited for a few more moments before standing. “I’m going to grab some more water,” she said.
Amy made a show of heading toward the kitchen but paused at a narrow hallway that ran to the left of the janitorial area. Though the jangling noise of the slot machines that lay on the other side of the wall made it hard to hear anything else, she could have sworn she heard the murmur of voices coming from the door at the end of the hall.
There was no valid reason for her to go down there. It clearly wasn’t the way to food, the exit, the gaming floor, or any employee area.
“Lost?” a voice said from behind her, and she felt a hand on her shoulder. She jumped a bit in her shoes.
Her heart raced as she turned to find Faulkner Woods staring at her. A quick search of his body language said she had nothing to fear. But then she looked into his eyes. They were cold, dead almost. Realizing her hand was still splayed on her chest, she patted over her heart and pasted a smile on her face. “Oh my gosh, Mr. Woods,” she said, scrambling for something to say, “you scared the bejesus out of me. I’m so sorry. I felt a little ill. Mr. Ortega suggested coming back here for a moment to get some water. And food. And … air.”
Woods looked over his shoulder, then placed a hand on her lower back, guiding her away from the door. “This is a very long way away from any of those things. Didn’t you realize that?”
“I did. A couple of minutes ago. I’m so sorry. I promise I’ll make the time up. I tried to backtrack, and now I’m even more lost. I should have left a trail of breadcrumbs to follow … or something.”
He studied her face. “Fairy tales,” he said eventually. “How very intriguing.”
Babbling felt like something her character would do. “It’s been a joke ever since I was a child. My dad used to say I couldn’t find my way out of a paper bag without instructions. I have zero sense of direction. There was this one time I went on spring break, and I got so lost in the Orlando airport that I missed my flight.”
Woods smiled. “Ortega told me that finding your way around is probably the only thing you can’t do in a casino. He speaks very highly of you.”
“I’m glad to hear it. I’m really enjoying it here. The rest of the girls have been really nice, and I haven’t had any trouble with any of the clients.”
Woods looked up and down the hallway and moved closer to her, the tightness in her chest growing in direct correlation to his proximity. “I think you should let me help you back to the employee area.”
She took a step back. What she wanted to do was kick him in the balls before he completely ended up in her personal space. But what she needed to do was play along. “Thank you,” she said and tilted her head to one side, looking up at him through her eyelashes. She was safe from abduction while they were in the casino. But harassment, she knew, could happen anywhere.
The door at the end of the corridor opened, and the woman she’d seen arrive earlier slipped through it. There was a temporary bar set up, a white tablecloth thrown over a table. “I’m sorry, I’m taking you away from.…” She deliberately left the sentence hanging, in the hope that Woods would fill in the blank.
Woods looked toward the door, then back at her. He stepped back, his eyes suddenly warm. “I want to help you get ahead here, Amy. You’ve got a lot of potential. The transition from where you are to becoming a pit manager can be a long one, and I think you could do it with some hard work. But you are going to need more training, perhaps a broader set of responsibilities once your trial period is over, a clear mentor. Ortega really respects you, so that would work.”
Confused by the sudden switch in mood, she played along. “Thank you, Mr. Woods. I’d like that.”
Woods sighed. “Now isn’t the perfect time for a career conversation, but you are going to need to put in some serious hours. Hours the casino may not always be able to provide. But if I could get some additional dealer work for you, private work to bump your hours up,” he said, encouraging her to move down the hallway, “would you be interested? Off the clock, but good money.”
The pressure that had been building in her chest was replaced with a flood of adrenaline. “Yes, I would. I have loans. And I’d love to make the trip home for the holidays if I can afford it.”
They were now walking so fast that Amy had to jog the occasional step to keep up.
The quiet chuckle he emitted scratched its way along her spine like nails down a chalkboard. “I’ll see what I can do to make that happen. And, listen, I can’t do this for everyone. Just people like yourself. So you’re going to need to show a certain amount of discretion. Understood?”
Amy nodded, because internally she felt like she was making a deal with the devil.
“The exit to the floor is that way.” As he let go of her elbow, which was pinned close to her side, he brushed her breast.
She flinched. Disgust flooded her as a wry smile dominated his face. He leaned his lips to her ear. “I’ll find you later to pick up this conversation.”
* * *
What the fuck?
From his spot at the bar, Cabe could see straight through the employee door, and right now, he’d got a clear line of sight on Woods, who stood way too close to Amy for his liking.
Woods looked over his shoulder, as if only just noticing the open door, and quickly stepped away from Amy.
Hands slapped the bar next to Cabe. The noise made him jump internally; externally he didn’t move a muscle. “I have seen you in the private gaming area, no?”
Sokolov.
“Mmm-hmm,” Cabe said. “It’s no Wynn baccarat salon, but it’ll do.”
Sokolov huffed. “I tell the manager, Woods, that he could turn this into so much more with some modest investment.”
Cabe nodded non-committedly, one eye still o
n Woods through the open doorway. If he laid a finger on Amy, Cabe was going to march through that door and—
“Konstantin Sokolov,” he said gruffly, offering his hand.
Cabe took his eye away from Amy for a moment and shook it firmly. “Cabe Moss.”
“What is it that you do, Mr. Moss?” Sokolov reached for the vodka that had been placed in front of him without him having to order it. Condensation was already forming on the outside of the glass.
“I’m a security specialist,” Cabe replied, knowing he needed to focus on his target, not Amy. As the door drifted closed, Amy leaned back against the wall and took a deep breath. When the door opened only a moment later, and Amy walked to the table where she was supposed to be dealing, her eyes found his for the briefest second. It secretly thrilled him that she’d needed to know he was there. “I arrange for all manner of security. For people, organizations, buildings. And yourself?”
While he wanted nothing more than to head to her table to play with her as dealer so she could be reassured that he was there—that he’d seen, that she wasn’t on her own—he needed to return to his mission.
“Ah. I run a number of local enterprises, predominantly imports and exports. Are you formerly military?”
“Yes, sir,” he said. “But happy to be a civilian again.”
“And why is that?”
“Honestly? Being deployed to fight battles we shouldn’t be in and couldn’t win,” Cabe said. He swallowed the feeling of betrayal as he said the words. Given the list of illegal enterprises Sokolov was involved in, he was never going to befriend a law-abiding military man. And even though it was only a role Cabe was playing, a part of him ached to defend his career. He was proud of the things he’d been able to achieve with his brothers. He knew that not everybody agreed with war, but he was more than happy with the legacy of his career. “It’s a shit-show of underpaid and undertrained men heading out into battle without the proper provisions, and there was no way I was shipping out again.”
“I have never understood the American war machine,” Sokolov said before taking a sip. “It has always seemed so … what is the American word for this … jingoistic.”
Cabe played along. “Extreme patriotism, extreme foreign policy, extreme religion all fill other people’s pockets, but it’s the common man and woman who pay the price.”
Sokolov laughed before downing the rest of his shot. “We all pay the price for those decisions eventually. Perhaps we will get the chance to play together in the future,” he said, placing the glass back on the bar.
Two meatheads in badly fitting leather jackets stood five feet to the left of the bar making lewd gestures behind the back of a young woman waiting to be served. Sokolov’s stooges. He wondered if Sokolov realized just how ineffective they’d be if anyone with any real training came at him. They’d rarely looked up to check on Sokolov since they’d started talking.
“I’d like that,” Cabe said as Sokolov turned to walk away.
He’d need to be ready to go play with Sokolov whenever he was asked, because while Amy might be the expert at card counting, he was getting pretty adept at it, and he looked forward to kicking Sokolov’s ass. He’d practiced it every night he’d come to the casino, always biding his time until the dealer stack was replenished so he could keep the true count straight in his head. So far, on his fifty-thousand-dollar chip outlay, he was up seven and a half grand.
Stooge One was bulkier than Stooge Two, but not by much. Just a thicker neck and stockier build. He didn’t understand why more people didn’t do research when finding a bodyguard. Sure, in a gunfight you could probably hide behind meatheads and body builders to avoid being shot, but really, in a foot chase their cardio sucked balls. Not to mention that someone who could think fast on their feet in a dangerous situation, someone who had personal experience of combat, was priceless in a tense situation.
Over Sokolov’s shoulder, he caught sight of a man approaching the cashier. Cabe recognized him from the first night he’d visited the casino. Jet black floppy hair, patchy stubble, and jeans with a rip more than was cool. The guy pulled a thick pile of notes out of his jacket pocket and went to the same cashier as before, an equally dark-haired woman in the end booth.
Cabe wandered to an empty table that overlooked the cashier and watched as his suspect walked over to the slot machines and played just a handful of games, using some cash from his pocket, before heading to the roulette table and placing one fifty-dollar chip on black twenty-eight.
The ball rattled around the wheel. Cabe couldn’t hear it over the base-level drone of the casino, but he could see the ball bounce around the wooden wheelhead until it landed in a pocket. By that time the guy had already walked away from table without having even seen where it settled, as if resigned to losing.
He returned to the cashier, who was in the process now of shutting down her booth. She pulled a stack of notes that appeared to be pre-counted and placed them onto the counter before shuffling through the chips as if to confirm the amount she suspected she needed to pay out.
When her counting was complete, she handed the man the money without making any notes, and he left without further comment.
Leaving his drink sitting on the table, Cabe gave one last glance to Amy, who appeared to also be packing up her table, and followed the man outside. The brightly lit customer parking area didn’t allow for completely covert trailing, but …
Cabe felt eyes on him, and he wasn’t sure where they were, but when the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, he knew better than to ignore them. And until he was certain where, or even more important, who, the eyes were, it would be reckless to follow his target beyond his current position.
Instead, he stepped back into the shadows and made a show of checking his phone.
Fortunately, the target he’d been following didn’t go far, climbing into a waiting red Ford, and Cabe made a mental note of the license plate. They’d arranged for a drone to be airborne whenever they were in the casino. “Buddha,” he whispered into his mic. “I’m tagged. You need to follow that red sedan,” He hated relying on the fact that his backup team could hear him through his mic without getting a positive confirmation in return. It frustrated him that he wasn’t wearing an earpiece, but it would be too visible to someone sitting next to him at a poker or blackjack table.
A text came through on his temporary phone.
On it.
He kept the phone in his hand, using it at as a distraction while he looked around. The cameras were still oriented in the direction they had been during his earlier surveillance of the front of the building. The tinted doors of the casino made it difficult to completely see inside beyond the outline of bulkier figures. And without his night-vision goggles, he couldn’t see into any of the parked vehicles, especially those parked out of the glare of the parking lot’s lights.
But still, something niggled around in his brain.
He looked down at his watch. It was only ten more minutes until closing, so it would look odd for Cabe to walk back inside now. He texted the license plate of the vehicle and debated hanging around the rear entrance to ensure Amy got safely to her car but he couldn’t do that now. Not that he needed to, given that Harley was back there in a black truck registered to a person who didn’t exist. He was Amy’s backup. If all else failed, Harley would follow Amy if she ended up in difficulty. But still he wished he could be the one to check on her.
Sokolov’s meatheads exited the casino and he wondered if they were the eyes he’d felt on him. Perhaps they’d been watching through the door. Perhaps they’d not been looking for him, just looking in general. Sokolov came up behind them, and Cabe moved farther back into the shadows. Hide and observe. Hide and observe. Sitting back was often the best course of action. While Six was always ready to jump in with both feet, Cabe had always been more measured.
“Get the car,” Sokolov said to the larger of the two men and shook his head as if disappointed that he needed to ask t
hem to do the obvious.
They really were dumb and dumber. The other man stepped to one side and reached inside his jacket to withdraw a packet of cigarettes, the action revealing a gun strapped to his ribs in a holster. Which was where Cabe’s firearm should be.
Fuck it. He was going to carry from now on, no matter what the feebs suggested.
Three young men came out of the casino, goofing around with one another. They seemed drunk, but something about them looked off—like they wanted to appear drunk. All three were watching Sokolov. They veered a little to the right and then quickly corrected course so they were headed straight for Sokolov.
When they collided with him, Sokolov stumbled forward but remained on his feet. He cursed loudly in Russian.
Meathead turned around and threw off one of the men, who raised his hand in apology. The second did the same as the third man began to walk quickly away from the building, something in his hand. They’d stolen Sokolov’s wallet. Realizing an opportunity to build his relationship with Sokolov had fallen into his lap, Cabe broke into a run.
He heard Sokolov yell again behind him and then the sound of fighting and the pounding of another pair of footsteps, but Cabe was certain the guy he was chasing was the one who was holding the wallet they had lifted. He sprinted around the rear of the casino, his shirt flapping, with Cabe following and gaining ground, grateful he’d refused to wear dress shoes and was instead wearing his black sneaker-style footwear.
When he was within arm’s reach, Cabe launched himself at the guy’s back, taking them both to the ground. Even though the target softened the blow, the slam of his chest to the ground took his breath away. Stuffed with bills, Sokolov’s wallet went skittering across the asphalt of the lot.
“Let me go, you dick,” the guy said as Cabe grabbed both arms behind the guy’s back. He didn’t have cable ties or anything he could use to secure the target, so he held on until Sokolov and Stooge Two appeared.
“You really should get better security,” Cabe said, breathing deeply.
Sokolov eyed the guy on the floor, then Stooge Two. “You may be right,” he said sourly. “And it appears I am now in your debt.”
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