All In: A Vegas Reverse Harem Romance

by Cassie Cole

  “You didn’t tell us you slept with her,” Xander said in his drawl. “Though I s’pose it doesn’t change anything.”

  “I’m really, really confused,” Bryce said. “Why on earth would you think…”

  He trailed off as Eddie waved a hand. He was totally red-faced and needed a moment to collect his breath. “In the alley. She overheard what you said. How she’s the one, and you have the ring. Without the right context it sounds like…”

  “Oh,” Bryce said, suddenly turning red. “Oh, shit.”

  “Y’all need to be more careful where you discuss our plan,” Xander lectured. “You never know who might be listening.”

  “That’s why I was purposefully vague!” Bryce said.

  “Still, though.”

  “Guys?” I cut in. “If someone doesn’t explain what’s going on right now I’m walking out of here.”

  The waitress chose that moment to return and take our drink orders. Xander ordered a water while Bryce and Eddie ordered beer.

  “Make it three,” I said.

  Bryce waited until the waitress was out of sight before turning back to me. “It’s a long story.”

  “I’ve got nowhere to be.”

  “The Volga Hotel and Casino,” Xander said. “You applied for the job from the outside, right?”

  “What do you mean from the outside?”

  “You weren’t brought in by the Russians themselves.”

  “I applied through the Las Vegas job postings website,” I said. “If that’s what you mean. Why does it matter?”

  They all nodded like they knew that already but wanted to be certain. “Let’s tell her.”

  “But how much does she know?” Xander said.

  “I told her a little bit last night,” Bryce said. “But not a lot.”

  “Wait, you didn’t tell me anything last night,” I said.

  “I did,” he insisted. “About Vladimir Yegorovich.”

  “I have no idea what that has to do with anything,” I said. “Or why I’m here.”

  “Yegorovich is a corrupt Russian oligarch,” Eddie said. He clasped his hands on the table like this was a job interview. “One of the worst guys in the world. Responsible for as much corruption under Putin as anyone else. He was personally responsible for the two journalists poisoned with Polonium in Europe four years ago. An all around terrible human being.”

  Bryce shook his head. “Yet somehow he was exempt from the Magnitsky Act.”

  “The what?”

  “You’re getting too detailed,” Xander warned.

  “Sanctions on certain Russian individuals,” Eddie explained. “Most oligarchs can’t do business around the world because of the Magnitsky Act sanctions. But Yegorovich is one of the few men exempt. So he came here and built this casino in Las Vegas. He brought his entire family and extended family. It’s Yegorovich’s all the way down.”

  “Members of his family run almost every part of the casino. The boss that chewed you out yesterday?” Bryce said. “That’s Ezekiel Endarovich, Yegorovich’s second cousin.”

  “You’re not doing anything to help calm my fears,” I said. “But it sounds like Yegorovich trying to get away from all that corruption back in Russia.”

  Xander snorted. “No ma’am.”

  “It’s worse than that,” Bryce said. “Yegorovich isn’t escaping the other oligarchs. He’s extending their power. The entire casino exists to help launder money for these other oligarchs so they can live cushy lives outside Russia.”

  They all stopped to look at me like they had explained everything.

  “Money laundering,” I repeated. “How exactly does that work?”

  “It’s pretty simple,” Xander said, leaning back and tilting his cowboy hat up. I could see a mess of dirty blond hair underneath. “They take tainted oligarch money and inject it into the casino. They have about 20 mules dressed up as high rollers in expensive suits who lose a lot of money at roulette and blackjack. Dropping tens of thousands of dollars at a time. They place really bad bets to make sure they lose.”

  I remembered the Russian guy I’d seen hit on 17 in blackjack yesterday. He’d had at least $10,000 wagered on that one hand.

  Xander continued, “That money goes into the casino’s books as legitimate income. It gets deposited into company bank accounts. Yegorovich pays taxes on it. And then he’s free to distribute it back to the oligarchs in private accounts.”

  “The sanctions in the Magnitsky Act essentially froze the other oligarchs’ bank accounts,” Bryce said. “These new, seemingly legitimate accounts give the oligarchs free range around the world to do what they please.”

  The waitress returned with our drinks. I took a long pull of beer to give myself time to think. “Okay. I think I understand. How do you guys factor into all this? Are you guys federal agents trying to catch them laundering the money? Throw them in prison?”

  The three of them grinned. Three handsome men who thought they were too clever for their own good.

  Bryce said, “Hell no. We want to steal the money.”

  7

  Sage

  “You want to steal the money,” I repeated.

  “Yes ma’am,” Xander said.

  Eddie started to explain more but I waved him off. “I still have about a billion questions. Stealing money from a Las Vegas casino is pretty much the most difficult thing to do in the world.”

  “A normal casino, sure,” Bryce said. “But a corrupt casino?”

  “They’ve left a lot of holes in their security,” Eddie explained. “That’s how I first caught on to what they were doing. Some areas with security camera blind spots. Security workers who are given a special shift nobody talks about. Lots of secrecy. Presumably they have these security gaps to allow them to move money around without anyone noticing. You don’t want video recordings of your money laundering sitting on a server somewhere, right? But those gaps also give us an opportunity.”

  “And once the theft happens, they can’t exactly report it to the Nevada Gaming Commission,” Bruce said. “They’d have to eat it. We wouldn’t have any legitimate police after us.”

  “No,” I said, “you’d just have bloodthirsty Russians after you instead. Getting whacked is way worse than getting thrown in jail!”

  “That’s why we have to be careful,” Bryce said. “And it’s why we need you.”

  “Oh, right.” I gestured with my beer. “That’s the one skill this crazy casino heist is missing: the ability to serve cocktails.”

  Eddie shrugged. “You joke, but a cocktail waitress is exactly what we need. Someone to help be our eyes and ears. Keep an eye on things, gather information. Get into places others can’t.”

  “You’re a security guard!” I said. “What areas can I get into that you can’t?”

  His emerald eyes were unfazed. “I also attract attention. People stop what they’re doing and look when a security guard enters a room. But cocktail waitresses are ignored unless someone needs a drink. You might as well be background furniture.”

  “Gee, thanks,” I said. “Are you sure this isn’t a joke you’re pulling on me? You’re all serious?”

  “Serious as a heart attack,” Xander said.

  This was nuts. I wasn’t a thief, or any kind of criminal for that matter. I cringed when I took a coin out of the give-a-penny-take-a-penny tray at convenience stores. Being part of a robbery wasn’t in my blood. Not to mention pissing off the Russian mafia.

  “Thanks for the beer, but I’m gunna pass,” I said, rising to my feet. “There’s nothing that would make me be a part of something so—”

  “$3 million dollars.”

  I froze with my hand on my purse. The number brought with it an eerie silence, like that amount of money had an aura that followed it around whenever someone spoke its name.

  I sat back down. “Is that how much you think you can steal from these guys?”

  “No,” Eddie said with a smile. “That’s what your take would be.”
>
  “That’s just an estimate,” Bryce quickly said. “But I’ve been watching the suspicious Russians at my blackjack tables. Some rough math has me guessing they’re laundering about $12 million per week.”

  “Split four ways is $3 million each,” Eddie said.

  It was a dizzying number. The kind of number that had never been real to me since it was so out of reach. Other people might not think $3 million was a lot, but he might as well have said ten gazillion dollars for all my brain could process it.

  “You’d pay me… That much money,” I said, “to do what exactly?”

  Bryce shrugged like it was no big deal. “Gather information. Watch certain guys, especially the mules, and keep track of what they do. Who they talk to. Where they go.”

  “The big thing is we can’t figure out where they get the money in the first place,” Eddie said. “Where it originates, and where it’s distributed to the mules.”

  “That’s it?” I asked. “Just doing my normal job but reporting extra information to you guys?”

  “That’s it,” Eddie said.

  “You can give it a good think before saying yes,” Xander said. “Take a day. Go over all the pros and cons. We don’t want you involved unless you’re totally committed.”

  “I, uhh, will definitely need to think on it,” I said. “What if I say no? I know about your plan, now.”

  “We’ll just have to trust you to forget everything you heard here tonight.”

  “How do you know I won’t go straight to Yegorovich with this info?” I said. “I bet he would reward me for turning you three in.”

  A dark mood fell over the group. Xander leaned back casually and draped one arm over the booth. “Yeah, he might reward ya. Might kill ya too, on account of ya knowing too much.”

  I put up my hands. “I was only joking. Your secret’s safe with me, no matter what I decide.”

  The tension remained, like I’d ruined the mood of the discussion irreparably. I grabbed my purse, mumbled a goodbye, and headed for the door.

  I was sucking in my first breath of the fresh evening air when I realized Bryce was my ride. Shit. We were miles from the strip and home, too far to walk. Not safe at night.

  I didn’t want to go back inside and ask Bryce to give me a ride, but what else was I supposed to do?

  Turning back to the door, I was greeted with Bryce coming through. His eyes were soft as he asked, “Forgot that you were stranded here without me?”

  “Sure did.”

  He held up his phone. “I called you an Uber. It’s two minutes away.”

  I relaxed. “That’s sweet of you.”

  “It was sweet of you to come listen to our proposal.” He shoved his hands in his jacket and looked around. “Listen. If you’re not comfortable with this, there’s no shame in saying no. We’ll understand. You’ll never have to see any of us again.”

  But I want to see you again. It was a feeling I’d been fighting all day, that our one night stand should be more than just that. The thought of saying goodbye and leaving them to their heist made the pit of my stomach ache.

  “You mean that?” I said. “You guys won’t bury me in the desert if I say no?”

  His smile was curt. “That’s something Yegorovich and his goons would do. We’re not like them. We’re better than them. That’s the whole point of all this.”

  “I thought the point was to steal a shitload of money,” I said.

  He shrugged one shoulder. “That too. But it’s extra fun to steal it from a bad guy.”

  I hesitated. “Is that really true? That Yegorovich would…” I trailed off, unable to say the words in a serious context.

  “Kill us? Probably,” Bryce admitted. “Or worse. Guys like them don’t get into positions of power by being lenient. If you help us, you’re risking that.”

  “It’d be easier if they would just hand us $12 million without a fuss,” I said.

  “If only life was that easy.”

  We smiled at each other, not sure what else to say.

  A silver Hyundai pulled up to the diner. “That’s your ride,” Bryce said, bending down to open the door for me. “Think on what we talked about.”

  I started to get in, then stopped. “Hey! I forgot to ask. What ring were you talking about? In the alley with Eddie. You said you had the ring and everything. It’s what made me think you were proposing.”

  “Oh. Ohh.” He slapped his forehead and reached into a pocket, coming out with a plain silver ring and a separate ear piece. “These are special radio communication rings. There’s a microphone built in. It’s how we communicate in the casino when we’re doing research for the job—we just scratch our mouths and whisper into them. Better than pulling out our phones and sending texts.”

  “Fancy.”

  “Yours was only $20. Electronics are cheap these days. Anyone can be James Bond.”

  “Or Moneypenny,” I said with a smile.

  He held open the door again, and this time I slide into the seat. He closed it for me and watched as the driver took me away.

  8

  Xander

  This was a mistake.

  There was an old saying that three people could keep a secret, but only if two of them were dead. That may be a joke, but it was the lord’s honest truth. The more folks you had in a plan—especially something shady, or downright criminal—the more likely someone would spill the beans, either intentionally or by accident. That was true even in the best of circumstances, among trusted friends.

  But with this girl?

  I watched her out the window as she got into the car. She was nice to look at, and had the right job to help us gather information, but there was a major flaw to her that Bryce had neglected to mention. As soon as the Uber drove away he came back inside, sat down, and looked at us.

  “Well?”

  I said nothing. I liked to listen to other opinions before offering my own, and I was especially interested in what Eddie had to say.

  “She’s fine,” he said. “I still don’t think we need to bring in a fourth person…”

  “We’ve been over this,” Bryce said with an exasperated slump. “We’ve hit a dead end. We need new information. And when it comes time to steal the cash, someone like her will make a perfect lookout.”

  Eddie glowered back at him. “I don’t like how she joked about Yegorovich burying us in the desert.”

  “Oh, come on.”

  “It’s not funny. None of this is.”

  “She was nervous,” Bryce said. “Making jokes is a defense mechanism.”

  “Or it’s a sign that she doesn’t understand the danger involved. The last thing we need is someone acting reckless. Getting us caught.”

  “She understands,” Bryce insisted. “And if she doesn’t, I’ll help her understand.”

  “Maybe,” Eddie said doubtfully.

  Bryce turned to me. “You gunna chime in?”

  I gave one firm nod. “She’s a singer.”

  “She’s not gunna tell anyone about—”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t mean that metaphorically. She’s literally a singer. I saw her perform at the Golden Goose the other night.”

  Bryce blinked. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Singers love drama,” I said. “They’re gossips, too. Trust me, I would know. You can’t trust them to keep any secret, let alone one this big.”

  “Sage is different.”

  “And what makes you so sure of that?” I asked. “Because you slept with her?”

  “It’s not like that. She’s trustworthy.”

  “You don’t know that. You don’t know that at all.” Next to me Eddie was bobbing his head in agreement. “If she was at a dump like the Golden Goose, that means she’s a struggling performer. Still trying to make it big. That’s a tough life making the rounds, working your way up the ladder. You know how it is in this town. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”

  “Xander…”

&nbs
p; “You know what I’d do if I were her? Go straight to Yegorovich. Tell him everything we said tonight. Name names. Then try to angle that into a performance gig at the Volga.”

  “Not everyone is as shrewd as you,” Bryce said.

  “Not shrewd. Just realistic. Especially when it comes with trusting someone with my life.”

  “Look,” Bryce said. He had that look in his eyes that said he wasn’t going to let this go. Like a dog with a bone. “My instincts are good, and my instincts are telling me she’s the right person. We’ve already made the offer. Let’s see what she says and go from there. Alright?”

  I didn’t think she was the right person. But maybe she would decline and then we wouldn’t have to worry about it.

  “We’ll see,” I said as I sipped my drink.

  9

  Sage

  I thought about it on the ride home. At least I tried to think about it. All of this was so foreign that it was difficult to wrap my head around it.

  Russian mafia. No, worse: a Russian oligarch and his henchmen. That was like the mafia dialed up a few notches, with international connections to boot. Money laundering in a casino. A plan to steal it all.

  $3 million.

  That was something I could wrap my head around. The number was an exclamation point in my head. That was a life-changing amount of cash. Almost all of my problems were money related. Everything would get easier.

  “Money doesn’t mean much if you’re dead,” I muttered.

  The Uber driver looked at me in the rear-view mirror. “What’s that?”

  “Nothing.”

  The apartment was empty when I got home—Angela had the late shift at the Volga tonight. She was an interesting character; rather than jostling for the rush hour shifts with the most casino traffic, she happily requested the graveyard shifts on most nights. Maybe she didn’t care about tips and enjoyed the relative peace and quiet those shifts offered. In any case, it gave me some alone time to sit down and take a realistic look at my finances.