“Come on...we’ve hardly seen each other these past few weeks, thanks to the curfew. And you’re always running off to South Side parties—” his eyes wandered over her uppity dress “—wearing far too much periwinkle when you could be wearing...” He stopped, laughing at his own joke, knowing she probably wouldn’t.
“What were you going to say?” Enne prodded.
He bit his lip to hold back his grin. “Nothing.”
She looked confused for a moment, then her eyes widened and she pushed him away, smirking. “And you wear far too much silver. You look ridiculous.”
“You should take some off me, then.”
She rolled her eyes and shifted the car into drive.
* * *
Fitz Oliver waited for them as they got out of the motorcar. He wore a red-and-white-striped suit, like peppermint candy, and his own motorcar was cherry red to match. He lifted his arms up as they approached, gesturing to the entire boardwalk behind him. A ferris wheel imposed on the skyline, the clouds behind it as idyllic as candy floss. The air smelled of sea and freshly poured concrete—like opportunity.
“Levi!” he exclaimed. “I was ecstatic to get your call. And you brought company.” He kissed Enne’s hand, as though they were meeting at a party rather than behind a construction site. “Your boyfriend is about to make the best business decision of his life.”
Enne gave Fitz a startled but polite smile. “And what exactlyisthe best business decision of his life?”
“After today’s tour, he’s going to agree to purchase the largest casino on the boardwalk.” Fitz beamed and looked up at the sky, unfazed by the blinding sun. “I have a lot of interested buyers—in far better criminal standing, I might add. The deal wouldn’t be public, of course. But a mystery buyer?” He tipped his hat at Levi. “I know the value of a rumor. And what they say about you? Priceless.”
Levi was easily swayed by flattery, even if it came from a man with expensive taste in hideous things. “Lead the way, then,” he said.
But Enne was harder to convince. “The North Side has been on lockdown for three weeks, but you’re still interested in selling it to a gangster?”
Levi shot Enne an annoyed look, but Fitz seemed hardly perturbed by her comment. “The boardwalk opens next summer. Do you really think the city will still be in lockdown by then? The curfew has everyone losing volts. No, in a few months, my firm believes New Reynes will look entirely different.”
Levi was beginning to like Fitz more and more. He wrapped his arm around Enne’s shoulder as they followed Fitz across the parking lot.
“This is the casino you mentioned last month?” Enne whispered to Levi. “Where are you finding the volts for this?”
“I just...” He sighed. “I just wanted to see it.”
Fitz stopped and pointed at an unpainted, half-finished structure. It was magnificently large, with spiraling towers and grand windows that overlooked the ocean.
As Levi breathed in the smells of sea and construction, he felt a wistful pang in his chest. He wanted this terribly, but standing here, looking at it, he knew he couldn’t have it. Not just because of the volts, but because he already had everything. Wasn’t that what Jac had told him? That Levi was selfish and incapable of self-restraint?
“Well,” Fitz said, beaming, “let’s give it a peek, shall we?”
They followed Fitz inside, Enne pulling Levi ahead even as he froze in front of the threshold. Marble tiles glistened along the floor of the lobby, alternating black and white. Those same colors were everywhere he looked—on the wood of the attendant desks, on the columns, on the doors. It felt like walking into an optical illusion.
Or a dream.
Levi and Enne halted abruptly past the doors, and chills broke out across his neck.
“Is this what you call destiny?” she whispered.
This was the opposite of what he considered destiny. Levi hoped and wanted for things so much that he could see destiny in anything—in the numbers on a pair of dice, in the graffiti on a corner of Olde Town. But he always saw destiny as positive, a force guiding him toward something great.
If this was his destiny, it felt like something darker. Something cursed.
“This is what I call coincidence,” he answered carefully.
Fitz turned around, his arms lifted up once again. “Tremendous, isn’t it?” He shot them an ear-to-ear smile. “And we’re only just getting started!”
Fitz toured them through the rest of the casino. Each room, indeed, seemed more tremendous than the next. But even if it wasn’t exactly identical to the hallway, Levi still held his breath each time Fitz opened a new door, expecting to find a nightmare waiting behind it.
“So what do you think?” Fitz asked finally, once they returned to the atrium.
