Page 6 of The Bratva King

“Extra security,” I say finally.

Pasha pulls out his phone. “Done.”

“I want to know who’s giving the orders before I do anything about it,” I say. “I don’t swing at shadows.”

“And when you know?”

“When I know,” I say quietly, “I won’t need to swing more than once.”

A slow smile spreads across Pasha’s face.

We head back toward the entrance. The heat hits me when we step outside, that particular Las Vegas wall of it. It’s so dry, a deep breath feels like it could shrivel my lungs. Despite the heat, I’m wearing my usual attire. Long-sleeved black button-down and black slacks. People assume I’d be hot. I always point out how people in other parts of the world dress in the desert.

I refuse to be hot, and that’s that. I pull on my sunglasses and look up at the facade of the building. Forty stories of glass and steel, all mine.

They can steal my copper. They can crack my water mains, spook my workers, and try to bleed me out dollar by dollar.

This hotel will open.

And when it does, there won’t be a single person in this city who doesn’t know who built it.

I get in the backseat of the SUV, and Pasha climbs into the seat beside me.

My driver navigates Tropicana Avenue with ease. Pasha is on his phone the whole way, arranging the additional security I asked for.

The SUV pulls up to Imperiya’s main entrance, and I’m out before the driver stops. The valets know better than to make eye contact and try to chat me up. Nobody had to tell them twice. I don’t require warmth from the people who work for me; I require competence.

The doors slide open, and the casino swallows me whole.

Imperiya is the most profitable property I own. It makes more money than all Maksim’s clubs in Miami put together and Sergei’s many businesses in New York. Once Tatiana opens, no one will question who owns this city.

Tatiana. My brothers don’t know I’ve decided to name the new legitimate property after our mother. I don’t know what they’ll think about it, but it’s my choice.

She deserved something that would outlive all of us.

I move through the floor, cataloguing everything. Tables running. Dealers alert. Money moving.

I stop at the first security station near the main entrance, and the floor manager, Davis, materializes at my elbow. He’s good. Ex-military, keeps his reports tight and his opinions to himself unless I ask for them. I like people who don’t waste my time with words.

“Anything overnight?” I ask.

“Card counter at table nine around two in the morning. We flagged him, moved him off the floor.”

“Banned?”

“Temporarily. Wanted to run it by you first.”

“Permanently,” I say.

He nods once and taps his tablet.

I pass the high-limit room and glance through the glass. Three tables running, modest for a Thursday afternoon. The serious money comes after dark.

I know most of the regulars on the floor. A woman in a red dress calls my name. I recognize her as the wife of a real estate developer who likes to think we’re friends because I’ve had dinner at his table twice. I offer her a nod. She expected more. They usually do. She’s propositioned me more than once.

I stop at the surveillance hub behind the main floor. Most guests don’t know the room exists. Connor, my head of surveillance, pulls up the overnight footage before I ask. We go through the flagged clips in less than four minutes. Nothing requires my direct attention beyond the card counter that Davis already handled.

Pasha catches up to me near the poker room, still on his phone, one finger raised. I wait. He wraps the call and pockets the phone.