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Technically, I guess it’s a boiler room, but it might as well pass for a jail cell. I slept curled up on the concrete, huddled as close to the burning hot water heater as I could get, because it’s the only warmth in this damp, leaking basement. My arms are still tied behind me, and I’m positive I’ve permanently lost feeling in at least one pinky. My cheek is wet from drool, the gag between my lips soaked through, and my lips themselves chapped from it.
Every inch of my body hurts. But worse than the physical pain, worse than anything Rich could order his men to do to me, is the full-body nervous panic that seized me all night, kept me awake and staring at the tiny blinking red Exit light above the door they shoved me through. I think I slept maybe two or three hours, and only then because I basically fainted, delirious. It’s hard to tell down here, though. There are no windows. No clocks. No sense of time passing, or any sign of life at all aside from the odd wheeze or sigh of the boilers.
But now, footsteps.
I push myself upright, using my elbow to lever myself up. It takes a couple of tries. My pinky starts to burn and tingle. I guess it’s not completely dead. I wince as pins and needles race up my arms, through my legs, through every inch of my body that was not built for sleeping between a rock and a hard place.
Luckily adrenaline spikes fast enough in my brain to wake me up, even if I’d much rather remain unconscious through this next ordeal.
Showtime, it seems.
Two bodyguards shove open the door to the boiler room. Different guys from the ones last night, I think, though it’s hard to tell. They really do all look alike, faceless, nameless gym rats with no personality or thoughts of their own. They grab me under the armpits, one on each side, and haul me to my feet. It takes me a moment to get my footing, but they don’t give me that time. They’re already yanking me forward, frog-marching me out of the room and toward the distant staircase.
As we exit the boiler room, I shoot one last glance down the hallway, the same one I memorized last night. Two lefts from Rich’s office, through an unmarked door that blends into the wood paneling of the casino, down a long staircase, and into this basement. This basement with a door at the far end, a glowing red emergency exit sign above it, and sunlight showing through the tiniest crack at the bottom of it now.
I turn my face back to what’s in front of me. The last thing I want is for these guards to catch me staring. For the moment, this hallway seems empty. Quiet as a churchyard. Rich talked yesterday about posting guards down here, but if he didn’t remember to do it, I’m not going to be the one to remind him.
The stairs up to the second floor of the Revel are long and arduous. Not so much because they’re any steeper or higher than any other two-story climb, but because dread weighs heavy on my shoulders, knowing what’s awaiting me at the top of them.
When the guards push open double doors into a private gaming room, and the first thing I see is him, standing beside Rich, suited up like all the other bodyguards, hands deep in his pockets, a fresh wave of marrow-deep pain nearly keels me over.
Stone.
For some reason, I expected him to be long gone by now. I heard Rich set him free yesterday. He seemed more than happy to be done with this case, with me. To throw us all behind him in the rearview mirror and high-tail it out of town.
So why is he here now? Just to witness the downfall he set in motion?
I don’t have time to think too hard about it. Voices in the hallway snap me to attention, and the next thing I know, the doors part again, and it’s all coming to a head.
There stands my brother, framed by another pair of guards, clutching a small carry-on suitcase in both tight, pale hands.
His eyes find mine immediately. He offers me a faint smile, and the slightest shake of his head, so tiny that no one else likely even noticed it, before his gaze moves on. It sweeps the room. Passes right over Stone like he doesn’t even register. Maybe he doesn’t. There are at least six other men in here, all of them big and imposing—like Stone.
He’s just like them, I tell myself, my chest going numb because I don’t want to believe it’s true. All along, he was just like them.
“Glad you came through, Ian.” Rich spreads his arms wide, and everyone else in the room zeroes in on him. That’s one thing I’ll grant him. The man knows how to suck up all the attention in an area without even breaking a sweat.
“I said I would,” my brother says, his tone forcedly congenial. Like he doesn’t mind this all that much. Like he gets himself into situations like this one all the time. Back in the old days, he did.
“So
rry your friends won’t be able to make it, by the way,” Rich adds. “They seem to have run into a bit more of a holdup than they expected.”
Ian stutters to a halt, halfway across the room which he’d been crossing. His face blanches, and my heart sinks into my shoes. Oh no.
“What are you talking about?” he asks, his voice a too shaky to come across convincingly. He’s trying to look brave, but he’s scared shitless by that comment. Like he’s had the wind knocked out of his sails in one foul breath.
“Your friends at the bureau. The ones who’d planned to storm through my front doors as soon as you pass me that briefcase full of tagged bills.” Rich smiles so politely it looks borderline deranged.
My eyes shoot straight to Stone. No one else knew about Ian working for the FBI. No one else knew that there was backup coming, to help him after this drop. Only one person could have told Rich. And it explains what he’s doing standing at his right hand like a prodigal son right now.
I can’t help myself. I launch toward them both, screeching through the gag. The guards to either side of me react a second too late, and I get a few steps across the room before they grab me again, holding me back. I stomp on their feet and knee one in the balls, smirking hard as he doubles over, before the other one wrestles me into an arm-bar that forces me to freeze, tears stinging at the corners of my eyes as my elbow strains in its joint.
“I thought we discussed yesterday that favors would get you much better treatment.” Rich laughs at me again, and I see red.
“Let her go,” Ian interrupts. “She has nothing to do with this.”
“Your lovely sister has everything to do with this.” Rich’s eyes flash with triumph. “She brought you to me, did she not?”
