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The next few hours we ran all around town before we finally ended up in a dark alley that looked nothing like the glitz and glamour of the Vegas strip. Even though in reality we were only a few blocks away… I’d experienced this before—you could turn a corner in a city and go from a bright shopping center to places like… Well, this.
A streetlamp flickered as if determined to make an already shady situation even more ominous.
Bishop confidently strode up to a heavy metal door and banged on it with the side of his fist.
When there was no answer after a moment, he banged again even harder.
The door finally opened, swinging outwards on ancient, squeaking hinges.
“Yeah?” said a giant who rivaled Tank for size. He might’ve even been bigger.
“I heard there was a game for high rollers here tonight.” Bishop said.
“Oh yeah?” the big bouncer said, crossing huge tree-trunk arms over his chest. “Says who?” He had an accent I couldn’t place.
Bishop didn’t back down. “Million dollar buy-in? And that I’d have to prove funds at the door.” He pulled out his phone and turned on the screen to his bank app.
He covered the account number with his thumb and showed the bouncer the sum. The big guy shrugged, till Bishop said, “I also heard that tipping the gentleman at the door couldn’t hurt.”
Bishop pulled out a stack of chips and handed them over to the man, who arched an eyebrow, deposited the chips, and finally opened the door.
“Welcome to Mr. Kostova’s residence. Please enjoy your visit.”
I’d all but gagged when Bishop had mentioned the million-dollar buy in, so I suppose him waving another fifteen thousand dollars in chips from one of the many casinos we’d stopped into looking for Cash along the way shouldn’t have made me even bat an eye. But still.
Bishop stepped inside and I scurried to follow behind him.
But when Mason tried to pass, the beefy bouncer shoved out his arm to stop him.
“Hey, I can pay the buy-in, and I like to have my friends with me for good luck.”
The bouncer looked us up and down, giving Tank a second once over. Then he nodded at me. “Just the girl.”
He shoved Mason back with his arm and waved an elegant gesture for such a big man, to invite me inside.
“Luna, don’t—” Mason said, shoving back against the bouncer. Which was a bad idea, from the way the man turned with a low rumble in his chest as he stood up to his full height. Which had to be six foot six? Maybe six foot seven?
“I’m fine,” I called back as I hurried after Bishop, who’d already disappeared inside. “Trust the luck, right?”
Wasn’t saying I believed it, but I also wasn’t about to be left behind like Mason and Tank. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Bishop. But better to be present for whatever this was we were about to walk into.
The bouncer slammed the door behind us and led the way down a dark hallway, then down a narrow staircase.
He pulled out a key from a chain around his neck and inserted it in the lock.
The door was heavy, some sort of reinforced metal, creaking as it swung open.
The air was musty as I took a deep breath, readying myself for anything. But the air expelled immediately from my lungs because nothing could have prepared me for seeing—
“Cash!” I gasped.
Which only caused some of the many men with guns raised to turn them on us. The rest were pointed at Cash, who was sitting at a poker table with a mountain of poker chips in front of him and his hands raised in the air.
“It’s not what it looks like,” Cash said, looking at me.
“It is exactly what it looks like,” said a slim man in his thirties with too much product in his hair and a cigar in his mouth. I could only assume he was Kostova. He sat across the table from Cash. All the other men seemed to be forming a circle around him. “You cheat.” He slammed a palm down on the table.
The bouncer ushered Bishop and me inside, closing the door with a clang behind us. I tried to make eye contact with Bishop, but he was just taking in the scene, looking… amused.
Dear God, I would kill him if he tried to pull any of that cowboy rockstar bullshit here. This was serious. These guns were real. Not some fucking stage prop.
But Bishop was a loose cannon at the best of times.
Before I could grab his arm or whisper at him not to be a dumbass, he lifted his hands in the air and broke away from me, heading to the center of the room where the poker table was. Men in sweaty suits parted for him, guns adjusting to point at his head as he went.
