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Thank you for your application and interest in this position.
However, we regret to inform you that—
I groan and close the email, not interested in reading the rest of the rejection. It'll be like all the others, after all. Either I don't have the right experience, or it's because I have no formal education, or it's both. If only I had a portfolio I could show off—but I doubt any HR reps would give me a fighting chance if they found out I'd spent the last seven-plus years of my life hacking machines for quick cash and running from trouble left and right.
Not that I feel like I have a fighting chance, anyway. I sigh deeply, glance at the pile of overdue bills on the desk, and then leave my laptop in my room, walking into the rest of the tiny apartment my mother and I share. She and I moved here immediately after my "accident" with my broken femur. She thinks I fell from a balcony, and I won't tell her I made her move here with me both to support her and to make sure the Wild Seven no longer know where she is.
This place isn't much. It's small, constantly strewn with toys and blankets, and I remind myself that I need to move laundry over before I head out because it's not fair to expect my mom to clean Evie's pajamas for tonight.
Evie…my daughter, Evelyn.
I spot her sitting on the couch, sucking on two fingers in her mouth as she listens to my mom chatter on the phone with one of her friends in the kitchen. My daughter is like a model baby. Seriously, she could be a poster child for some charming Italian brand. Her hair is dark as ink in little ringlets around her face, and her big, dark doe eyes fringed by impossibly long eyelashes light up whenever she sees me walk in.
She's my whole world.
As fucking hard as life has been since that unforgettable night, I'd never call what happened a mistake because I got my little Evie out of it. I squat down and straighten the pink bow she loves wearing so much, booping her button nose.
"Hi, cutie pie. Are you going to be good for Gammy?"
She grunts, reaching out to grab at my glittering necklace. It's not worth anything—just for show, like everything I wear to make me look the part as I work the same way I have for years.
"Can you say 'bye' for me?" I coo, kissing her round, pink little cheeks.
Evie toddles off the couch and reaches, making a grabby motion like she wants up, but she doesn't speak. She never really does.
She's the sweetest, most adorable thing in the world, but I'm concerned that she doesn't even babble incoherently like the other two-year-olds in the mom groups I've joined. Other kids chatter or even get sentences across, but Evie mostly observes everything with her dark, pretty eyes and keeps to herself around other kids. My mom says we should take her to a specialist, and maybe that wouldn't hurt, but there's no way I can afford it.
But I'm more optimistic than my mom is about it, overall. I'm positive that Evelyn is just more introverted than anyone in my family, including me, has ever been.
She'll be fine. I'll make sure of it—I willalwaysmake that my priority.
I pick her up, swinging her so she'll give me one of her cute little twinkly-eyed baby smiles, and then I kiss her head again and hand her over to my mom, who's now hung up from her call. I thank her again for watching Evie and explain that I'll return a little after midnight.
She thinks I have a late shift at a local diner. That might've been true a couple of weeks ago when I still worked there.
But I had only been working there for a month or so before it became clear that the guy who owned the place was shorting his employees, especially in tips, and that I wouldn't be able to support us if I stayed there. My mom works as a hairdresser occasionally but doesn't make enough to keep up with expenses. So for her and Evie, I've returned to…making my own Luck.
Instead of my mom's beat-up old car that's almost as old as I am, I get a rideshare and step out at the strip of casinos I've been thinking about for two weeks. My hand tightens on my purse—inside are a couple of my "lucky" coins and a smaller, more efficient version of the device I used to use.
These days, I'm still one of the top hackers around on top of being a mom. I'd love to not resort to this nearly every weekend, but long-term jobs have evaded me with the job market the way it is.
And then there are some newer, amateur hackers trying their hand in Las Vegas every now and then—they've made this shit way harder for the rest of us than it needs to be. I pay close attention to which casinos have given recent flaggings for hackers and which ones are most likely to kick me out at the slightest sign of significant "luck." After careful consideration and examining all the nearest betting halls, my search has brought me…back here.
The Golden Flame Casino looks almost the same as it did the last time I set foot inside just over three years ago. It's oozing class, and high money, the kind of markers experience Vegas hackers can pinpoint as signs of the mafia's influence.
I haven't come anywhere near this place since that day, especially not after discovering I was pregnant. This has been the stretch of casinos that I've totally ignored, and lately, they've seemed like the only places in town without any other hackers muddying the water. Given the Caputo family's unforgiving reputation, I'd been determined to avoid it at all costs. If he told his father, the casino owner, anything about me after that night…
But maybe he didn't.
And I'm getting desperate. Between close calls, while hacking other casinos and the endless bills piling up, this is the best way to get some cash to pay for the things my mom and Evie need. Like doctor's visits and food and rent…
It's just necessary. Plus, I seriously doubt that gorgeous mafioso will be here, and even if he is, he probably doesn't even remember that one little night with a stranger whose name he wasn't even sure was real.
Not to mention, I look different than I did three years ago. My hair is slightly shorter, undyed, and back to being bright blond. I have no contacts, and I've done my makeup differently. The simple black dress I'm in is far less daring—meant to avoid attention through blending in rather than misdirection like the last time.
And this time, I'm operating alone. I don't have to worry about breaking someone else's rules, just my own—and no way am I ever doing that again.
I can totally get away with this. Also? I'll be getting that tiny, satisfying sliver of revenge on the source that turned my father to drink and gamble himself into an early grave.
