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Chapter1
Bianca
Ding! Ding! Ding!
Obnoxious slot machine noises only vaguely overtook the sound of some outrageous redhead shrieking as coins spilled from the lip of a winner. For half a second, I peered at the earnings with unadulterated envy, swallowing the thickness in the back of my throat as the buxom woman fell drunkenly over her companion, cherry-red nails splayed over his black blazer.
“I told ya I was lucky, Dukey,” she cooed, her shrill tone gnawing on my already raw nerves. “You should’ve brought me here weeks ago!”
“You only won five hundred, Miri,” “Dukey” snorted contemptuously. “I tip my hairdresser more than that.”
I wanted to extend my claws and slash Dukey’s stupid, smug face, but I inhaled, steeling my heaving chest, and reminded myself what I was there to do. Causing a scene would only deter me from the task at hand. I wanted to be in and out.
I couldn’t stand there, gawking at the ridiculously undeserving patrons of the Golden Halcyon casino. I already stuck out like a sore thumb in my ratty jeans and sheer, white blouse. Women like me didn’t belong in places like this, where men like Dukey and his entourage of super-skinny, fae-types clung to his arm like cufflinks, falling all over themselves for a moment or two of fleeting pleasure.
What was I thinking coming in here like this?
Panic overwhelmed me, but I took another breath. What waited for me beyond the walls of the casino was much, much worse.
I had to succeed in this mission. Dahlia needed me. I needed me.
Focus. Pay attention. Keep going.
“You work here?”
A fat, pompous lion shifter deliberately pushed into me, the sweat of his body filling my nostrils. Bile immediately flooded my windpipe, and I shook my head, stepping back. His eyes popped as my face turned toward him. Everything about him repulsed me instinctively. Coupled with my already fraying nerves, I was shocked I didn’t vomit right there on his three-thousand-dollar shoes.
If the idiot had bothered to look past the swell of my breasts toward my dingy clothing, he would have plainly seen that I didn’t don the standard uniform for the Golden Halcyon or any other of Atlas’ casinos in Covale City. But this shifter wasn’t looking at anything but my rack.
“Hey, you’re cute!” he mewled, reaching outward to touch my ass, the meat of his fingers landing precisely between the cleft of my cheeks. Instinctively, I slapped him. I immediately regretted it, the scowl on his face familiar.
“Who the fuck do you think you are, trash?” he hissed. “I’ll see that you don’t work anywhere ever again!”
“Asshole,” I muttered, slinking away into the thick of well-dressed patrons, hoping that he didn’t follow.
I don’t think he even heard my insult, which was lucky for me; his attention was quickly shifted elsewhere. A scantily dressed server ambling by caught his ogling eyes. I wasn’t looking to fight, and he’d already steered me off course more than I needed to be.
I fixated on my plan, ignoring the clamminess forming on the inner part of my palms. This was not my first time inside the Golden Halcyon, but it may as well have been. Suddenly, I felt all turned around, the VIP room further away from the front door than I initially remembered it.
Didn’t I count fifty paces the last time I was here? Why does it seem like a hundred?
Swallowing thickly, I tried to forget the number of steps toward the back and instead just settled on making my way to the elusive area where all the big spenders would surely be deeply into their cups by now. It was well after midnight, the liquor flowing for hours. Taking what I needed would be easy with the rooms full and almost everyone drunk.
Or at least, that was my hope.
I’d planned this a dozen times in my head, accounting for security and various other obstacles, but now that the night was upon me, I wasn’t sure I’d considered all the variables.
Don’t be a chicken shit, Bianca. You can’t wait any longer,my inner voice screamed.
It wasn’t the motivational pep talk I needed. It certainly didn’t inspire me in any real way. What I was about to do was both stupid and reckless. But given the alternative—returning to Jesse’s harem and waiting for my twin sister to recover so we could be further exploited and humiliated—well, this was a no-brainer. Theft was the lesser of two evils in my life, definitely.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
I balked, my head tipping back as I confronted my first real problem of the night. And what a problem he was. Standing over seven feet tall, I suspected he was a dragon shifter, but I couldn’t be certain. Whatever he was, he radiated pure, brute force, and my insides quivered. He peered down at me stoically, steely eyes unimpressed as I blinked, mind reeling.
“The VIP room,” I announced, forcing a note of authority into my words. “I want to play at the big tables.”
If he was amused by the idea of my impoverished ass mingling with the crème de la crème of Covale City, he didn’t show it in his face.
