Chapter 11 #2
Too many people. Too many bodies. Too many eyes. I keep mine moving the entire time—faces, hands, reflections in glossy surfaces, security angles, open lanes, dead ground, anyone who looks too interested or not interested enough.
Caterina doesn’t slow. Doesn’t hesitate.
She knows this floor. Knows the rhythm of it, the places where guests drift and where they bunch. She cuts through it with the calm assurance of someone who belongs here so completely that nobody thinks to question it.
Useful.
Still not safe.
The Bordeaux room sits just off high-limit behind heavy doors and deep red walls meant to signal privacy and status. Better than the open floor. Still not ideal. But there are walls, one entrance, and fewer variables, which is enough for me right now.
The host waits outside, one hand clasped over the other in front of her, face composed now that she’s no longer delivering bad news.
“He’s still upset,” she says softly. “But he’s inside.”
Caterina nods. “Thank you.”
I catch the host’s eye for one second. “You stay out here.”
She nods immediately, relieved.
I open one of the doors and step back so Caterina can enter first.
I open the door, let her enter first, and step in behind her.
The high roller is exactly what I expected.
Late fifties, expensive suit, face red with anger and self-importance, standing in the middle of a room built to flatter men like him. His assistant is younger, thinner, more polished, and currently wearing the expression of a man who spends a lot of time cleaning up after other people’s messes.
The high roller turns the second Caterina enters and starts talking before she’s taken three full steps inside.
“There you are,” he snaps. “I’ve been treated like a goddamn inconvenience in my own house.”
Caterina stops at a distance that gives him nothing and says, calm as still water, “Then let’s fix the issue.”
No apology. No rush to soothe.
Not even to snap back that it’s not his own house, but hers.
Just immediate authority.
“An issue?” he repeats. “That’s a hell of a word for humiliating one of your best players.”
Caterina doesn’t flinch.
I stay to her right and a little back, close enough to move if I need to, far enough not to turn this into a show of force.
My eyes move over the room once and keep moving.
One door. One guest. One assistant. One narrow strip of mirrored wall.
One bar cart. Two low armchairs. One table. No one else.
Halloran’s eyes zero in on me immediately anyway.
“And who the hell is this?” he bolsters.
“Not part of the problem,” Caterina says smoothly before I can answer.
That doesn’t improve his mood, but it does keep his focus where it belongs.
He launches into the story. Marker delay. Embarrassment. Poor handling. Outrage. Threats to take his business elsewhere. The usual script from entitled but emotionally immature men like him.
Caterina lets him talk.
Smart.
Not because he deserves the floor. Because people like him need to hear themselves empty out before they’ll listen to a solution.
In the meantime, I watch everything. His hands, his assistant, the door, and everything else in the room, as well as keeping an ear out for the casino floor outside the door. Nothing unusual. Nothing immediate.
When Halloran finally runs down enough to breathe, Caterina says, “Let me understand the exact issue.”
The shift is subtle, but it’s there. She moves him from emotion to specifics without ever sounding like she’s ordering him to calm down. That’s a skill.
He tells her. Marker amount. Delay in approval. A floor employee who apparently said the wrong thing in a tone he didn’t like.
Caterina speaks calmly and precisely, making the man’s continued anger look foolish in comparison. Her voice is level, her posture easy, no apology because none is needed.
By the end, the issue is laid out completely in reasonable tones, and Halloran has no choice but to calm down.
Caterina calls for the floor manager, who comes immediately. wallpaper.
“Who is holding the approval?” she asks.
“Finance review, ma’am. It should’ve cleared fifteen minutes ago.”
She nods once. “Call them now.”
The manager is already reaching for his phone.
Halloran throws up one hand, anger renewed with a new person as an audience. “I should not have to sit in a back room like I’m being punished because your people can’t do basic math.”
Caterina turns her head to him again. “You’re in a private room because you asked for executive attention, and I’m giving it to you.”
That stops him for a moment. Not enough to make him pleasant, but enough to shut him up for three full seconds.
He sits, mostly because there isn’t a better move available to him without looking more ridiculous than he already does.
The call goes through.
Two minutes later, the hold is cleared, the paperwork is fixed, and Halloran’s fury has nowhere left to go except wounded pride. Caterina handles that too, giving him just enough dignity—and comps—back that he can leave this room telling himself he won instead of complaining louder downstairs.
The whole thing was efficient from start to finish. Exactly the kind of executive handling that made her insist on coming in the first place.
I still don’t like that she had to.
But I understand it better now.
When Halloran finally stands and smooths his jacket with a curt nod that is meant to feel magnanimous, Caterina says, “I appreciate your patience, Mr. Halloran.”
It is such a blatant lie that I nearly respect it on principle.
He leaves with his assistant and the floor manager trailing after him.
The door closes.
Caterina lets out a big exhale. “He is exhausting.”
“You handled him very well,” I comment.
Her head turns toward me, and for a second, the irritation she’s worn like a second skin since meeting me a week ago gives way to something closer to surprise.
“Well,” she says dryly, “that sounded almost sincere.”
“It was.”
That checks her for half a beat.
Then, because I’m not going to let the point sit there unchallenged, I add, “It was still a bad idea.”
Her eyes narrow immediately. “And there it is.”
“I didn’t say you handled it badly.”
“No,” she says. “You just can’t let me enjoy being right for more than two seconds.”
“That’s because you weren’t right.” I move toward the door and glance once through the narrow glass panel before opening it. “You were effective. That’s not the same thing.”
She folds her arms, but I can see the satisfaction still humming under the irritation now.
“That’s practically praise from you.”
“It’s all you’re getting.”
That earns me the briefest huff of laughter before she reins it back in.
I nod toward the door. “Back upstairs.”
We step back out onto the casino floor, and the noise hits all over again.
For one brief second, everything looks normal. Lights. laughter. drinks. dealers working through practiced motions. Staff moving with polished purpose. The floor breathing the way it always does.
Caterina falls in beside me, not as irritated as she was on the way down, though I know better than to mistake that for actual calm.
I’m scanning the floor.
The shortest route back to the administrative corridor cuts us past a bank of blackjack tables and the edge of the high-limit perimeter. Too open for my taste, but better than doubling back through the main artery of the floor where the crowd is thicker and the lines are messier.
That itching is back between my shoulder blades, and I want to get Caterina off the floor as soon as possible.
We are halfway to the doors when a voice rises, louder than the rest, cutting across the room. A chair scrapes hard across the floor at a blackjack table two tables away from us. The dealer flinches backward. Then another voice snaps up to meet the first.
I turn my head just in time to see one man lunge half out of his chair and shove another in the shoulder. The second man stumbles, catches himself against the rail, and comes back swinging.
The floor erupts.
I reach for Caterina, but not fast enough. She has already taken off in the direction of the table, calling for security.
“Caterina,” I snap, already moving in her direction.
Another woman gasps. Chips scatter. Somebody backs away too quickly and blocks my path to Caterina.
Instinct has me reaching for my weapon, but I need to get to Caterina first. She's too far away, and there is now more than one person between us.
The fight gets louder as one of the men crashes into the edge of the blackjack table hard enough to knock it sideways.
The other man follows. And in the one instant before he reaches down for the other man who has fallen to the floor, I see his eyes pivot.
So quickly, it's almost invisible.
Quickly, they land on Caterina and then back to the man on the floor.
Everything in me goes cold.
That look was too fast, too clean, too aware.
Not panic. Not random spillover.
Assessment.
“Down!” I bark, my voice cracking across the noise as I shove through the bodies between us.
I’m at Caterina's side in an instant, my hand wrapping around her upper arm.
“Wha—” she starts, eyes wide as I start dragging her across the floor, using my body to shield hers. Her eyes widen even more when she notices the gun in my other hand. “Are you crazy? What are you— Let me go!”
I don't bother answering.
Behind us, the sound of the fight changes—less like two drunk idiots swinging, more like intentional movement. In our direction.
I don’t look back yet. Not until I’ve got her at a safe distance.
“Move,” I order. The word comes out flat and hard enough to cut through even her outrage.
I continue hauling her across the floor quickly, weaving through tables efficiently.
She stumbles once on her heels, catches herself, and digs in for half a second out of pure instinct.
“Adrian—”
She obviously knows by now that something is going on, but this isn't the time for questions.
I feel more than hear the fast approaching behind us. In the chaos left behind by their fight, there are people running all over the casino, grabbing chips, fighting, running around. It's pure chaos. And even if security were somehow aware of what was going on, they've got their hands full.
The side door is ten feet away and might as well be ten miles with the floor breaking apart behind us.
I angle us hard left around a roulette table, shove through the narrow gap between a server station and a pillar, and finally get a clean line to it.
I hit the push bar with my arm and drag Caterina through with me into the service corridor beyond.
The door slams shut behind us, cutting off most of the noise in one brutal sweep. Not silence. Never silence in a place like this, but quieter.
I shove Caterina back against the wall beside the door and turn, gun up.