Chapter Two #2
She flicked open a small hardcase—a portable, untraceable, hyperparanoid sort of thing—and slid it to me.
Inside were three USB sticks and a single white casino chip, our Aces Wild logo etched on one face.
I picked up the chip. It had been drilled, the kind of surgical bore you only noticed if you’d once run a chop shop.
Inside, a sliver of something glittered in the halogen light.
“Tracker?” I said.
“Listening device,” Stephanie corrected. “Your Turkish friend left it at Table 5. Took her less than sixty seconds, and your security team missed it twice.”
I felt heat crawl up my neck. “What else did I miss?”
“Play the blue stick,” Stephanie said. “It’s your security feed, but hacked. She ghosted your cameras for three minutes.”
I slotted it into my laptop, clicking through the static-laced footage.
The woman—Dark Shadow, Kara, whatever her real name—didn’t move like a thief.
She moved like a pro, every motion slow and deliberate, never hesitating.
The footage caught her eyes at one point, and even pixelated, I could tell she was looking straight into the lens.
“She wants you to know she was here,” Stephanie said.
I closed the laptop. “You bring this to the cops?”
“You know better,” she said. “Jack has Metro in his pocket. The Turkish mob owns three blocks in North Las Vegas. You’re on your own, unless you want to do it our way.”
“Which is?”
Stephanie smiled, but it was only muscle, no joy. “Show of force. But smarter. Be cleaner.”
Goblin slid back in, followed by Pearl and Calypso. Goblin was chewing on a toothpick now, a nervous tic.
“I’ve seen her work,” Goblin said, not waiting to be prompted. “She did a job in Hamilton last year. Nobody even knew she was in the country until a week later, when three guys turned up dead and the rest just left town.”
“Sounds efficient,” I said.
Goblin shrugged. “Sounds like a story until it’s you.”
Pearl set a manila folder on the table and opened it. Photos of casino owners slid out. Most were smiling in public shots, a few in hospital beds with tubes up their noses, one just a photo of an empty parking spot and a date scrawled beneath. The missing, the broken, the erased.
“Last four who didn’t play ball with Zeke,” Pearl said. “Two are probably fertilizer in the desert. One turned state's and moved to Miami. The last, he’s still missing. Smaller casinos just like yours.”
Stephanie tapped the folder. “It’s not just about you, Selene. If you go down, the ripple takes out everyone who matters to you. Including Mary.”
I tensed. “Leave her out of this.”
“We’re trying,” Stephanie said. “But Zeke’s smart. He’ll come at you sideways. We believe Zeke and Kara are working together.”
There it was. The inevitable pressure, the leverage. I felt the wall clock tick. I wanted to smash it. Instead, I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes.
“You want me to run a Harlots club in Vegas,” I said, not a question.
“We want you to lead,” Stephanie said. “Las Vegas President. Nobody knows this city better.”
I opened my eyes. “You’re making a play. I’m just the excuse.”
Pearl actually grinned. “You catch on quick.”
I could have thrown them out. I could have threatened to burn the place down before handing it over.
But I remembered Buck’s lawyer, the old couple by the lake, and the way my mother’s corpse had looked before the state cremated her for free.
I knew better than to say no to people who’d already written the ending.
I let the silence run. “If I say yes,” I finally said, “I do it my way.”
Stephanie nodded, once. “Within reason. You become a chapter and answer to me.”
The meeting broke up, no hugs, just nods, and the sense of something alive and dangerous moving under the surface. Out in the casino, the four of them drifted toward the doors, and I drifted after.
We hit the night air together. The sky was full of city glare, barely any stars, just the high blue-pink haze of a sleepless place. The custom bikes were still there, engines ticking with cooling metal. Calypso peeled off from the group and circled my Harley.
“Nice ride,” she said.
I wanted to tell her to fuck off, but there was something about the way she circled the bike, measuring, maybe even admiring.
She crouched, ran a thumb along the foot peg. “Is this your father’s?”
The question was too direct, and for a second I couldn’t speak. “Yeah,” I said. “Built it from a box of bones. He liked his machines loud.”
Calypso smiled. “Mine too. He ran a Honda, though. Got me on a Superhawk at twelve.”
I let myself laugh. “You ever drop it?”
“First week,” she said. “Scraped off half my ass. Dad told me that’s how you learn. Pain’s a better teacher than pride.”
I sat on the curb. Calypso joined me, and we watched the traffic for a few minutes—just the endless streak of headlights and the occasional howl of a tourist or junkie. She handed me a cigarette, and I took it.
“You scared?” she asked, voice quiet.
I thought about it. “Not of her. Of what happens if I lose.”
Calypso nodded. “There are worse things than fear.”
“Like what?”
She tapped ash onto the blacktop. “Like letting someone else write your story. I watched my sister do it, and she never got it back.”
I liked her then, the way she didn’t flinch from the ugly stuff.
“Want to see something?” I asked, and she nodded.
I got up, straddled the Harley, and fired it up.
The engine caught and thundered, echoing off the casino’s concrete face.
I revved, then let the clutch out just enough to roll slow and easy through the lot.
Calypso hopped on behind me, no hesitation, just trust in the machine and maybe a little in me.
I pulled a lazy circle, then cut left, just missing a parked car by inches.
It was a trick my dad taught me: ride the clutch, feather the brake, let the bike float, but never lose control.
Calypso laughed, her arms gripping my waist, and for one second, it was just two women and a beast of a bike cutting up the night.
I braked at the far end of the lot, and she hopped off, grinning wide. “Nice move,” she said.
I killed the engine. “My father taught me. He would have told me you were trouble.”
She shrugged. “I am. But maybe that’s what you need.”
The other women were waiting by their bikes. Stephanie gave me a nod, and I nodded back. Something had shifted, and I knew it.
Calypso offered her hand. I shook it, her grip strong and rough and honest.
“See you tomorrow,” she said. “Try not to get dead before then.”
She straddled her own ride—a deep-blue Harley that looked custom as hell—and tore out of the lot, the engine scream trailing behind her like a promise.
I stayed in the parking lot a little longer, watching the red glow of her taillight merge with the blur of Vegas. I could feel the old parts of me shifting, waking up.
I wasn’t sure if I was scared or excited. Maybe both.
I didn’t sleep that night. Instead, I rode.
I took the Harley north, past the strip, out to where Vegas gives up on neon and lets the desert reclaim its own.
It was easier to think with the wind clawing my face, and even easier to remember why I’d sworn never to let myself be anyone’s pawn again.
Every time I thought about the casino chip, the folder of the missing and the dead, and Stephanie’s words, I felt that old iron resolve tighten around my spine.
At sunrise, I drifted back to Aces Wild.
The first drunks were already losing their paychecks on penny slots, the first cigarette butts of the day pooling by the entrance.
I changed into a clean shirt, found my casino manager still at the bar, and told him to send anyone looking for me to the conference room.
I needed a minute to gather my thoughts before the show started.
At nine sharp, the four women returned. This time, they came without pageantry, no slow roll through the casino, no parade of leathers and patches, just in and up, like they owned the place.
Stephanie had maps. Rolled, rubber-banded, stained with old whiskey. She unrolled them with the flat of her palm. “You ready to talk business?” she said, not waiting for permission.
I shrugged. “That’s why we’re here.”
She spread out the first map. It was a map of the Vegas city grid, but marked over with a highlighter, with sections coded in blue and red.
“Here’s the problem,” she said. “Zeke’s taking territory.
Six new houses in the last year. Brothels, gaming rooms, laundromats.
Yours is the last good independent spot left. ”
Pearl stabbed a finger at the map. “These red lines? They’re fronts. If you go down, Zeke controls half the flow in and out of Clark County. He’ll franchise, and all of us lose leverage.”
I knew how the math worked. Control the cash, control the people. Control the people, control the city.
“What’s your solution?” I asked.
Stephanie met my eyes. “You run the Vegas chapter. Royal Harlots. You keep the casino, we back you, and you back us. No buy-in, just loyalty.”
I looked around the table. Goblin was watching me with that predator’s focus. Calypso looked bored, but she tapped the table in a steady, coded rhythm. Pearl just waited, calm as a loaded gun.
“Why me?” I said. “Why not Mary, or some other legacy?”
“Because you’ve got skin in the game,” Pearl said. “You know the business, you know the city, and you don’t freeze up when it gets hot.”
Stephanie pulled out a folder—the kind that always means contracts, secrets, or both. “You’re smart, Selene. Smarter than you look. Zeke wants the city, but he doesn’t know it like you do.”
Calypso finally spoke. “And your riding’s not bad, either.”
I barked a laugh. “You offering me a job or a date?”
“Maybe both,” she said, not smiling.
The mood changed then. For the first time, the offer felt real, not just an inevitable shakedown.
I thought about Mary and her brothel, the girls she watched over, the customers who just wanted to be left alone.
I thought about my father’s bike and the thousand miles I’d run to get here, and how, for the first time in my life, the idea of power didn’t make me want to run.
I drummed my fingers on the tabletop. “What’s in it for me?”
Goblin grinned, all teeth. “Besides not ending up as fertilizer in the Mojave?”
“Yeah. Besides that.”
Stephanie leaned in. “Protection. Resources. And the freedom to run your place the way you want. No overhead, just obligation to the sisterhood.”
Pearl added, “You get to expand. Take your girls from the brothel, make them part of the club. Hell, make them shareholders.”
“Anything else?” I asked.
Calypso shrugged. “You piss off Zeke. Which is always a bonus.”
I sat with it. I didn’t want to admit it, but the idea of running the Vegas crew—hell, of being President—felt right. Dangerous, but right. I’d always been outside the system, always made my own rules, but the truth was, I’d been waiting for someone to recognize what I was worth.
I reached for the folder, thumbing through the top page. It wasn’t a contract. It was a set of bylaws. Simple, blunt. Loyalty, discretion, protection. No violence against sisters. No narc-ing. Always pay your dues.
I signed my name at the bottom with a hotel pen. The room exhaled, like they’d all been holding their breath. I hadn’t noticed I was holding mine, too.
Stephanie produced a cut from her duffel—real leather, black, hand-stitched with the Royal Harlots insignia. The patch said, “Las Vegas President.” She handed it to me, a heavy object that smelled of newness and oil. “Congratulations,” she said. “You’re the first.”
I put it on. It fit like it had been tailored for me.
Pearl poured out whiskey, five shots lined up on the table. “To the new order,” she said, voice almost reverent.
We all drank, and for the first time, it didn’t burn.
Goblin howled, a short, wild sound that made the windows shake. “Vegas is ours, ladies.”
Stephanie grinned, her mask slipping for just a second. “Let’s see what you do with it, Selene.”
They filed out, leaving me alone with the map, the whiskey, and the vest. I felt the weight of it, the responsibility, and the danger. But it was better than the loneliness.
I looked out the window, saw the Harley parked alone and proud.
I thought of the old woman at the lake, the way she’d handed me the money and said, “Be our daughter.” I thought of Buck, and the way he’d trusted me to run the place better than he ever could.
I thought of every girl who’d walked through my casino hoping to win, and how few ever did.
I poured myself one last shot, held it up to the window, and the waiting city.
“To the next game,” I said, and drank.