Chapter Ten
Selene
Aces Wild glowed empty, every slot and card table lit for a party nobody showed up to.
My pit boss had said there’d be a slow roll after the shootout, but this was more than a hangover.
This was a city holding its breath. My boots left prints on the marble, sticky where some asshole spilled whiskey, and the bartender—red-eyed, hollow, scared—didn’t even nod as I passed.
Maybe he figured I wouldn’t make it to sunrise. Maybe he was right.
I moved through the dead casino in a haze of neon.
The ceiling fans pushed dry air, ruffling the flags and paper decorations Glitz had set out for the planned reopening.
Little banners that said WE’RE BACK, even though the only thing back was the smell of old blood under the carpet.
The sound system played a canned jazz loop, some sad trumpet echoing in the void.
I took the staff corridor at the back, passing the side office where Nines sometimes crashed.
The door was open, her chair empty, screens still cycling through security feeds and the last dozen hours of mayhem.
I checked the feed. There was nothing but a couple of drunks at blackjack, one stripper in the corner booth, and two cocktail girls who’d probably never step inside again once the sun was up.
I watched the display for a long time, waiting to see what my paranoia wanted me to see.
Then I killed the monitor and kept walking.
At the end of the hall was my office. The door should have been locked, but the handle was twisted right, something I’d have missed on any other night.
Every nerve in my arms woke up, skin prickling.
I slid my Glock from the holster at my side, thumbed the safety, and pressed my back to the wall beside the door.
I listened. Nothing. That was bad. A trespasser would be breathing, cursing, or helping themselves to my stash of hundred-dollar chips. But inside, it was silent. I forced myself to breathe out, slow and even, then kicked the door wide.
She was waiting. War Lady.
She’d made herself at home, her boots up on my desk, hands laced behind her neck, head tilted back so the lamplight caught every inch of her platinum ponytail.
She’d done her makeup for the occasion with red lipstick, smoky shadow, and cheekbones contoured so sharply that they could cut glass.
She smiled, white teeth bared, as if she’d been dreaming of this exact moment.
“Selene,” she said. Her accent was all Las Vegas, but she gave my name the Mediterranean twist: Seh-LEH-nay, like it was something to be tasted. “I was wondering when you’d show up.”
I leveled the gun at her head. “You got two seconds to stand up and get out.”
She didn’t move. “Put it away. If I wanted you dead, you’d be in the dumpster by now.”
I glanced at the left corner, saw her duffel on the guest chair, zipper half-open, and the glint of steel inside. She wanted me to see it. This was a display. A statement.
I kept the Glock aimed, but my voice was calm. “You here for Jack, or just yourself?”
She swung her legs off the desk, stood. In one smooth motion, she put her palms flat on the fake oak. “Both. But mostly for you.”
She wore tailored slacks, black boots with steel toes, and a shirt with a stiff collar that could have doubled as a weapon.
Her arms were sleeved in ink—crescent moons, serpents, geometric tessellations, all in deep black and blue.
I recognized the knuckle tattoos: BELA and KED, Russian for “white” and “hell,” a joke nobody in Nevada would get.
She rolled her neck, popped it, and let her eyes slide up and down my frame.
“You look tired,” she said. “Rough week?”
“You should see the other guys,” I replied. “What do you want?”
She slid her duffel off the chair, set it on the desk. Then, still making a show, she unzipped it and drew out a manila envelope—no weapons, no threat, just plain paperwork. She tossed it my way.
It landed at my feet. I kept the gun up, but knelt and opened the flap.
Inside was a stack of photos, all surveillance shots.
Some of me, some of Joker, some of the other girls.
Some at Aces Wild, others at our fallback spots, the brothel, and even the mining lodge.
The earliest was two weeks ago. The most recent? An hour old, dated and timestamped.
Kara watched me as I flipped through them, her pupils shrinking to slits. She thrived on this.
“You’ve been busy,” I said.
“Not just me. Jack has a lot of friends. Even more now that your girls torched his place and stole three million.”
I put the photos down. “You tell him I’m not for sale?”
She snorted. “You are, but you’re too proud to admit it.”
I let that go. “So what’s this? You warning me off? You think Jack’s going to win?”
She moved around the desk, close enough that I caught the perfume on her jacket.
Bitter orange, something expensive. “This is a courtesy call, Selene. My father taught me to kill a dog before it gets rabid. Jack would rather burn the whole city than let you walk away. If you have any brains left, you’ll pack up and leave. Tonight.”
Her hand drifted toward my laptop, fingertips skating over the keys, like she owned it. “Because next time, I won’t be the one talking.”
She leaned in, close, so I saw the brown flecks in her green irises. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “This isn’t a negotiation. It’s a mercy.”
The silence stretched, the kind that demanded a move. I weighed my options. I could shoot her, get shot by the men she almost certainly had staked out in the alley, or let her walk. None of those appealed.
I watched her eyes, saw how they tracked the barrel of my Glock. She didn’t look scared. She looked hungry.
“I don’t do mercy,” I said, and shot her in the leg.
The sound was obscene in the tiny room. She staggered, swore in Turkish, and dropped behind the desk. I vaulted after her, grabbed her by the collar, and drove her head into the wall. She fought back, hard—an elbow to my chin, a knee to my ribs—but I outweighed her, and I was madder.
We crashed into the bookcase, books exploding everywhere. She twisted, caught me in a headlock, and tried to choke me out. I bit her wrist, tasted blood, and broke free. She rolled away, grabbed the letter opener from my desk, and slashed at my face. It was a shallow cut, stinging and hot.
“You want to die here?” she gasped, voice shredded. “For what? These fucking losers? This piece of shit casino?”
I spat blood and grabbed a trophy off the shelf—a bowling trophy from a charity event Buck once ran, heavy and sharp at the base—and clubbed her in the shoulder. She howled, dropped the opener, and went for the duffel.
I got there first, kicked it out of her reach, and stomped on her hand until she let go.
She panted, breath coming in broken gasps. “You think this stops anything? You think you can win?”
I pressed the muzzle to her forehead. “No. But I can make it cost more than you want to pay.”
She grinned, blood in her teeth. “Jack doesn’t care what it costs. He never has.”
I wanted to pull the trigger. God, I wanted it so bad my finger spasmed. But I heard the footsteps outside, the thump of more boots in the hall, and knew I wouldn’t walk away if I did.
Instead, I yanked her up by the back of her shirt and dragged her to the door. I let her see the hate in my face, made sure it burned into her memory.
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, eyes shining with pain and something like admiration. “You’re better than I thought,” she said, low.
I pressed her to the doorframe, hard enough to rattle her teeth. “Tell Jack he should have done this himself.”
She spat blood on my floor, then limped down the hall, pride holding her up more than muscle. The men waiting outside didn’t look at me, but I saw their hands on their guns, just in case. They scooped her up and disappeared, leaving me alone in the wreckage of my office.
I sagged against the wall, hands shaking, and counted to ten. Then I locked the door, sat on the floor, and tried not to pass out from the pain in my ribs.
I reached for my phone and dialed Joker.
She picked up, voice raw. “Boss?”
“We got company,” I said. “Get the girls together. Full lockdown.”
She didn’t ask what happened. Just said, “Yes, ma’am.”
I ended the call and sat there in the dark, the scent of Kara’s perfume still in the air, and tried to remember the last time I’d slept through the night.
Maybe tomorrow, I told myself. Maybe after.
But I knew better.
The next time War Lady came calling, it would be with fire.
I waited until I heard the soft click of the back door before I let my lungs exhale.
My knees buckled. I dropped to the carpet, feeling the raw burn of every muscle in my neck and shoulders.
A tremor ran through me, like the body knew what my brain wouldn’t admit.
I was fucked up bad, maybe worse than before.
I pressed my palm to the wound on my cheek. It stung, but it was shallow. The real damage was somewhere deeper, down in the gristle and bone where Kara’s words had burrowed like a parasite. I could still taste her perfume in my mouth, mixed with copper and fear.
Then I heard it. The faint squeak of floorboards in the hall, just outside the office. I froze. Either Kara was back to finish it, or I’d hallucinated the whole exchange.
I picked up the Glock. It was heavier now, my grip slick with sweat, the metal almost too cold to hold. I braced it on my thigh and waited.
The doorknob twisted.
I fired, once.
The bullet blew through the wood, splintering a perfect hole where the lock met the jamb. The knob stopped turning.
A pause. Then the door burst open, and Kara charged through it.
I didn’t hesitate—I went straight for her, teeth bared. She tackled me backwards, slamming my head into the wall. The impact popped something in my ear, filled the world with a flat, fuzzy whine.