Chapter 34
AMELIA
Jude’s smirk from across the casino made butterflies flutter in my belly, but I kept my attention on the task at hand.
Winning big and getting out.
I was close. So close. A few more hands and I’d be golden.
Tension grew as the round picked up speed. It was no wonder Jude had made me practice counting cards with distractions. Delicious distractions. This place was nothing like the Four Horsemen. It was loud and chaotic. People constantly bumped into my back as they stumbled by.
None of it mattered. I was locked in. The day of pampering and fun that Jude had given me had been exactly what I needed.
I wasn’t going into this challenge already tense and stressed—I was the exact opposite.
He had fucked the stress out of me in the hotel room like he knew exactly what I needed to be on my A-game.
He knew me better than I knew myself.
I kept a tight watch on the cards that were being played and the bets that were put up to make sure I stayed on top.
The dealer—a handsome twenty-something whose looks and personality were the biggest draw for the players hoping to get lucky—shot me a grin while the rest of the table groaned at having lost to the dealer. “The lady beats me again. Luck is on your side tonight, Angela.”
He was flirting to try to throw me off. Before Jude, it might have worked. This guy was cute, but he wasn’t mine.
I did a mental count of my chips and estimated how many more rounds I needed to play before I’d cash out. Some of the players beside me filtered out, mourning their losses, while people jockeyed to take their position in hopes of having a little bit of my luck rub off on them.
The commotion never settled. Heads began to turn. Even the dealer looked concerned at whatever was going on behind my back. I had practiced for this. I knew the rules. No matter what, do not look away from the table. Do not lose the count.
But something lingered in the back of my head. What if Jude was in trouble?
I couldn’t help myself. I looked away from the table and my jaw dropped.
Jude was in handcuffs. He was surrounded by a horde of suits who were restraining him and marching him out of the casino.
He never looked up. Never looked back.
My head spun as I wavered between run, hide, and fight.
Did I run to save myself?
Did I stick to the plan?
Did I hide and blend in?
Or did I go after him?
The men and women didn’t look like the mob types I had become accustomed to at the Four Horsemen. They looked like law enforcement.
In the span of half a second, I worked through all three options once more, then took door number four.
I didn’t cash out the chips I had just won. I could come back and do that. With one sweep of my arm, I filled my purse with the chips, then wove through the casino, slipping through a door opposite where Jude had been taken.
Something lingered in the back of my mind. I’ll find you after. I promise.
Jude knew this was going to happen.
He had prepared me for it.
The first thing I needed to do was get our bags out of the hotel room. The bags had our supplies. Clothes to change into. Cash. His burner phone. I didn’t know who I could trust, but Jude trusted Cole. Even though I had never even seen the man, I knew I could trust him too.
If Jude had gotten caught for his involvement with Valentine, they probably knew about the hotel room. Cameras were everywhere. Elevators could be stopped, so I headed for the stairs. I kicked off my shoes and ran.
I counted the landings until I found the floor we were on, then pulled the room key out, slipped into the room, and grabbed the bags.
Wait.
W.W.J.D.? What would Jude do?
He’d leave a decoy.
I emptied my purse and the necessities from his backpack into the backpack that I had been carrying all day. I left a few thousand dollars’ worth of chips in Jude’s bag, then shouldered both and slipped out.
I dropped my empty purse in a trash can but kept moving.
Trashcans in a high-end resort would be emptied regularly.
I couldn’t hide anything beneath the trash bags.
I highly doubted that there was a secret cellar I could slip into.
I eyed the sign for ice and vending at the end of the hall and considered burying the backpack at the bottom of the ice machine.
The problem was, the bag was canvas and, depending on how long it took me to get back to it, the phone could get soaked.
Hiding in plain sight was the best option.
My heart thundered as I raced down the stairs and bolted into the lobby, coming to a skidding halt as I saw a caravan of FBI vehicles with flashing lights parked outside the front doors.
“Oof! Sorry!” a drunken woman said as she ran smack-dab into me.
I slipped behind a gaudy display of tropical plants and water features and watched as Jude was shoved into the back of an SUV.
“Ex-cuseeeee me,” the drunk woman said to a man behind the front desk who looked like he wanted to be anywhere but at work. “I lost my purse, and it’s very expensive.”
Not as expensive as the cheap bag on my shoulder.
The man huffed. “What’s it look like?”
“It’s a Birkin. You know—like Her-meeze.” I cringed at her pronunciation of Hermes.
The man barely withheld an eye roll. “I meant, what color is it?”
She blinked, obviously startled that someone didn’t care about the brand as much as she did. “It’s blue.”
“I’ll check lost and found,” he grumbled before loping around the corner.
I slipped out from behind the plants and followed him like I had somewhere to be.
Jude’s adages floated through my mind. Act like you belong here.
I passed by the desk clerk just in time to see him punch a code into an electronic keypad.
060226.
I didn’t need an eidetic memory to remember that. I kept walking, slipped into the women’s restroom, then waited a minute before coming back out.
The man was walking back to the front desk, overpriced purse in hand.
I walked up to the door like I was supposed to be going through it, punched in the code, and slipped inside.
Half of it was a dimly lit storeroom for things like printer paper, ink, and other front-desk office supplies, and half was filled with shelves of everything from shoes to luggage, to clothes, jewelry, and phones.
I spotted a suitcase that had a luggage tag from a Dallas to Las Vegas flight that was dated a year prior. The layer of dust on top confirmed the theory that it hadn’t been touched since. I stashed my full backpack behind the suitcase, then slipped out with Jude’s mostly empty one on my shoulder.
Back to the casino.
For the time being, I had to push Jude out of my mind.
I had hidden the bag with the cash and the majority of the chips in the safest place I could think of, in a place I could come back for it.
The chips I kept on hand would be enough to bet big to win the rest of the money I needed to buy Joel’s freedom.
If I got caught, the rest of the cash I had won wouldn’t be found on my person.
I headed back in the direction of the casino, but the moment I saw the signs and heard the cheers, my stomach launched into my throat. Panic snaked around my throat as I peeled off and dipped into the bathroom.
A cluster of drunk ladies were preening in front of the full-length mirrors and showering each other with compliments.
I could use a drunk bathroom compliment right about now, but I don’t have time to make friends.
My eyes stung as I shoved my way into a stall and latched the door behind me just as the first tears slipped free.
I didn’t have time to cry. I had to get back out there. I reached for the toilet paper and pulled off a square to dab my eyes, but the tears never stopped.
Jude needed me. Joel needed me. People were counting on me. I didn’t have time for this.
More tears. Sharp, gasping breaths. The world spun.
I grabbed more toilet paper to soak up the tears. I was probably ruining the lovely makeup that had been meticulously applied to my face at the blowout bar. I needed to stop crying. I didn’t have time to cry.
I could cry later. The realization that I had been telling myself that exact thing for years was a reckoning.
I sucked in air until my lungs ached from the fullness, then let it out in a single gust. Twice more, then I forced myself out of the bathroom and back to the casino.
My seat was still empty when I returned to the blackjack table, looking a little worse for the wear.
“Cold feet?” the charming dealer asked as I settled back in.
I forced a smile. “Something like that.”
He shot a wink my way. “Let’s see if you can keep getting lucky.”
My hands shook as the cards were dealt. The count was fuzzy.
Shit.
I watched as the dealer flipped over a ten and clicked his tongue as I lost five hundred dollars.
He will find me. It’s part of the plan.
I closed my eyes, let out a slow breath, and started again.
The next hand went by in a blur, but I came out on top. Meagerly, but still on top.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Before I blinked, I was up twenty grand. That was my cash-out point. I needed to quit while I was ahead. The count was starting to get blurry as cards were quickly dealt around the table.
Shit. What’s the count? It was minus four, but the stack didn’t match.
Dammit—the dealer’s working off four decks. I thought he was working out of three. He must have added a deck when I was placing my bet.
“Hit,” I said, risking going over twenty-one so I could get a better idea of what I was working with.
Two of spades, adding to my jack of hearts and eight of clubs.
“Looks like your luck hasn’t run out,” the dealer said with a smirk. “Twenty for the lady.”
There was luck and then there was cutting it too fucking close.
Cheers rose up as I raked in more chips. I bagged half and kept half on the table. One more hand, and then I could worry about Jude.
He promised he would find me. He reassured me time and time again that I could do it on my own.