Chapter 16 Dom
It’s finally time.
I put Kozlov and Petersen on the front doors and tell them nobody comes in and nobody goes out.
Kozlov doesn't ask questions. Neither does Petersen.
They're Viktor's men, vetted, steady. They take their positions at either side of the main entrance and stand with their hands clasped in front of them.
The casino floor is running at half capacity. Tuesday night. The mid-week crowd is lighter, which is why we chose it. Fewer guests to manage, fewer variables.
I've been planning this for a week. Viktor's been planning the logistics for three days.
The digital file is on a tablet in his jacket pocket: photographs, names, shift patterns, known associates.
Every outside runner who's touched my floor in the last three months.
Every insider Theo identified. Every name Cath confirmed.
Viktor is at the pit, speaking to the floor manager. I watch him gesture toward the doors and the floor manager's face changes. Confusion first, then something closer to alarm. Viktor's hand goes to the man's shoulder. The floor manager nods and picks up his radio.
"Ladies and gentlemen." The PA system crackles to life.
"The Claremont Grand will be closing early this evening due to a private function.
We apologize for the inconvenience. All active bets will be honored at current value.
Please make your way to the cashiers, where our staff will be happy to assist you. "
The reaction is immediate and predictable. Confusion at the blackjack tables. A group of college kids at the slots look at each other as if they've been told school is out early and they're not sure if it's a trick.
The dealers handle it. They're trained for this, or something close enough.
Chips are counted, hands are settled, the polite machinery of eviction begins.
My staff are good at this. I pay them well and they move through the floor with the kind of courtesy that keeps people walking toward the exit instead of arguing.
There's a moment where it could go wrong.
A man at the high-roller table, mid-fifties, flushed, three bourbons deep.
He doesn't want to leave. He's up twelve thousand and he's convinced the next hand is going to double it.
The floor manager approaches and the man's voice goes loud and his hand slaps the felt and I watch from across the room as one of Viktor's independents — a woman in a dark suit with a radio in her ear — appears at the man's elbow.
She says something I can't hear. The man looks at her.
He looks at the table. He picks up his chips and walks to the cashier.
Nobody else argues.
I stand near the central bar and watch the floor empty. Viktor materializes beside me.
"Twenty minutes," he says. "Give or take."
"Where are we on the roster?"
He pulls a folded sheet from his inside pocket. Every name cross-referenced against tonight's shift assignments. Eleven people. Seven are on the floor right now. Two are in the back offices. One is in the cage.
One is not here.
I'm not thinking about the one who isn't here yet. Right now, I'm watching the last of the public drain out through the doors. The heavy glass doors shut and the casino floor, for the first time since I took over this building, goes quiet.
The silence is strange. The slot machines are dark. The roulette wheels are still. The only sound is the low murmur of staff gathering on the main floor.
I think about Theo. He's upstairs in the suite with the door locked. I told him to stay put tonight
Everything is coming together. The phrase keeps circling in my head and I know better than to trust it because the moment you think you've got control is usually the moment it starts slipping, but the facts are the facts.
I have the names. I have the evidence. I have Cath on my side and Viktor's men in position and a digital file on every outside runner who's set foot on my floor in the last three months.
And I have Theo, pregnant and furious, sleeping in the room next to mine with a lock on the door that he uses every night.
I know the way I've gone about this isn't going to win awards. He hates the monitor. He hates the restrictions.
He hates that I won't let him leave and he's right that it's not fair and I don't care.
He'll come around. Once the Castellanos are dealt with, once the threat is gone, I can start giving him back the things I've taken.
He'll see. He'll understand why I did it this way. I believe that. I have to.
Viktor checks his watch. "Ready."
"Staff," he says into his radio. "All personnel to the main floor. Now."
They come in clusters. Dealers first, still in their uniforms, looking uncertain. Then the cage workers. The bar staff wiping their hands on aprons. Surveillance techs from the second floor, blinking under the bright lights of the main room.
Kitchen staff in whites. Cleaners. Maintenance. The night-shift security detail, broad men in dark suits who look at Viktor and then at me and try to work out what's happening.
They gather in the space between the blackjack pit and the main bar.
There are eighty, maybe ninety people, some of them talking in low voices.
Most of them silent, reading the room. They know something is wrong.
A casino doesn't close on a Tuesday night for a private function.
There is no private function and they know it.
Cath is near the back. I find her without looking for her. She's standing with her arms crossed, her face tight, and I can see the tension in her shoulders from thirty feet away. She's been carrying this for months and tonight is the end of it, one way or another. She knows her part.
Viktor's four remaining trusted men are positioned at the corners of the floor. The independent contractors — six of them, hired through a private security firm with no connection to the casino — are covering the service exits, the loading dock, the staff entrance on the east side.
Nobody leaves until we say so.
I step forward. The talking stops.
"Thank you for your patience," I say. "This won't take long. We've identified a number of staff members who have been engaged in activity that violates the terms of their employment. Those individuals will be terminated tonight, effective immediately."
Silence.
"When your name is called, you will hand over your credentials and you will be escorted from the building. Any personal effects in your locker will be forwarded to you. You will not return to any Novikov property. Your final pay will be processed by the end of the week."
I nod to Viktor.
He unfolds the list. His voice is level, clear, pitched to carry across the floor without effort. He reads the first name.
"Ryan Beck."
A beat. Then movement in the middle of the group.
Beck is mid-thirties, thin. He doesn't say a word.
His face drains of color and he walks forward with the mechanical step of someone whose body is doing something his brain hasn't agreed to yet.
Two of Viktor's men flank him. They walk him to the doors.
Kozlov steps aside. Beck goes through. The doors close.
It’s clean and quick. Everyone watches.
The room shifts. I can feel the change. Every person on that floor is running the same calculation: Is my name on that list?
Viktor reads the next name. Andris Volkov. He’s one of the dealers Theo flagged first. Volkov steps forward immediately, which tells me he's been expecting this. His face is blank. He hands over his badge without being asked and walks to the door. He doesn't look at me. He doesn't look at anyone.
The next name. Another dealer.
Janine from the cage is next. She starts crying before she reaches the door.
Her hands are shaking so badly she can't unpin her name badge.
One of Viktor's independents takes it from her, gently, and guides her toward the exit with a hand at her elbow.
Janine was being pressured, same as Cath.
I feel sorry for her but the worst thing I can do is play favorites now.
I don't enjoy this. There's no satisfaction in watching people lose their jobs, even people who were cheating me.
These are people I've employed, some of them for years.
Some of them have children. Some of them were scared and made bad decisions and the people who scared them aren't standing on this floor tonight.
But the operation is the operation and it doesn't work if I start making exceptions based on how I feel about it.
Torres goes next. She walks with her head down and her hands clenched at her sides and she's breathing fast through her nose.
Viktor calls another name. Then another. The group on the floor is thinning around the edges, the remaining staff drawing closer together, relief and unease running through them in equal measure.
Relief that their name hasn't been called. Unease at what they're witnessing. The names keep coming. Runners. Support staff. A bartender who'd been passing information.
"Cath Beresford."
Cath's head snaps up. She's good. She's been standing at the back with her arms crossed and her face set in the expression of a woman who cannot believe what she's watching and the shock that crosses her features now is convincing enough that several of the staff around her turn to stare.
Cath, who has been here for decades. Cath, who trained half the dealers on this floor. Cath, who everyone trusts.
"You can't be serious," she says. Her voice carries across the floor. Angry. Betrayed. She pitches it exactly right.
"Ms Beresford," Viktor says. "Your credentials, please."
She pulls her lanyard over her head and throws it on the floor.
The slap of the plastic badge against the marble echoes in the silence.
She walks toward the door with her shoulders rigid and her chin up and she doesn't look at me.
The staff part for her. Someone mutters something.
Someone else puts their hand over their mouth.
She goes through the doors and they close behind her.
Cath will drive home tonight and call me tomorrow from the burner phone Viktor gave her. We'll arrange the rest. Her daughter's family. The relocation.
New city, new start, Dom's money covering everything until she's settled. Lily will be safe. Cath will be safe. The Castellanos will see a fired pit boss with a grudge, not a witness who turned.
Viktor folds the list. He looks at me.
Something in his expression.
"Stokes," I say.
"Not here."
I look at the remaining staff. Sixty-odd faces, the ones who are staying, the ones who are clean. I don't need to scan them. I knew the moment Viktor called the last name without calling Stokes's.
"He was on the roster," I say.
"He was. Clocked in at six.”
The thing about a plan is that it only works if everyone does what you expect them to do.
Stokes was supposed to be on the floor. He was supposed to be standing with the rest of them, hearing his name called, being walked out the door.
Instead, he's been gone for ninety minutes and no one flagged it because tonight the floor was busy with the shutdown and everyone's attention was on the exits and Stokes is a pit boss who moves freely through the building. He has a keycard to everything.
Freely through the building.
The cold starts at the base of my spine.
Stokes wasn't coerced. Stokes took money. He was willing. And Cath told me weeks ago, sitting in Viktor's office with mascara tracking down her face: They know about him. I overheard Stokes talking about 'Novikov's omega'.
"Where's Theo?" I say.
Viktor is already on his radio. "Suite twenty-three, confirm status on Holland."
Static on the radio. Then: "No answer at the door, sir."
"Open it."
I'm moving.
Viktor is beside me. His radio crackles.
"Suite is empty, sir. No sign of the occupant."
Viktor doesn't look at me. He knows what my face is doing and he's giving me the courtesy of not seeing it.
"Pull the corridor cameras," he says into the radio. "Twenty-third floor. Last forty-five minutes. Service corridors included. Now."
The doors open. We step in. Viktor presses twenty-three.
The doors close and the floor number climbs and neither of us speaks.
Viktor's phone buzzes. He answers. I can hear the voice on the other end, tinny and fast, but not the words.
"When?" Viktor says.
The voice talks.
"Which camera?"
More words.
Viktor lowers the phone. He looks at me.
"Service corridor camera on twenty-three shows Stokes entering via the east stairwell at eight oh six with two unidentified men.
He had a keycard. The suite door opens at eight oh nine.
" Viktor's voice is flat. Operational. The voice he uses when things have gone wrong and emotion is a luxury neither of us can afford.
"They left with Theo via the service elevator. "
Eight twelve. Thirty minutes ago.
"The service elevator goes to the loading dock," I say. We’re going the wrong way. I press the button to stop the elevator. "Is anyone on the loading dock?"
"Ramos was covering it. He hasn't checked in."
Viktor calls. The phone rings. And rings. And rings.
My phone buzzes in my hand. The screen lights up.
MONITOR ALERT: HOLLAND, T. — PERIMETER brEACH. SIGNAL ACTIVE. LOCATION: GROUND LEVEL, EAST SERVICE EXIT.
The elevator doors open. I run.