2. Gabriel
Around the same time…
I'm winning. Not by luck. That's not how you win at poker. By patience. Massimo sits across from me, unreadable as ever, a glass of Stagg untouched near his right hand. He doesn't drink when he plays seriously. Doesn't blink much either.
The city burns gold behind the penthouse windows, Vegas glitters like it owes him rent.
It does. Two seats down from him sits Alessio, grinning like a shark, already half certain he's bluffing someone.
Damiano lounges to my left, deceptively relaxed, but his eyes miss nothing.
Enzo, who is sitting on my right, is staring at his cards like the faces might change if he does it long and hard enough. The five of us are the kings of Vegas.
Four capos.
One Don. Massimo.
Massimo, Enzo, and I were born into this life. Raised in it. Groomed for it. Violence isn't a phase for us; it's infrastructure. Alessio and Damiano entered it later, but they are no less committed.
The other men at the table are friends. Associates. Trusted enough. But this—the five of us—this is the core.
The pot is heavy. I have the read. Two more rounds, and I strip Alessio clean. My phone vibrates in my pocket. I ignore it.
Damiano smirks. "Scared?"
"Focused," I correct.
Massimo's gaze flicks up once. He doesn't ask questions. If it matters, I'll answer it. If it doesn't, it dies on its own. The phone vibrates again. And again.
Alessio raises a brow. "Either she's desperate, or someone's dying."
I don't have a she. Not just one, anyway, and I know better than to give out my number. I look at the phone and irritation threads under my skin. Shit, there goes my full house.
"Back in a minute." I fold the cards on the table.
Massimo nods once. Permission granted. I step onto the balcony, the noise from the table now muffled behind glass, and answer the call.
"You have a collect call from an inmate at the Clark County Detention Center. This call is from Ezara Loera. To accept, press one."
Ezara. Fucker. I almost hang up, but as always, I press one. He sounds wrecked. Again.
"They picked me up," he whines. "Possession. Public disturbance."
I close my eyes briefly. I don't owe him anything. He's not crew. Not protected. Not useful. He's a liability with an addiction who was unlucky enough to fall in love with my twin sister.
Three years ago, Massimo stood beside me while we tore through every man responsible for what happened to her. By then, she had been missing for over a year. A year. When we found her, there wasn't enough left to bury properly.
We killed them all. Slowly. Massimo didn't hesitate. Not because he was my Don, but because we're friends.
Ezara and her were engaged. I would've suspected him, but I saw his face in the morgue. I know what real grief looks like. After we found her body, he spiraled. Drugs. Gambling. Self-destruction. He's not a traitor. He's just weak.
"Which precinct?" I sigh.
He tells me. I hang up. For a second, I consider finishing the game. Letting him sit. Instead, I walk back in.
"The usual business," I fill Massimo in because Ezara is a liability and a responsibility I took on when I decided to leave him alive.
He studies me for half a beat. "Handle it."
Enzo looks up. "It might be time." To put the bastard out of his misery, the unspoken words hang between us. I nod. Message received.
Alessio groans. "You're up three grand."
"I'll collect later."
Strangely, Damiano doesn't have a smart remark to send me off with. No jab, no insult. Just that smug smirk he gets when he's already won something. I have no idea what game he thinks we're playing.
Or why it suddenly feels like I've already lost.
I leave without a word. Massimo and I had a conversation last time I picked Ezara up from jail.
He's running out of excuses, was all Massimo had to say.
I know. I know it's time to put him out of his misery, as Enzo calls it.
But fuck it. If things had gone differently, Ezara would be my brother-in-law.
Catarina loved him. I owe it to her to try to keep the fucker alive.
I just don't know how. I've sent him to rehab six times already.
The longest he lasted sober after was a week; the shortest, five hours.
I know he's a dead man walking. But goddamn it.
I don't owe Ezara. But every time he calls, something in me answers. Maybe because he's the last living thread connected to her. Maybe because if I let him rot, it feels like letting her rot too.
The drive is quiet. The streets of Vegas blur past, drunk tourists on one side, drunk homeless on the other. Different budgets. Same endgame.
Fifteen minutes later, I arrive at the station. It's Friday night, and the precinct is filled with bad decisions.
I nod at Officer Ramirez at the reception area. He's on payroll. So are two others. Tonight they'll earn their paychecks.
"Ezara Loera," I lean over the counter.
Ramirez exhales. "Holding. Shouldn't be a problem."
Before I can answer, the hallway erupts.
The sound reaches me first. Loud, hysterical crying.
High-pitched panic. I turn, more out of boredom than anything else.
It'll take Ramirez at least twenty minutes to get Ezara here.
In the meantime, I have nothing else to do but stand here and find out what the commotion is all about.
My guess would be tourists. They're usually the loudest. They come to Vegas expecting a good time.
Too good a time. They think everything is legal in Vegas.
It isn't. And when they get arrested, the crying starts. I've seen and heard it a hundred times.
What walks down the corridor, though, surprises me.
Women. Well-dressed women. Completely out of place.
Hair that is styled for an Instagram photo, not a mugshot.
Mascara streaking from tears. Hands cuffed behind their backs like actual criminals.
They look like someone dropped a charity gala into a holding facility.
"Did they bust a soccer mom's meeting," I ask, watching another woman stumble in heels, "or is this a ring of hookers dressing up as Susie Homemaker?"
Ramirez's mouth twitches despite himself. "Housewives. Real ones. Big operation."
"Big operation of what? Coupon counterfeits?" I ask sarcastically.
One of the women wails, "I want my lawyer!"
Ramirez rolls his eyes. "You bought a knockoff purse, Karen. You're not El Chapo." He shakes his head at me. "Counterfeit purse ring."
I look at him. "Seriously."
"Full tactical response," he divulges dryly. "SWAT and everything."
I chuckle loudly. This is too funny to be true. "What, they think Chanel's cartel-funded now?"
"Apparently, we've solved crime in Las Vegas," Ramirez mutters. "Nothing left but fake Prada."
I study the line more closely now and notice some men waiting in the lobby who look just as out of place as the women.
Tailored suits. Watches that cost more than the average officer's salary.
Designer loungewear that probably costs more than most suits.
Some rush forward, wrapping their wives in protective arms. Others don't bother with comfort.
"What were you thinking?"
"Are you out of your mind?"
"This is humiliating."
Ramirez mutters, "Nothing like a felony charge to spice up date night."
I scan the women without interest. Until I see her. She isn't crying. Isn't arguing. Isn't shrinking. She walks slower than the others. Her chin is lifted slightly. Not defiant. Not submissive. Observant.
One of the regulars in holding whistles low. "Well damn."
She turns her head. Looks at him. A look that could freeze any man's blood. She arches one eyebrow, and the effect makes the regular shrink back; even the bald tattooed guy next to him looks impressed.
Ramirez keeps talking. I don't hear him.
Because that look—that spark—is not what I expected to see in a woman cuffed over counterfeit leather.
For the first time tonight, I'm not bored anymore.
Suddenly, she looks up. Like she feels it.
Like she feels me. Her eyes meet mine, and the world detonates.
Not metaphorically. Physically. A silent, violent explosion rips through my chest.
My sister had mesmerizing eyes. One in a million. A rare gray that shifted like storm clouds, impossible to forget.
But this woman? Her eyes are molten. Green shot through with gold, like sunlight caught in deep water.
Not bright. Not soft. Dangerous. The kind of green you see right before a forest fire takes hold.
Wild and luminous and alive. Red hair frames her face in copper waves, mussed from processing.
Not delicate red. Not strawberry. Burnished flame red.
The kind that belongs in myths. For one impossible second, everything stops.
The fluorescent hum: frozen. The crying: suspended. Ramirez: muted. There are no holding cells. No movement. No people. Nothing. It's like we've both stepped through a tear in reality. Like the hallway has collapsed inward, and we're suspended in something vast, dark, and silent. A black hole.
Just her.
Just me.
And recognition.
Not memory. Not familiarity. Recognition. Like I've been walking through noise my entire life, and someone just struck the right frequency. One word detonates in my skull: Mine.
I have never wanted anything the way I want her in this second. Not money. Not territory. Not vengeance. Not even blood. Her. The wanting is immediate. Absolute. Violent.
Until she looks away.
That's when sound slams back into existence.
"—Audra!" A man's voice sounds out, sharp, nearly frantic. "Audra!"
She turns and rushes forward. An officer takes off her cuffs as she moves, metal clatters away like it was never important. She falls into the arms of a man who steps out from the waiting area.
I look at him. And feel nothing. Average height.
Average build. Polished but forgettable.
The kind of man whose face dissolves in a crowd.
Bank haircut. Sensible jacket. He looks like a spreadsheet in human form.
She, in his arms, is a wildfire pressed against drywall.
It's like watching a peacock fold its feathers and pretend it's a pigeon.
Like a rare, poisonous flower blooming in a plastic pot.
She is copper, flame, and sharp light.
He's beige.
Yet she melts against him.
"I'm sorry, Pete," she breathes. "I'm so sorry."
Pete. Figures.
He wraps his arms around her, patting her back awkwardly. "It's okay. It's okay."
She's apologizing. Apologizing! A woman like her should never apologize.
Never.
She stands like a queen, with or without handcuffs on.
She looked at hardened criminals and smirked.
And she's apologizing to him? Fury rises in me, hot and immediate.
Not at her. At him. At the audacity of a man like that being the one she runs to.
He has no idea what he's holding. No idea what walked into his life.
He holds her like she's fragile. Like she's small. Like she's something to manage.
She is not small. She is not manageable. She is a force. And she is his.
The thought hits harder this time.
Mine.
I don't believe in fate. I believe in leverage. In power. In control. But as she shifts in his arms and I catch one last glimpse of those green-gold eyes… I know one thing with absolute clarity. I will know everything about her within the hour. And I will not forget her. Not now. Not ever.
She pulls back from Pete slightly. Not far.
Just enough to breathe. And that's when he sees me.
Pete's eyes instinctively lift. He follows the line of her gaze.
Finds me. For a split second, confusion flickers across his face.
He doesn't know why he's looking at me. He just knows something is off.
He tightens his arm around her waist. Subtle.
Protective. Controlling. His jaw shifts, not aggressive, more… uncertain.
He looks like a man who's just realized someone else has noticed what he has.
I don't look away. I don't blink. He's assessing me now.
Tailored suit. Still posture. Icy stance.
No visible agitation. He doesn't know who I am.
But he knows I'm not random. Men recognize a threat before they understand it.
Audra says something against his chest—I can't hear the words—and he nods, murmuring reassurance. "It's okay. It's okay."
She doesn't look back at me. But her shoulders stiffen slightly. She felt it too. Pete leans down to kiss the top of her head. It's a claiming gesture. Soft. Domestic.
Wrong.
He leads her toward the exit, one hand firm at her lower back. Something dark uncoils inside me. Not jealousy. Not yet.
Certainty.
Ramirez shifts beside me. "Happens every time. Rich husbands get mad. Then they pay. Then it disappears."
"What's her name?" I ask.
Ramirez glances at me. "Which one?"
"The redhead."
He looks over and scans the departing group.
"Uh…" He checks the clipboard in his hand. "Audra Hale. No priors. Vet assistant. Married."
Married.
I don't react.
"Counterfeit purchase," Ramirez continues. "Paid cash. Clean record. This'll get knocked down to a fine."
I nod once. As if it's information that doesn't matter.
Ramirez studies me for half a beat. "Why?"
"Why what?"
"You don't usually ask."
I straighten my cuff.
"She didn't cry."
Ramirez snorts. "That's your criteria now?"
"She didn't cry," I repeat.
She didn't. She smirked at a holding cell. Fearless. She looked at me like she recognized something.
Mine. Even if she doesn't know it yet.
The word pulses again, lower this time. More dangerous.
Outside, through the glass doors, I see Pete open the passenger door for her.
She hesitates before getting in. Just for a second.
Her head tilts slightly. As if listening.
As if aware. Then she disappears into the car.
The door shuts. The vehicle pulls away. I don't move.
"She was never here, got it?"
Ramirez looks stunned, opens his mouth as if he wants to ask something, then thinks better of it. He nods before he clears his throat. "Loera will be ready in ten."
"Good."
But my attention is already elsewhere. Audra Hale. Married. Vet assistant. Clean record. Red hair like wildfire. Green eyes like something that should not be caged. I don't chase women. I don't get distracted. I don't fixate.
But something inside me just shifted. I know myself well enough to recognize the beginning of an obsession.