Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
THE CASINO FELT DIFFERENT in the morning. Quieter. Less desperate. As if it was a new day with a new chance of riches for those who dared to dream and hope. Of course, most would go home with empty pockets, but that was the risk a person took when dreaming in a casino.
Delaney balanced two paper cups of coffee in one hand as she pushed open the door to the temporary security command room with her shoulder, the scent of espresso still clinging to her clothes after breakfast. Roman and she had made quick work of the buffet downstairs—scrambled eggs, fruit that had seen better days, and pastries Roman insisted were “criminally underwhelming.” He’d stolen an extra banana on principle, but she highly doubted he’d eat it.
Now they were back where she felt most comfortable, hiding behind glass and computer screens and layers of data she had to sift through.
She handed Roman his coffee without ceremony and slid into her chair, setting her own cup beside the keyboard.
The monitors wrapped around them in a wide arc—camera feeds from every entrance, badge scans of employees coming and going, elevator access points.
It seemed like a living organism of surveillance, breathing in pixels and timestamps.
She rolled her shoulders once, chasing away the stiffness that came from a combination of sleeping on an unfamiliar mattress and anxiety over Bobby Jenkins.
Okay. Focus.
Her fingers moved automatically as she pulled up the overnight logs, eyes skimming lines of activity.
Nothing major jumped out at her. A drunk guest arguing with a dealer at two a.m. A false fire alarm on level three.
A VIP who’d forgotten his key card and tried to charm his way past security only to be sent back down to the front desk.
Just normal chaos for a casino and hotel.
Roman leaned back in his chair and took a long sip of coffee.
“If I ever design a casino, the buffet will be the first thing I overhaul. That scrambled egg situation felt more like egg soup than anything else. I’ve always hated that part of continental breakfasts in hotels. They make it too liquidy.”
“Is liquidy a word?” Delaney huffed softly. “And I noticed you ate three croissants to make up for it.”
“Stress carbs.”
She rolled her eyes, refusing to comment, already scrolling through access reports and comparing them against badge authentication times. Her mind stayed stubbornly on task, even as something deeper kept tugging at her attention.
Robert ‘Bobby’ Jenkins.
She had slept little last night, telling herself it was the unfamiliar bed.
The annoying sound of the humming of the air conditioner.
The fact that audits were always brutal on REM cycles, and it always took her a moment to settle into a new place.
It was the normal first night away jitters.
Yeah, that’s what she kept telling herself.
But then she knew it really wasn’t. Not the way her chest had tightened every time she replayed the look on his face.
She pushed the thought away and zoomed in on one of the perimeter cameras, checking blind spots near the service corridor.
Silver Security had done a solid job reinforcing coverage that hotel security missed, but she liked to verify things herself.
Trust, but verify. It was practically tattooed on her soul.
Roman spun lazily in his chair. “You ever get the feeling someone’s about to make your day weird?”
She arched a brow as she looked over at him. “Every day. That’s why I work in threat modeling. We live in the world of weird.”
He grinned, bobbing his head. “Fair.”
She toggled to the main casino floor feed, watching the early crowd trickle in for a quick chance at lady luck—conference attendees with lanyards flipped backward, tourists clutching coffee cups and cups full of coins, and a few gamblers who clearly hadn’t gone to bed and probably needed a shower.
She made a mental note to avoid those individuals.
Her gaze tracked movement automatically, cataloging patterns, noting posture, watching hands, looking for anything out of place or suspicious.
Routine.
Predictable.
And then Roman leaned forward abruptly. “What is this idiot doing?”
His voice shattered her thoughts as he pointed to the screen.
She glanced down, giving herself a mental shake, and narrowed her eyes.
“I don’t think I’ve seen him before. He seems to be looking around, taking in the sights.
” But then something seemed off. The man had dark hair and was wearing a suit with a casino badge attached, rather than a security uniform, which told her he was probably floor security instead of the guy working the entrance.
“Maybe just doing a walk-through? Check the employee records and see who he is?”
Roman thumbed through the files on his tablet, humming some showtune as he did.
She continued to watch the man, her suspicions growing more alert the longer she stared at him.
He scanned the area, but not in that security man kind of way, where he was looking for people scamming the casino.
Instead, it looked more like he was making sure no one was watching him, and he wasn’t casual about it.
“What are you looking for?” she asked as she stared at the monitor.
And then the man looked at his phone. She could see someone’s head on the screen, but she couldn’t make out who it was or any of the person’s features. The man would look at the phone and then glance around the floor.
“All right, scratch that,” she said. “Who are you looking for? Roman, does the casino have a search out for anyone at the moment?”
Roman glanced at another screen, then shook his head. “No. Everything’s quiet with everyone focused on the summit.”
“Then what is this guy up to? Because he’s obviously looking for someone.” She leaned closer, hoping to get a better angle on what the man was looking at on his phone, but he had it angled enough to make it impossible.
“Our mysterious security dude isn’t listed on their employee files.” Roman leaned back in his chair and pointed to the man on the screen. “There’s no match in the records.”
She sighed. “Then we better tell Ray he has someone on the floor pretending to be on his team.”
Roman chuckled. “That’ll make his day. I think all this computer summit shit’s been boring the hell out of him. He doesn’t strike me as a guy who likes computers or those who use them.”
She smiled as she kept her eyes on the screen. “Well then, he shouldn’t have given up being a state trooper for life in the air conditioning.”
“I hear the pay’s better here. He can keep himself in that mint gum he’s always chewing.”
She laughed as she shook her head, but chose not to comment.
Roman spun in his chair after calling the Director of Security Operations and letting him know about the possible impostor. He slipped his hands behind his head, interlocking his fingers as he stared over at her, his brow furrowed.
“So, why don’t you want this guy to know you’re really you?” he asked, returning to the question from yesterday as if they had never stopped talking about it.
“I was wondering how long it would take you to get back to that,” she said, still not looking at him. The guy on the monitor moved off, his phone still in his hand. “Been killing you, hasn’t it?”
“Hey, I tried letting you make the right choice and simply tell me yourself,” he said with a weak shrug. “We’ve been partners for three years, and you do tend to keep things close while I’ve told you all about me, just like I said yesterday. I tired of waiting, though.”
She sighed as she made some notes on her tablet. “Which I wish you’d stop doing, especially your time with the ladies. Some things should remain, you know, private. Your secret memory to recall when you’re old and bald.”
“Hey, what makes you think I’ll be bald? I got a lush head of hair. And it’s not like you have any dating adventures to share.”
She turned to him, the tablet on her lap. “You go out enough for both of us. I feel sorry for those poor ladies.”
He chuckled as he glanced at her screen. “Hey, mystery dude is gone.”
She glanced up, noticing Roman was right. She reached for the controls, looking at the other security cameras, but the man wasn’t on any of them. “Maybe Ray picked him up.”
“Or maybe he just left.”
“How does a guy come in and simply start impersonating a security guard?” she asked, not really to Roman, but more as a thought exercise. “Surely, at some point, someone would have noticed him with the badge and realized he didn’t work there.”
Roman shrugged. “This place has over two thousand employees between the casino, hotel, and restaurants. I’m sure it’s easy to slip through the cracks.
And not every employee will know all the others.
Add to that how busy the place is, and it makes sense.
Especially this weekend with the summit. Place is hopping.”
She supposed. Still, it made her question the hotel’s security even more. Like how did the man get his hands on a badge to begin with?
She sighed, thinking it was just something else to put in her report.
“What do you say we go grab a bite before this thing gets hopping?” Roman asked. “Then we can watch them go through their steps with the summit.”
She sighed, glancing once more at the monitor where the man had been standing. “Yeah, probably a good idea.” She shoved herself out of the chair. “Besides, I hear the lunch buffet here kicks ass, even if the breakfast sucked.”
“All you can eat,” he said. “Still my favorite four words.”
She shoved her tablet in her purse and slung the purse strap over her shoulder as she followed him out of the small room.
There was no way she could tell Roman the true reason she couldn’t let Bobby know he was right and not going crazy.
It had been an argument with the marshals when she created her company Obsidian Analytics to begin with.
Donovan—Deke—had painted a gruesome picture for her if she stepped out of the small town where they had hidden her family, but while her baby sister was quite content sitting indoors and reading books all day, Delaney needed more.
She needed a career, a life. Besides, it had been fifteen years.
Surely whoever was looking for her mother had given up long ago.
But Marshal Donovan Ashland had reminded her that the Serranos had a long memory and an even longer reach.
As she grabbed a plate at the buffet line, she thought back to the Marshal, in his late-thirties when the man, two inches past six feet, had first introduced himself to a trembling, crying, and very pissed off sixteen-year-old.
He was now in his early fifties and still looking out for her family.
His once inky dark hair was now more salt-and-pepper, still military short, and his hazel-green eyes set deep in his weathered face were always looking around rather than ever focusing on one specific spot.
He now walked with a slight limp thanks to an old bullet wound that had nothing to do with her or her family, and when he spoke, his voice now came out like gravel, which she knew had to be because of his love of rotgut whiskey, too cheap to buy the good stuff.
In the end, he had to let her do what she wanted.
She wasn’t a prisoner after all. And for the past three-plus years, it had been great.
He had insisted she keep her real persona a secret, though, using fake photos on the website, and her itinerary vague.
And everything had been great until Bobby entered the building.
Deke would have plenty to say about that in his gruff, no-time-for-coddling way.
It was a conversation she was not looking forward to and knew she should have already called him.
She simply didn’t want to hear his “I told you so” when she finally told him.
“You going to eat all of that, D?” Roman asked as he walked past her at the fried shrimp station.
She glanced down at her plate, the fog of her thoughts barely clearing as she saw the mound of random food she had stacked on top. Closing her eyes for a quick moment, she sighed and then turned toward her table. “Let’s find out.”
She sat down, and the server brought her a sweet tea. Draping her napkin over her lap, she simply stared at the full plate of food, wondering what half of it even was.
Roman chuckled as he sat down across from her. “That’s, um, an assortment of food. I’ve never seen you eat like that. What? Just couldn’t make up your mind?”
She grabbed her fork and stabbed into some fried rice. “I wasn’t even looking, to be honest. I guess my mind was… elsewhere.”
He leaned forward, fork in hand, as he stared at her, one brow cocked. “Wouldn’t be on that bulky dark blond tower of a man you refuse to really talk about, would it? You’ve been off-kilter since you saw him yesterday.”
She shoved the fried rice into her mouth, barely tasting it thanks to the white gravy that had flowed into it from her mashed potatoes. “I know it’s weird, but I can’t talk about it.”
“Too painful?”
“Too everything. But it’s also something I simply can’t talk about. I’m sorry.” She hated not being able to be open with him. It was part of being in WIT-SEC for so long that had become so ingrained in her she couldn’t risk letting it go. It could risk her family’s safety.
He made a slow bob of his head. “Part of that mysterious past of yours. I get it.” He leaned in even closer, lowering his voice. “But if you ever do need to talk to someone, I’m always here for you.”
She felt a soft smile pull at her lips. “I know. And thank you. I appreciate it.
She popped a fried shrimp into her mouth, her stomach churning so much that she knew she wouldn’t be able to eat much. Bobby Jenkins was there—in the casino—with her. She couldn’t believe it. And he looked fucking amazing.
And there was nothing she could do to let him know she had always loved him and never anyone else.
She sighed as she grabbed another piece of shrimp. Fuck my life.