Bred by the BRATVA Fixer: Las Vegas BRATVA (Bred by the BRATVA Las Vegas #2)

Callie

It’s almost eight in the evening when I finally peel myself away from Grandma’s bedside. I’d stay longer, but my manager has offered me a night shift on overtime, and God knows I need the money.

The nurses have been trying to get rid of me for most of the day.

I heard them talking about how I’m interfering in my grandmother’s care.

But how can I not? How can I leave the woman who raised me to be cared for by strangers who don’t even know her.

I wish I could have kept her home, but after she left the house in the middle of the night and I spent hours driving around searching for her and calling hospitals, I knew it was too unsafe.

I knew she needed more than I could give her.

Sometimes I wonder who I might’ve been if life hadn’t shifted the ground beneath my feet so early. If Mom hadn’t gotten sick and slipped away before I learned how to live without her. If the father whose name I don’t even know had ever bothered to look for me.

Gran took me in when I was eight, brought me to live with her in Las Vegas with nothing but a backpack full of clothes and a heart full of grief. She worked the front desk of a hotel until her memory gave out, and then it was my turn to take care of her.

High school became half-days, then no days at all.

While everyone else was choosing colleges and futures, I was learning how to translate medical forms and count pills into tiny plastic containers.

I traded diplomas and dreams for the only family I had left.

And I’d do it all over again… even if it means the rest of the world sees me as just another cocktail waitress in a casino.

The cold rush of Vegas night air hits me as I step off the bus and into the neon glow of the Strip. Every billboard screams luxury, sin, wealth… everything I don’t have. I tug my uniform top higher over my cleavage and hurry toward the staff entrance of Korolyov Hotel and Casino.

Just a shift. Get through the shift. Then you can rest.

Inside, bright lights and pulsing music swallow me whole. People want to believe Las Vegas is magic, and maybe it is. But the real magic happens behind the glossy walls, where debts are collected, secrets are buried, and where the house always wins.

I keep my head down as I pass the glitzy shops, dark bars and velvet-roped lounges, but a few patrons glance my way.

Not at my face, of course. The uniform is designed for attention, which means I spend hours pretending I don’t feel the hungry gazes crawling along my thighs and cleavage.

I’m a walking reminder that in this city, even bodies are currency.

What would my life have been if Grandma hadn’t gotten sick? If I’d gotten into the art program I dreamed about. If I hadn’t traded pencils and paint for cocktail trays and aching feet.

I could be sketching in some sun-lit studio, not praying that the tips will be good enough to keep the care home from calling me about late fees again.

But this is what life does. It takes what you love, and it asks how much more you’re willing to lose.

A woman at a slot machine accidentally spills her drink as I walk by, and I crouch instantly, wiping up the sticky mess while she barely notices me.

The ice bites my fingertips, and a headache throbs behind my right eye.

One of those slow-building ones that comes from too little sleep, even less food, and too much worry.

I’m terrified all the time.

Terrified of Grandma slipping away when I’m not there. Terrified this job isn’t enough to keep the bills paid. Terrified that I am not enough.

But I keep going because she used to tell me, “You’re tougher than you think, Callie-girl.” She believed in a version of me I’ve never quite managed to find.

“Keep moving,” I whisper under my breath like a prayer only I can hear. “Just keep moving.”

The tray gets heavier the longer I carry it. The noise gets sharper. My chest gets tighter. And I know, if anything happens to Grandma because I didn’t do enough, I’ll never forgive myself.

Working overnight is extra pay, but tips can be harder to come by unless there’s a party happening.

I’m three hours into my nine-hour shift when I slip into the utility closet to take off my heels and rub my aching feet.

I allow myself exactly sixty seconds before returning to the bar to collect more drinks.

“Callie!” my supervisor barks. “Delivery to the high-rollers suite, then lounge service.”

Only another two hours and I can take a break. Call the nurses to make sure one of them has checked in on Grandma. But until then I’m just another waitress in a too-tight uniform, carrying trays of drinks for people who wouldn’t blink if I vanished.

I plaster on a smile that doesn’t reach my eyes and weave through the maze of machines, winding my way toward the private elevators. The tray in my hands shakes slightly. I blame the three hours of sleep and the memory of Grandma’s thin, fragile fingers curling around mine.

You’re going to be okay, I told her.

But I don’t know if that’s a promise or a lie.

I drop the first drinks off to the high-rollers suite to men who can’t even take the time to look up from their hands, never mind thank me or tip me.

I smile anyway and leave quietly, squashing the urge to reveal what cards they are each holding.

I’d probably get fired for that, or worse, knowing how seriously some of these people take their gambling.

I turn towards the lounges, but the hallway ahead is quieter than it should be. No security here. No staff. Just an eerie hush that prickles down my spine.

I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere.

Shit.

I spin, scanning dull concrete walls instead of the usual polished marble. The casino’s backstage veins, where only the people who belong here walk. And I don’t belong here.

Ahead, a door stands slightly ajar, bright light and low voices spilling into the empty corridor.

I nudge it open with my hip and plaster a huge fake smile on my face as I enter. A soft pfft sounds as I brightly say “Hello,” and my world stops turning.

I blink a couple of times, the false lashes I’m wearing pressing against my cheek, the weight of them suddenly feeling too much.

The way the uniform scratches the soft skin of the inside of my upper arms as I hold the tray is suddenly almost too much to bear.

I can hear my heartbeat in my ears as my eyes try desperately to make sense of what I'm seeing.

A tall man, dark-haired and dressed in a suit cut to make angels cry, turns to face me. The only other person in the room is lying dead, face down on the floor, blood leaking from the fresh bullet hole in his head.

I lift my eyes to meet the shooters, and what I see there is as compelling as it is terrifying.

A silver coldness shimmers before turning assessing, and then quickly to something else.

I swallow, roll my tongue around my mouth, try to make my throat work.

Should I scream?

I feel like I should, but I can’t. His eyes hold me there, like a snake charmer with a cobra. One break in his stare and I know the spell will shatter and I’ll bolt.

He takes a step closer to me, and the realization hits that this might be my last moment on this mortal coil.

That I’m spending it staring into silvery-gray eyes that have specks of blue in them if you look just deep enough.

His mouth is moving, I can hear sounds, but words aren’t forming in my brain right now. I drop my eyes to his lips.

“What’s your name?” His mouth moves over the words, and years of having to interpret drinks orders in loud environments help me understand.

I lick my lips, let my eyes wander down the line of his throat, to the open shirt collar and the tattoos that peek from between the open buttons. At least if I die tonight, I got to marvel at this magnificent human being first.

Or monster.

Or demon.

Whatever he is, he has stirred up something inside of me that was long dormant or maybe never existed at all.

“Callie,” I say as his finger hooks beneath my chin and lifts, forcing me to drag my eyes back up to his.

“You shouldn’t be here, Callie,” he says, my brain registering words again.

His voice is smoother than the scotch I’m carrying on this tray.

There’s an accent just underneath the American that I can’t put my finger on because my mind is still short-circuiting.

But my senses are slowly starting to return.

I can smell the blood and the acrid scent of gunshot. I can hear how silent this room is. Feel how cool it is. My arms erupt with goosebumps as though my skin has just figured out how to work again, and my teeth start to chatter. But that might be fear. I don’t know. Is this fear?

“I figured that out about a nano-second too late,” I say with a sad shrug.

I think of my grandma. Who is going to look after her when I’m dead? There is no one else. The nurses are borderline cruel in their boredom and neglect. Just going through the motions of ensuring my grandma doesn’t die in their care of anything other than natural causes. The thought is harrowing.

Anger burns hot and sudden. My grandma deserves more than a granddaughter who can’t even survive long enough to say goodbye.

“Juliet Hind,” I say, but it comes out as a whisper. “My grandmother. She is in York Bridgeway Care Facility. Please, just make sure she is okay. She hasn’t got long left.”

The handsome man-monster frowns, moving his finger from beneath my chin up and over my cheek.

I let out a shuddering breath, refusing to acknowledge the way I lean into his touch.

It’s been so long I’d forgotten what tenderness could feel like.

It’s the only time I allow my eyes to flutter shut just for a second, so I can imprint this into my mind and let it be the thing that carries me to wherever you go when you die.

He drops his hand from my face, and I instantly miss the rough warmth of it.

I take the glass from my tray and raise it between us, “To what comes next,” I whisper. Then I gulp the scotch, letting it burn a trail down my throat before I place the empty glass back on the tray, and then carefully on the floor by my feet.

“You think I’m going to kill you,” he says. It’s not a question. I keep my eyes on his. I won’t die with them closed. He will damn well look me in the eye when he pulls the trigger.

I gasp when smooth, cold metal touches the outside of my thigh. He presses the length of the silencer just beneath the glittering beaded trim of my uniform. My thighs clench together, and I swallow hard, but I still don’t close my eyes.

“Promise me you’ll check in on her,” I say, even though I know it’s futile, because why would this stranger go out of his way for me? For my grandma who means nothing to him.

His gaze narrows, calculating something I can’t see. Then the gun shifts, not pressing against my skin anymore, but sliding away, disappearing into the back of his waistband as though killing me was never his plan at all.

“You’re coming with me.”