Chapter 10
ten
I read the file once and then wipe it from digital existence by deleting it myself and then texting Adrian to make sure it’s gone for good. I don’t know how men do this job without a memory like mine. Do they walk around with incriminating information on them, just risking it? Fuck all that.
I leave the warehouse on the back of my Harley and go home to change. I can’t exactly walk in the Venetian wearing greasy jeans and a stained T-shirt. I fucking hate suits, but the occasion calls for it. At least now I own a tie that reminds me of Lindy.
On the ride home, I consider swiping him from the casino floor but his hotel room is the better option. There shouldn’t be any security cameras in his room, not ones the feds will have access to right away anyway.
He’s in town to gamble so it’s going to be a late night for me.
I’ve trained myself to be a patient man.
Allowing Oleg to gamble and drink, hopefully a lot, will have his guard down which makes my job that much easier.
Sitting in his hotel room waiting for him to return sounds boring as fuck, but maybe there’ll be a good movie on.
The suit I pull on is a second skin, one I loathe to wear.
It's a necessary evil, a disguise that melds me into the world I'm about to infiltrate.
The fabric, a high-quality wool blend, whispers against my skin with every movement, a constant reminder of the facade I'm forced to adopt.
It's smooth, almost slippery, yet it clings to me with a weight that's paradoxically both light and suffocating.
As I button up the jacket, I can't help but feel as if I'm armoring myself for battle, each button a seal on my true identity.
The suit, black as the night I operate in, a mask concealing the man beneath, the man who thrives in the shadows, not in the glaring lights of the opulent halls I'm about to enter.
Wearing this suit, I'm no longer Cassius, the man who deals in death and shadows; I'm just another face in the crowd, anonymous, invisible, a wolf in sheep's clothing. I grin, I’m The Machine, that’s the name that’s whispered about me.
The name follows the bodies I drop. The name follows headlines like, The Machine, a ghostly presence that haunts and eliminates targets silently and efficiently, leaves no trace except for the two spiders he leaves behind.
There’s plenty of people who operate within the same darkness as me, but don’t know me personally, don’t know my real identity.
I never liked the nickname, but for some reason this particular suit has me embracing it.
My phone buzzes and rings on my dresser, and not my personal burner. I pick it up without bothering a greeting.
“No hello?” Sava's voice comes through after a brief pause, her tone light, almost teasing.
“Is it done?” I cut straight to the heart of why she’s calling.
“Yes. Do you want actual confirmation or is my word enough?” There's a hint of challenge in her question.
“That was incredibly quick.”
“It helps to have boobs. Men are extremely easy to get alone when you’ve got boobs.” Her laughter is laced with a cold, hard truth, a reminder of the weapons we wield, some more overt than others.
“I don’t need photos or anything else. Your word is enough for me.” Trust in our line of work is a currency as valuable as any other and Sava has my trust in spades.
“So don’t send you the fingers I chopped off just in case?” Her jest, morbid as it is, doesn't make me flinch.
“Did you actually chop off fingers?” The question escapes before I can stop it, my curiosity getting the better of me.
“I wasn’t about to lose my future favor over some dumb shit.” Her voice hardens with conviction, a steel edge that reminds me why she's invaluable.
“What are you going to ask for?” I ask, genuinely curious about her endgame.
“Hell if I know.” Sava laughs. “But, I know when the time comes that I have to call your scary ass I will be so thankful that you can’t say no.”
“Thank you, Sava.” My honest gratitude, a rare sentiment in our world, hangs heavy in the air.
“You’re thanking me? Was this one for her?”
“Something like that.” I keep it vague. I trust Sava, but distance is the point; dragging her deeper into Lindy isn’t.
If Sava knew what that boss did she’d want to torture him for hours.
Her mercy is selective: kids and women men think they own.
Everything else, she burns. I was born out of my father’s hate; Sava was born out of hate too, a worse kind.
She’d scoop Lindy up on sight and never set her down.
That should comfort me. It doesn’t. It’s another tether, and I’m trying to cut them, not tie more.
“Let’s both hope I don’t have to call you anytime soon.” Sava says before hanging up the phone.
As much as I want to take my bike, it won’t be good on the suit. I slide into my silver Rose Noire Droptail instead. It’s rare when I don’t ride my bike to a job, but it does happen. As much as I hate it, I have to blend in and my Harley and jeans don’t always measure up with the clientele.
The Venetian stands as a monument to extravagance and illusion, its towering facades and luxurious interiors a testament to the city's love affair with opulence.
As I step into its grand lobby, the air is thick with the scent of wealth and desperation, marble floors gleaming under lavish chandeliers that cast everything in a golden hue.
The sounds of slot machines, the laughter and curses of fortune's fools, and the clinking of chips all merge into the casino's pulsating rhythm.
I make my way through the throngs of people, each lost in their own world of dreams and regret, until I find the casino floor where Oleg is.
He’s easy to find. He’s surrounded by a large group, the center of attention at a high-stakes poker table.
Even from a distance, the air around him crackles with the kind of charisma that draws people in, a dangerous magnetism for those unaware of the man beneath the veneer.
I’m a shadow among the glitter and noise, taking a seat at the bar with a clear view of Oleg and his entourage. He plays with the confidence of a man who believes luck is on his side, unaware of the predator lurking in his midst.
I take a barstool with a clean angle, nurse a soda, and take meticulous mental notes.
He favors the main entrance, keeps clocking the side corridor, hates not seeing his six.
I log the exits, the likely problem points, the telltales on his detail.
The way he interacts with the staff, his body language, each detail is a piece of the puzzle.
Knife tap. One, two, three. My phone buzzes in my pocket. Not possible. I had Adrian hard-block the feed, her cams, her dot on my map and every other nerve I kept touching. The screen lights anyway. A stack of bubbles my dickhead of a brother forwarded.
Lindy:
I’m sorry about earlier.
Are you mad at me?
(Twenty minutes later.)
I won’t talk to her again if you don’t want me to.
Ever.
Are you okay? You went quiet.
(Ten minutes later.)
Please tell me you’re safe.
(Five minutes later.)
Cassius, please.
(Forty minutes later.)
I won’t text again tonight. Goodnight, Cassius.
Heat spikes under my skin. I thumb Adrian’s number, voice flat as a trigger. “Why would you show me all that? I’m on a job goddamnit.”
“You told me to block your access,” he says, bored. “You didn’t tell me to let you pretend she stopped wanting you. Consider it data.”
“This is not data you idiot.” Knife, hip. One, two, three. “You don’t get to curate what I feel.”
“I’m not curating anything. I’m reminding you that though the detective is still a variable, I doubt your silence is doing anything other than hurting Melinda.”
“Holy shit. You feel bad for her.”
“Why is that surprising?”
“You’ve done nothing but tell me how dumb this is since the start.”
“That was before I realized how much she clearly cares for you.”
“Done talking,” I say, and kill the call.
I am about to kill a man. The last thing I can be thinking about is Lindy caring for me.
Fucking Adrian. I put the phone face-down.
The ache doesn’t move. I set the timer even though I won’t be available in thirty minutes.
No contact. If I can hold a blade steady in a man’s throat, I can hold my thumbs still.
Oleg laughs, and it carries over the din of the casino, as he rakes in another large pot. The people around him are caught up in his orbit, but they’re background noise to me. My focus narrows on Oleg, observing the security detail that tries to blend in, their eyes never straying far from him.
I don’t usually work under tight time constraints, and to Travis’s credit, he does usually try to give me more notice. Men like Oleg, stay alive by doing things seemingly spur of the moment.
As Oleg continues to gamble, I ready myself for what must be done.
Tonight, the house doesn’t hold the advantage.
Hours of surveillance and it's time to make my move. The soda I've been sipping remains mostly untouched, ice completely gone, and the napkin soaked underneath it. Sobriety is my closest ally tonight, ensuring my senses stay as sharp as the blade I carry. There’s a reason Machine is attached to me as a nickname. My blades are my signature. Sure, I have used a gun when I’ve had no other choice, but they’re loud and frankly, a lazy way to kill someone.
Unless you can kill a person from a thousand plus yards away, it doesn’t take skill.
Leaving the casino behind, I head toward the elevators, blending in with the late-night crowd.
The keycard, that I swiped earlier from a guard in the men’s bathroom, grants me access to Oleg's floor. Thanks to Adrian’s digital clone, it’ll open whatever I want.
The silence of the hallway is a stark contrast to the chaos below, my footsteps muffled by the plush carpet as I approach his suite.