Chapter 1
Saul sauntered through the casino like he didn’t have a care in the world. He’d already dropped a couple of thousand at the blackjack table, and hadn’t lost too much, even though he deliberately hadn’t been trying to win.
For all intents and purposes, he looked like a man with more money than sense, one who was happy to throw it around, and that was just the way he wanted it.
Several women flocked around him. His good looks as well as his obvious money - and probably the reputation that preceded him - made certain of that.
Saul treated them accordingly, both generous and flirtatious.
Buying drinks, allowing them to suggest his plays, passing out high dollar tokens here and there for them to use themselves.
While it might appear that he drank copious amounts of champagne, he was actually stone cold sober, though he played it up like he was well on the way to becoming drunk and uncaring to anyone who might have the inclination to watch.
And there were plenty of those too. Eyes that perused him with avarice, lust, envy, anger, and even contempt. More than half the seven deadly sins.
Leaving the blackjack table, he moved on with a small entourage, laughing raucously and weaving ever so slightly. People saw what they wanted to see. They made assumptions even though they didn’t know him in the slightest. Mostly, their assumptions were entirely wrong.
Saul worked hard to keep it that way.
The number of people who truly knew him, he could count on one hand, and even they didn’t know the whole truth of his life and how he chose to live it.
He headed towards the back of the casino.
This was where he needed to ditch the hangers on.
“Go grab another bottle of bubbly, sweetheart,” he slurred to one of the women who was clutching his arm like her life depended on it.
He peeled off several high denomination notes from a billfold and flashed them in front of her.
The woman - he couldn’t remember her name - grabbed them out of his hand like a starving animal might dive for scraps, but didn’t relinquish her hold on him.
Instead, she pouted and whined. “We can do it together.”
“Got to visit the little boys’ room,” he told her, gesturing to the upscale bathroom.
Her eyes hooded. “I could come in there and help you,” she murmured suggestively, licking her blood-red painted lips.
Saul’s playboy reputation was well known, but this woman reeked of desperation and while she was quite beautiful, it wasn’t attractive. Jeez! He must be getting old. That never would have bothered him in the past.
Of course, he wasn’t the fickle young man he used to be any more, but more than that, at the ripe old age of thirty-five, he felt like he’d already lived several lifetimes. Maybe it really was time for a change.
But first, whether he liked it or not, there were obligations.
“I’m sure we can find somewhere far more sanitary than the men’s bathroom, no matter how upscale they are in this place,” Saul said with a wink. “I’ll meet you at the bar.”
“Come on, let’s go grab that bubbly,” one of the other women with them encouraged, pulling at her arm.
Seeing her waver, Saul extracted her scarlet talons from his sleeve, whirled her around in the direction of one of the many casino bars, and patted her on the bottom to get her moving, before he quickly ducked into the gents.
Checking his watch, he gave himself two minutes and ignored the unusual apprehension churning in his gut.
That should be time enough for all four women to be at the bar and distracted by ordering.
Then, slipping out, he walked in the opposite direction without so much as a glance in their direction.
If any of them looked his way, he’d simply be another tall, dark-haired man dressed in a tuxedo from behind.
He made his way to the private part of the casino, through a door marked ‘employees only’, and immediately readopted his drunken demeanors as he appeared to wander aimlessly around, ready with his excuses should he be stopped.
It looked like luck was with him though, because these private hallways were deserted. The bad feeling he’d had since he’d arrived kicked up a notch. Was this all just a bit too easy?
Mentally following his planned route, Saul made his way to the top floor via staff access and staircases, so he engaged fewer security protocols. While the lifts needed keycard access, to satisfy fire and emergency evacuation regulations, the stairwells weren’t locked.
When he emerged at the penultimate level, security was a little stricter, but he already had that covered, having cloned a security card he’d lifted from another member of staff. However, he hadn’t wanted to risk using it before he absolutely had to. And that was now.
Swiping the card, Saul sucked in a breath and peered through the wire reinforced safety glass to check the coast was clear before stepping through, then ensured the door was kept ever so slightly ajar by dropping a small bag of chips to prevent it from closing in case he had to make a quick getaway.
He needed to be in and out of here as fast as he could.
Finally, he clicked on his phone to send the pre-drafted message to the concierge of a hotel close by, asking to have his helicopter prepped and ready to take off from their helipad in thirty minutes.
He’d paid the guy handsomely to make sure it happened.
He’d taken extra precautions since his sixth sense was screaming at him, and he’d learned to never ignore it.
But that didn’t mean he could just walk away from what he had to do here. He just needed to be more cautious.
Now it was go time.
Tapping his chest to activate the micro camera lapel pin, Saul set off to find the incriminating information he needed to nail yet another senior member of the drug cartel which was flooding the streets with cheap fentanyl cut with the animal tranquilizer xylazine, a mix that was fast becoming known as the zombie drug, and causing a rising number of deaths.
Finally, he’d reached his destination. The top floor offices of the casino, which was where he hoped to find the evidence he needed that this Puerto Rican casino was laundering dirty drug money for the Cuban cartel.
Casinos were always a prime target for laundering operations, and Cuba and Puerto Rico had more similarities than just their flags.
Cubans easily blended with the indigenous Latino population, but Puerto Rico had the benefit of being part of the United States, and with the drugs being smuggled from Havana into the Florida Keys where it was easy to evade the authorities among the maze of islands, it kept the whole operation in a neat space.
Of course, his run of good fortune was always going to come to an end. Not that Saul was expecting the next door to be left open, but disabling the alarm and picking the lock ate into his time and made him a sitting duck for longer than he cared for.
Since this particular door didn’t have a window, he chanced the light switch, hoping he’d find a less intrusive desk lamp to work with once he could see.
But his luck really had well and truly run out.
“Well, well…” A body followed the voice that emerged from the recesses of the room. “Mr. Stephens, it seems the intel I received about you was true.”
Saul froze as a burly man with a gun, flanked by a couple of thugs, stepped towards him.
“Umm… I was looking for the men’s room,” Saul slurred, falling back on his by-play, even though it was far from believable all the way up here.
“How sad you found this particular room instead,” the man, who clearly knew more about Saul than vice versa, smirked.
“Perhaps you can point me in the right direction?”
“Oh, I will definitely be doing that,” the guy Saul finally recognized as Manuel Ortega’s second-in-command, waved the firearm, and directed one of his two henchmen to search him.
Saul may have been able to neutralize Ortega, who was now rotting in prison, but it was a fact of life that more often than not, the organization itself simply grew another head.
There was always some criminal ready and waiting to step into his boss' shoes.
Eduardo Jimenez was no different. “But maybe not a direction you would prefer.”
The thug patted him down, but didn’t find anything.
Because of the way he portrayed himself to the world, Saul never carried a weapon.
Well, not any obvious ones, anyway. That served him well now, as Jimenez frowned when the big dude who’d just patted him down none too gently, shook his head to indicate Saul’s lack of a firearm, but held up his billfold, tossing it to his boss when he wiggled his fingers.
Saul sucked in a deep, calming breath. He’d always known this moment might come - would come - and his intention had always been to play dumb.
He raised his hands in an effort to show he was harmless…
Well, that was the theory, anyway. One he fully intended to exploit.
“What is this, man? A stick up? You think because I have money you can just point a gun and demand it from me? Do you know who I am? One word to the right people and your history!” Saul injected as much arrogance into his voice as he could muster as Eduardo expertly counted the cash.
Right now, his sole purpose was to act like an entitled, egotistical playboy…
a role the whole world expected from him.
Jimenez’s face contorted into a sick mockery of a smile. “As true as that may be, you’d have to be alive to say that word, Mr. Stephens. And I feel that is rather unlikely.”
“What are you talking about?” Saul piled on the bluster. “You can’t say things like that to me. And besides, you’d never get away with it.”