Chapter Two
Raya
VIVIENNE TAKES A SLOW drag from her cigarette, her gaze sweeping over us in the foyer. Her kimono flutters around her ankles, curlers slipping from her muddy-brown hair. “For Christ’s sake, ladies, look alive if you want them to choose you.”
The women straighten, backs arching, postures sharpening.
Vivienne’s eyes land on me. She gives me a slow once over, then sighs. Resigned, dismissive.
She had rejected me at first. Said I looked “too American”—whatever that means—and the Castellos didn’t take American girls. Too much trouble. Not worth it.
Only after I offered to triple her fee did she relent, but still warned me that the likelihood of me getting chosen would be low.
Of the five women here with me, three are Latina, one Asian, and one Romanian.
Louisa edges closer to me. In the week and a half that I’ve been here, she’s the one I’ve clicked with the most. She’s a prattler. Talks enough for the both of us. Just the way I like it. “Don’t worry, Raya. We will make it in.”
Outside, engines sing and tires crunch over gravel.
Vivienne swings the door open and shuffles out.
A minute later, she returns, cigarette pinched between her bony fingers. “Come, come now.” She waves us forward. “Stop standing around like useless furniture.”
We file out onto the front steps, where two stalwart, tattooed men are waiting. One by one, they size us up.
The taller one, a spiderweb inked across his neck, stops on me and grunts. Disapproving. “Tryna be slick sneaking in an American, Viv?”
“She isn’t,” Vivienne says around a puff of smoke.
“Like fuck she isn’t.”
Vivienne sighs. “She’s—”
“My mom’s American-German-Romanian. My dad’s Russian-French-Scandinavian,” I speak up, thickening my accent for effect. “And I’ve spent my entire life living everywhere but America.”
The man narrows his eyes. I’m aware I just broke their rule—speak only when spoken to—but this is my best way in. I can’t be left behind over some nonsense prejudice.
“What accent is that?” he asks.
“A mixture of all the places I’ve lived. But mostly French. I spend the most time there.”
He studies me for a moment longer, then jerks his chin. “Take off the jacket. Let me see you.”
I shrug it off, turning in a slow three-sixty. Unlike the others, I’m not busty, curvy, or soft in all the right places. I’m lean, toned, athletic. Not the tempting, sin-encouraging type of body that turn heads at first glance. Which I knew, coming in, would be a strike against me.
The Castellos want bombshells. Sex on legs. Women who’ll keep patrons coming back night after night just to leer at the smokeshows serving their drinks and cigars. I’m anything but that.
The man makes an unimpressed grunt. “You got some striking eyes and a nice pair of tits, but that’s about it.” He turns to the others. “You, you, you, and you, let’s go.”
Shitshitshit. I need to get into that villa, dammit.
Lousia offers me a deflated, apologetic look. “I’m so sorry, Raya.”
“Don’t be. I’ll be fine. Go.”
She squeezes me in a quick hug before jogging down the steps with the others toward the two haphazardly parked Broncos.
In a last-ditch effort, I grab the man’s jacket to stall him.
He stops, looks down at my hand, then up at me, a warning in his glare.
I quickly drop my hand. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to—” I step back, out of his space.
“Aesthetically, I know I’m not what you’re looking for.
But I can be useful elsewhere.” My words rush out, urgent.
“I speak five languages. I’m good with numbers.
A whiz with tech, hacking, all that. I have selective eidetic memory.
I can see things once and recall every detail.
Well…when my brain cooperates. This also means I know random stuff about everything.
” I search his face. “There must be somewhere I’ll be of good use… .?”
“You know ‘bout weapons, too? How to handle a sniper rifle?” he challenges. “How to shoot someone right between the eyes? Hand-to-hand combat? Torture and interrogation skills? Tactical operations?”
Can’t answer that… “N-no, no, I don’t. I wouldn’t need your p-protection if I did.”
“Women who are too smart are dangerous. They can’t be trusted. The dumber you are, the better.” He looks me over again, his cold eyes lingering on my cleavage. “If we ever need a smart-ass bitch, we’ll find you.”
He turns and leaves. And there goes Luca Fontana. An Upperman in the Castellos organization. A blood relative. And, apparently, an asshole.
As the Broncos peel out of the driveway, taking my one chance with them, I whirl on Vivienne. “You couldn’t even try to persuade them?”
Unfazed, she takes a slow drag of her cigarette.
“I told you it was a long shot. You don’t look desperate.
You don’t look helpless. You don’t lack confidence, you reek of it.
There’s a reason they pick the girls they do.
” She flicks ash from her cigarette, head tilting.
“You didn’t tell me about all those...skills of yours. ”
I stare at her. I could snap that twiggy neck.
Rip her blackened lungs straight through her throat.
Instead, I bow my head, shoulders sagging, voice small.
“I don’t know half the crap I said. I was just trying to get them to take me.
Which is what you should have done, for all the money I paid you. ”
Unconvinced, she regards me for a beat. “I used to be trouble, so I know trouble when I see it. And you, girl, look a lot like trouble. Maybe it’s better for my life that they didn’t take you.”
I barely hold back a snort. “I’ll stick around for another week. Just in case they realize they need a ‘smart-ass bitch’ after all.”
“The fee to stay is the same. But feed yourself. You eat like a whale.”
“Yeah, sure, whatever.”
She studies me for a moment longer, before she turns and shuffles off, muttering, “Definitely trouble.”
Vivienne Morales is a private recruiter for the Castellos. By day, she works at a shelter for battered women. There, she shops for the young, childless, desperate and beautiful, and she offers them something better than a shelter ever could: real protection and provision.
Most aren’t just running from abusive exes, but far, far worse. And in Vegas, once you belong to the Castellos, you’re untouchable. No one lays a hand on their property.
In return, these women become loyal employees with free lodging and a monthly stipend, as long as they follow the rules.
I wasn’t recruited. I approached Vivienne myself, claiming a friend sent me. So it makes sense that she’s suspicious of me.
Irritated, I plop down on the limestone steps and fish out my hidden burner phone from inside my boot.
Time to consider Plan B.
~
FOUR DAYS LATER, in the dead of the night, Vivienne knocks on my door.
They’re back.
With swift movements, I get appropriately dressed, grab my backpack, and head out.
Luca Fontana stands by the passenger door of his Bronco, holding it open. Even in the moonlit shadows, his distrust is clear.
“Found yourselves in need of a smart-ass bitch?” I ask.
His jaw tightens. “Get in before I change my mind.”
I climb in, noting the two men in front.
Luca folds in beside me, slamming the door.
We drive in silence, the weight of his stare drilling into the side of my face.
Eventually, he asks me in Italian, “What five languages do you speak?”
Testing me.
In the same tongue, I reply, “English, Italian, Russian, Spanish, and French.”
German and Mandarin, too, but I won’t make the mistake of overselling myself again.
In clumsy Spanish, he asks, “How old are you?”
Vivienne already handed over every detail from those long, invasive forms she made us fill out.
“Twenty-three.”
He snuffs. “Must’ve had a busy childhood to be so…multifaceted.”
“Busy? No. Bored and lonely? Yes. Lots of free time to learn new things.”
I wait for him to ask why I’m here. He doesn’t. Doesn’t care enough. Just carrying out orders, putting in the minimum effort to make sure I’m not a mistake.
He rolls down his window, lights up a cigarette.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
He ignores me.
Biting back a smile, I crack my own window and turn my face to the fresh air.
I don’t need to assess him further, I have what I need: A man who likes control. A man who, for whatever reason, doesn’t have it right now, and that has him wound tight.
He was ordered to come get me, and he’s not happy about it.
He’ll likely be a bit of a challenge for me, but I’ll wing it, flow with his moods.
After a thirty-minute drive, the vehicle comes to a final stop in a back alley behind a towering building.
Black Gold Casino. Renowned as one of the best and most luxurious casino hotels on the Strip—although its hotel facilities remain closed to the public.
A frisson of thrill races up my spine as I’m ushered out of the car and toward a welded metal door.
One of the men bangs on it in a distinct pattern. Seconds later, it swings open, revealing a mountain of a man. Handgun at his hip, semi-auto strapped across his chest.
I’m ushered inside, up a flight of stairs, then into an elevator.
Several floors up, the doors slide open and I’m led to a long, narrow room, thick with smoke. A wall of glass overlooks the casino floor that’s pulsing with activity.
Three suited men sit inside. One of them Lorenzo Costello. Second in command, twin brother of the head honcho. He’s manspreading in a club chair, a cigar between his fingers, a half-empty whiskey glass within reach.
Luca prods me forward, but I shake my head. I’ve endured weeks of secondhand smoke at Vivienne’s, but this room is a death trap. “I can’t—I can’t be in here.”
“Come again?” Luca grips my arm, whipping me around. “Little late to change your mind now, smart girl.”
“No, it’s not that. I’m just—” My chest tightens. “My—”
“What? Spit it out.”
“I’m asthmatic.” I get out my inhaler from my jacket pocket and take a quick pump. “This room... There’s too much smoke.”
Luca stares at me in disbelief, then lets out a humorless chuckle. “You serious? You begged us to take you, knowing damn well you’ve got faulty lungs?” He gestures toward the casino floor below. “How the hell did you think you were gonna survive down there? Or in any of our clubs?”
“I can handle open spaces,” I say. “But in confined rooms with no windows, nowhere for the smoke to go…it’s different.”
“Why didn’t you say anything when I lit up in the car?”
“I rolled down my window and turned away.” I shrug. “Also, you’re an impatient, unaccommodating person, so I doubted you would care.”
This time, when he chuckles, there’s actual humor in it. “You know what I think?”
It sounds rhetorical so I remain quiet.
“I think you’re…” He studies me, then shakes his head, abandoning whatever he was about to say. Instead, he motions to Lorenzo. “Whether or not you leave this room depends on the boss.”
Lorenzo puffs a plume of smoke from his cigar, regarding me. He’s menace incarnate. Everything about him, his aura, his demeanor, the very air around him, radiates quiet threat.
There’s no doubt he’s met the devil face to face.
An obvious agent of Satan himself. Yet somehow, heaven saw fit to bless him with faultless, ruinous beauty.
His handsomeness is rough, unadorned. Strong jaw, straight nose, full lips.
Dark hair, streaked with burnished bronze, curling behind his ears and brushing his shoulders.
He snuffs out his cigar in a crystal ashtray, then straightens and strides toward a black door off to the side. “Come with me. You too, Luca.”
Luca nudges me forward, and we cross the smoky room, following Lorenzo through the door. It leads into a spacious office, designed in black and gold.
Lorenzo sits back against the edge of the desk. “Better?”
I nod.
“Use your words,” he orders.
“Better,” I say.
He gestures to the oversized black sofa against the wall. “Sit.”
Once I’m settled, he regards me. “I’m told you’re a tech whiz?”
Don’t oversell. “I don’t know about a whiz…”
If he’s knowledgeable in this area, then next he’ll ask if I’m an Independent or with a Cyber Family.
“Are you an Independent?” he asks. “Or are you with a Cyber Family?”
In the tech world, if you want to be taken seriously, if you want the high-paying jobs from companies that matter, you join a Cyber Family.
It’s a stamp of approval, a certification, a mark of trust. Most major organizations won’t hire Independents.
Too unpredictable, too mercenary. Loyal only to money.
And more often than not, they end up running ransomware attacks against their own employers.
“I’m with a Cyber Family,” I answer.
“Which one?”
I’m part of two of the top Cyber Families. But given the Castellos’ familial ties with Red Cage, only one is safe to mention. “The Timberly Day Family.”
Lorenzo lifts a brow. “Really?”
Hmm. He knows more than I expected. Seems Red Cage taught him well.
“You can check,” I say.
“Oh, I will.”
No, he won’t. Not anytime soon. Not while they’re in high-discretion mode, trust level at zero.
“Let’s test your skills,” he says. “What if I asked you to hack our security system?”
“Here? At Black Gold?”
“Yes.”
“I would need my laptop, details on the cameras, or just the IP address, if they’re IP cams.”
“How long would it take you?”
“If your camera guys just installed them, punched in a password, and called it a day, two to five minutes, tops,” I reply. “But if you had a pro secure the servers with firewalls, it will take longer. Depends on how strong the protection is.”
Lorenzo pushes off the desk and disappears through another door to the right. Moments later, he returns with a worn piece of card and hands it to me.
Camera details and IP address.
“Do it,” he orders. “You’ve got nothing but time.”
With a nod, I unzip my backpack and pull out my laptop.
“Stay with her,” he tells Luca, then heads for the door. Hand on the doorknob, he pauses to glance over his shoulder at me. “Your life depends on you getting this done.”
“Okay then,” I mutter when he’s gone.
Luca flops down beside me.
I slide him a glance. “You’re a tense and serious bunch, aren’t you?”
He throws his head back against the couch, legs sprawled, arms crossed. Clearly not thrilled about babysitting duty. “If you wanted jokers, you should’ve gone to the circus instead.”
“Point taken.”