Chapter 10
ARTUR
By evening, three neutral captains have accepted seats at my private table despite Pasha expecting last night’s killing to empty those chairs. I intend to show Atlanta that the Dymov organization is open for business, able to honor every wager, and capable of sending our guests home alive.
Pasha’s message identifies the existence of the protected house, not its road or gate.
Moving Katie now would place her on routes his men can watch, while the repaired fence, reinforced shell, and rotating exterior teams remain easier to defend than another convoy.
We stay until a verified address leak makes relocation safer than holding the ground we know.
Katie intends to come with me.
She stands inside the safe-house bedroom wearing fitted black trousers and a cream silk blouse. The blouse closes high at her throat, but the fabric follows her breasts and makes the missing bra apparent.
“No,” I say.
Katie fastens a gold cuff over the marks. “You should wait until I make a request before refusing it.”
“You aren’t attending a criminal card game less than a day after Pasha named you as a target.”
“Pasha named me because hiding me changes your behavior. If I disappear tonight, every captain at that table will know his threat worked.” She smooths one sleeve, watching me in the mirror.
“You need them to see your wife standing beside you. I need them to see I wasn’t frightened back into a locked bedroom. ”
I dislike the logic precisely because it’s correct.
“You stay beside me,” I say. “If Boris or I tell you to move, you move first and argue when the door locks behind us.”
“Explain the danger when you can. Give the order when you can’t.”
The distinction is reasonable, which is why I resent how difficult she makes unreasonable behavior.
“Agreed.”
Katie takes her coat from the bed. “That sounded painful.”
“I’ll recover.”
Dymov Casino hides below a legitimate event venue whose banquet rooms glow aboveground.
Beyond a catering corridor fragrant with roasted meat and expensive flowers, one guard checks invitation cards against faces before another opens the lower gate.
An awards dinner sends music through the ceiling while servers pass with silver-domed trays, and the venue manager keeps curious employees assigned elsewhere so nobody glances twice at the steel door concealed between two linen closets.
The contrast gives the descent its particular glamour: respectable Atlanta drinks champagne overhead while another city waits behind locked metal under its polished shoes.
The elevator descends without floor numbers; its mirrored walls show Katie standing between Boris and me, one hand inside her coat pocket. Ivan rides in the second car with the outer guards. By the time our doors open, the music overhead has disappeared.
No public gaming floor exists inside the casino; between invitation-only rooms, thick charcoal carpet absorbs footsteps.
Through narrow ceiling grilles, quiet ventilation filters perfume from the air without ever removing the stale smell of used cards.
Mirrored liquor cabinets line the private rooms, several of them concealing steel security doors behind shelves mounted on sliding tracks.
Under amber lamps, the tables stay bright while the corners remain dim enough for private conversation, and dealers wear plain black suits without house insignia.
Without machines, nothing rings or flashes: only cards touching felt, chips striking in short stacks, and ice moving inside heavy glasses disturb the quiet.
Security occupies the walls without announcing itself; above each doorway, a brass ornament contains a camera. At ankle height, polished baseboards conceal panic switches; through every mirror, my guards gain a second view of the room.
Katie notices the first hidden door before I identify it, her gaze passing over the mirrored cabinet before returning to the narrow break between two shelves. “Does the bourbon evacuate before the guests?”
“Only the expensive bottles.”
“Good. I was worried your priorities had changed.”
The joke is quiet enough for only me to hear. I place my hand at her lower back and lead her into the game.
The neutral captains rise, men who watched me kill Sergei last night and now watch Katie take the chair at my right without lowering her eyes.
She greets each man by the name she learned at the fight. When one asks about her wrist, she says the damage is temporary and changes the subject to his wager before pity can enter the conversation; no one mentions Velvet Fortune.
The oldest captain breaks that silence. “Pasha claims Sergei was murdered because you embarrassed your husband.”
Katie removes her coat and gives it to a guard. “Sergei died because he confused my approach with ownership. I embarrassed my husband separately.”
Nobody laughs as the captain leans back, reassessing her before he continues.
“And the war?” the captain asks.
“Pasha set an occupied building on fire within an hour of making his declaration. If you’re deciding which man creates the greater risk, judge the one who chose workers as his answer.”
The captain studies Katie before turning to me. “Your wife speaks as if she holds a seat.”
“She holds mine whenever she wants it.”
Katie’s eyes move toward me, her surprise lasting only a moment before she looks back at the captains from the chair she already claimed.
They have heard me identify her as protected; now they hear me identify her judgment as relevant, a difference that matters in rooms where a wife is often discussed after being sent upstairs.
Boris has taken the chair to my left, putting his back toward the nearest hidden exit.
Near the bar, Ivan speaks with the casino captain assigned to guest security.
The man joined us several years after Misha died, and the silver pin on his dark lapel marks the rank that gives him access to every service level.
The dealer begins the first hand, though Katie doesn’t play. She watches the cards through the reflections, studying how each man handles a loss without turning her head. In the mirrored cabinet behind the dealer, she can see both concealed exits and the captain near the bar.
She learns the game as she pretends to understand it already.
Her gaze follows the first bet, pauses when the dealer exposes the shared cards, then shifts to the men rather than their hands.
By the second round she knows which captain touches his ring ahead of bluffing, and she notices that another stacks losing chips separately from winnings.
Neither habit changes the cards, but both tell her where attention will move when the room is disturbed. I win the first pot without bluffing as a captain from the north side loses until he becomes cheerful, which means he intended the money as a public vote of confidence rather than a wager.
I lose the next hand without reacting as the winner asks whether Dymov construction can still guarantee material deliveries.
His question is meant for the other men as much as me.
I give replacement routes with revised dates, then name every worker already discharged to prove our losses were limited.
Katie listens without interrupting, and when I mention the temporary south yard, she glances toward Boris because the location wasn’t included in the public closure notice. She catches sensitive information before one of my captains does.
Conversation shifts toward the construction fire once the cards can no longer hold their attention.
“Three contractors suspended work,” one captain says. “If the sites remain targets, concrete and steel will become difficult to schedule.”
“The injured workers are receiving their wages,” I answer. “The projects will reopen under heavier security. Anyone who honors an existing agreement receives the same terms with expenses caused by the delay.”
No one accepts immediately, though nobody leaves or reaches for a coat as Katie places her hand on my thigh under the table.
Her palm rests several inches above my knee, and the contact appears affectionate to anyone watching her shoulder, but her eyes stay on the mirrored cabinet. She slides her fingers higher when the next cards are dealt.
The pressure draws my attention to her body before I understand its purpose.
Silk pulls across her breasts as she leans toward me, the blouse shifting enough for one nipple to show through the cream fabric.
Under the table, her fingertips reach the inside of my thigh and stop beside the growing ridge in my trousers.
I remember her naked in the safe house, asking me to come inside her and holding me there as I did. Blood moves into my cock with no respect for the captains watching my face, heat building under my trousers until I cover her hand before public reassurance becomes difficult to conceal.
“If I press twice, look at the cabinet instead of me,” she says near my ear.
“You are issuing instructions during my game.”
“I’m preserving your dignity during mine.”
I release her hand, but Katie leaves her palm where it is. Her thumb moves once along the seam of my trousers before becoming still, a restraint that requires more attention than the cards.
The dealer turns another card while chips move across felt and the casino captain near the bar checks his phone again, his attention returning to it too often for an ordinary message.
A server enters carrying an empty silver tray. “The south elevator requires a blue key.”
The phrase sounds like a routine request: it is the casino’s code for an unrecognized command at the garage gate. Boris lowers his cards, preparing to address the room without alarming the guests.
No alarm sounds, and the dealer continues turning cards. One neutral captain reaches for his drink while another studies the chips in front of him. Anyone unfamiliar with the code would hear only a delayed elevator request.