Chapter Seventeen
“Everyone report in,” Graves said as they strode across the Bellagio casino floor.
Kierse was in a slinky black dress that sparkled like the stars.
She held a glass of prosecco, and her hair was down in long waves.
Graves at her side in a black tuxedo. Hiding in plain sight was a skill that she may never get used to.
But they’d spent the day playing the part of high rollers while their team got in position all around them, silently infiltrating the casino.
“Walking into my dinner,” Lyra groused.
Lyra hadn’t explained why the son of the Vegas vampire syndicate hated her, but she’d complained frequently about having to get his attention. It might have been avoided, but it was useful to have the owners exactly where they needed them to be.
“I have control of the security room,” Schwartz said.
“Key card incoming,” Laz said.
Laz stepped around the corner in a casino employee uniform. He moved past Kierse, slipping the card to bypass security into her hand. She pocketed it into Graves’s suit and continued walking as if nothing happened.
Graves removed it with his gloved hand and cleared the scanner into the inner workings of the hotel and casino.
Las Vegas had always sounded so fake to her. In the middle of a desert wasteland was a glittering world of sin and excess. Towering casinos and shows and showgirls all wrapped into one dazzling package as long as you didn’t look at it too closely. Then the image would all fall apart.
They’d entered the warren where everything fell apart. Long, barren corridors, cement floors, and dark service elevators.
“Looping the feeds now,” Walter said. “Take the second elevator. I’m sending it to you. No one will be in it.”
“We’re in position for backup,” Gen said.
The second elevator dinged open, and she stepped onto the lift with Graves.
“That went smoothly.”
“Good. I want us to get out of here as soon as possible.”
“Don’t want to stay and gamble some more?”
He shot her a look. “If you’ve been to Vegas once, you’ve been a hundred times.”
“Are you saying you’d rather sit upstairs and read a book?”
“Always.”
She laughed. “My little introvert.”
“Books give me more joy than people ever have.”
Kierse had been mesmerized by Las Vegas. Part of it was that the more distance she put between her and New York, the better she felt. He wasn’t in Vegas. Like he hadn’t been in London.
So she got to enjoy it. It was so different than New York, yet it felt the same in so many ways.
Like that all the casinos were owned and operated by monsters.
When the monsters had revealed themselves, they also showed that human casino owners had been a front.
Now that they were recognized, they came out of the shadows to claim their property.
Half of the casinos on the Strip were split between vampires and werewolves.
Vampires owned the MGM properties, including the Bellagio, which they currently stood in.
They’d merged with a nymph property holding that included Mandalay Bay, making them the largest company, while the werewolves were their biggest competitors with Caesar’s Palace, Paris, and Planet Hollywood.
Other monsters owned other casinos on and off the Strip—wraiths held Wynn, shifters occupied the Venetian, and an incubus/succubus pair had apparently started Circus Circus and Treasure Island with a mer.
“I had security pulled from the location,” Schwartz said.
“Hallway is clear,” Walter said.
The elevator dinged open to an empty corridor. Damn, they were getting good at this.
Kierse’s smile was the wrong one. The one that said she was here to steal something.
“Almost too easy,” Graves said. “Stay on guard.”
“Got it,” Kierse said.
They headed down the empty corridor with trepidation, though Kierse couldn’t shake the excitement, either. This was how missions were supposed to work. Her and Graves against the world.
There was fear she masked as well. If they got the information from Dallas today, then she’d know who had killed her parents. The details that had eluded her for years. The memories that had only given her bits of information and not the full scope of what had happened.
“Problem,” Walter said as they turned the next corner.
But Walter didn’t have to fill them in. A pair of vampire guards had just appeared on the otherwise empty corridor. They must have been replacements for the security guards who they’d gotten rid of earlier.
“Always an unplanned inconvenience,” Kierse grumbled.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” one of them growled.
“Apologies,” Graves said smoothly. “My wife had too much to drink, and I was trying to take a shortcut.”
My wife.
That word again.
It sent a spark straight down to her toes and back up. He’d called her that in Paris earlier this summer as part of a different ruse. She’d been furious with him for saying it then. Didn’t hate it quite as much now.
Still she played the part, leaning into him and almost tripping over her feet.
“There is no shortcut through employee-only corridors,” the woman said.
“I understand but as high rollers…” Graves said, pulling her closer to the guards.
The male vampire stepped forward as if to put hands on them and redirect them out of the hotel, but as he reached for them, Graves moved.
That lightning speed that ignited under his skin at a whim.
Kierse broke from him, turning on the female vampire.
The problem with vampires was that if you didn’t take them by surprise, their superior strength frequently won out.
Adrenaline hit Kierse in the face as she pushed into her Fae abilities, blocking the guard’s reach and throwing a punch into her face.
Vampires were particularly hard to kill.
Forget a stake through the heart. Bullets only slowed them down.
The most effective way was to cut off their head.
That was a guarantee when starving them took too long.
She didn’t want to kill this vampire. Just incapacitate her.
Kierse landed another punch and then swept her feet out from under her. The vampire went down with a crash but jerked Kierse forward with her. The momentum carried Kierse over the other vampire. She ducked into a roll, landing back on her feet and cursing her high heels.
She wobbled a beat too long, and the vampire was already back on her feet, lunging for her. A spark of fear shot through her as the vampire wrapped up Kierse’s legs and sent them both tumbling back down onto the hard cement floor. Kierse’s head struck the ground, and stars burst into her vision.
“Kierse?” a voice ripped through her mind laced with fear. “Are you okay?”
“Fucking hell,” Kierse growled. She was across the country and he could still get in her mind?
The distraction cost her. The vampire flipped Kierse onto her stomach and grasped both of her hands behind her back. She could hear the snick of handcuffs going around her wrists and tightening to the point of pain.
As if that could keep her out. She’d learned to pick those as soon as she could walk. They still weren’t fun to get on or off.
A crash came behind her, and the vampire fell off of Kierse’s back in a slump. Graves stood over her with an arched eyebrow.
“If you wanted to use handcuffs, you just had to ask.”
Kierse shook her head. “I’ll remember that next time. Now get me out of these.”
Lorcan’s voice slipped in again. “Are you hurt? Our terms said immediate danger.”
She had agreed to let him in if she was in danger. She was regretting it now. “I’m fine.”
“Good.” The bond went blissfully silent again.
Graves found the key after a quick search and undid the cuffs, letting them fall to the ground and helping her up. “What happened?”
“Lorcan,” she said, touching her head.
Graves stilled. “He was in your mind again?”
“I guess he could sense the danger I was in.”
“And so he distracted you, causing you more pain,” Graves said as if chewing on broken glass.
“Basically. I’m going to have a massive headache.”
Graves looked like he wanted to say more but let it drop. “Well, let’s finish this and get you some ice.”
The door to Dallas’s office was at the end of the hallway. Kierse withdrew a gun from her thigh holster while Graves tugged one out of his suitcoat. No chances this time.
“Defenses up?”
Kierse nodded, reinforcing her mind. But then she blinked at the door again. She was getting good at shuffling her magical intuition out of the foreground. She still usually saw the light of magic around reinforced doors. Only this time, there was no magic, no light.
Graves set his hand to the single ward next to the lock. He furrowed his brow.
“It’s down,” she said before he could tell her.
“The wards are dead.”
“There are no wards,” she told him.
His hand thumbed over something etched into the metal frame. “There are here.”
Kierse came over and saw an etched flower into the metal. A lily? A daffodil? She pursed her lips. “Let’s find out why it’s down.”
She picked the lock with a simple click and pushed the door open, holding the gun out before her. She coughed, gagged, and nearly threw up at the smell.
“Holy shit,” she gasped.
Graves covered his nose and mouth with a gloved hand as he pushed forward into the room. They both saw the body lying prone on the floor.
Dallas was dead.