High Card: A Billionaire Shifter Novel (Lions of Las Vegas Book 1) (8 page)

“It’s going. One class at a time means it’ll take, like, a fucking decade to get my GED.”

“But then you’ll have it.” Alfie slows as we enter an industrial neighborhood of mechanics shops, warehouses and self-storage yards.
 

“Yeah. I guess I will,” I say, remembering the thrill of seeing the roulette ball nearly hit the payout. School’s a hell of a lot less exciting than grifting, but in the long run it pays better. Plus, you don’t generally risk getting strangled in a back alley by some dickhead of a security tool—
 

Alfie slows the car beside a closed mechanic’s shop with a steel roll-up door. Hops out, leaving the car running. Unlocks a padlock, rolls the door up, gets back in the car and reverses inside the tiny garage, then kills the engine.
 

“What time’s your dad’s shop open?” I ask while Alfie pulls the gate down. The shop smells of oil, grease and sweat, long hours and late bills.
 

“Seven.”

“Time’s it now?”

“Five.”

I swing my legs out of the Porsche’s open door and give them a stretch. My throat’s still tender and my busted finger hurts more now than it did when Blake first broke it. I shudder, remembering the murderous feeling he was giving off. He’s a psychopath, that one.
 

Guess I learned my lesson.
 

Savannah’s casino is officially off this grifter girl’s hit list.

You win again, Landon Stone. Must get boring after a while. Life dealing him all the easy cards so he just has to sit back and rake it in—
 

I reach up and carefully lift off my wig, then stare at the mass of dirty-blonde hair in my hands. Wigs have always weirded me out. Someone else’s hair? Did she bother washing it? Whose fingers ran through it? Smelled it? See? Weird.
 

There’s a plastic bag stashed under the passenger seat. I grab it, then carefully fold the wig inside. Unpin my real hair, which I’ve always considered one of my my strongest assets in an otherwise generally unimpressive package, a kind of coppery brown with a nice shine when I’m in the Vegas sunlight. I knead at the sore spots where the pins rubbed against my skin.
 

My busted finger’s fucking throbbing.

I slip out of the Porsche and grab another plastic bag from under the seat, conscious of the shop’s cool concrete on my bare feet. My lavender blouse is rumpled and ragged, but not torn or bloodstained, so it’s worth holding onto. I step behind a rolling tool cart that’s nearly as tall as I am and strip down. Even my fucking underwear are threadbare. Good thing they’re thongs, so there’s not much thread to bare. The blouse and skinny jeans get folded up and placed inside the plastic bag.
 

I wince, regretting losing the platforms as I slip into a pair of less pricey and more comfy jeans and my favorite black tank-top from the Las Vegas Gun Club. The tank’s pretty low-cut, which isn’t good, considering I know my throat’s bruised.
 

Fuck it. No use worrying.
 

I don’t give a shit what people think.
 

Except moms.
 

That might be a problem. Maybe Maya has some cover-up.
 

Alfie’s leaning over the hood of the Porsche, staring at his laptop. It’s dark in the shop except for a bit of light filtering in around the roll-door, and the laptop gives Alfie’s face an eerie, pale glow.
 

“So I saw your signal while I was dealing with the cops. They fucked off after they got theirs,” he says when I emerge from behind the tool cart, continuing his story about why he wasn’t in the alley waiting for us. “But they held me up long enough to miss you.”

I settle against a workbench and run my fingers through my hair, trying to work out the tangles. “Just that kind of night.”

“Yeah. Happens. Be thankful you’re not in jail.”

“Not yet.”

“You think they’re after you?”

I shrug. “Probably.”
 

Alfie glances at the computer. “Something else. I was still jacked into Savannah’s network while I drove to meet you. This popped up.”

He turns the laptop to face me.
 

There are six words written across the screen.
 

“You’re already dead and buried, Wildblood. Huh? What the fuck is
that
?”

“Someone else hacked into Savannah’s network with me. Maybe even entered through the firewalls I breached. Riding my bad-ass hacker coat-tails.”

“No shit? So…the casino owner saw that?”

Alfie smiles. “Bet your ass. The message ran on every computer in the casino linked to the network.
Everyone
saw that message. Busboy and bell-hop right up to CEO.”

“Damn,” I say, real quiet, thinking about Landon without really meaning to. The poor pretty-boy bastard with the surfer blonde locks. Making fuel cells for European yuppies is a lot different than making a go of it in Vegas. “Stone’s out of his element.”

“Dude’s gunna wind up feeding coyotes.”

“Wildblood. Mean anything?”

Alfie shakes his head. “Code name for something. Or some inner-circle insult. Maybe one of those blue-blood secret societies like Skull and Bones.”

“Doesn’t seem like his style. I don’t think he’s old money.”

Something’s niggling at me.
 

Blake Stone. His mouth opening, revealing a mouthful of razor-sharp fangs as he strangled me—

“Who sent it?” I say, trying to forget the terrifying image.

“That’s what’s so cool. The message came from
inside
the casino.”

***

We’re interrupted by a light tapping on the metal door. Alfie flicks on a security camera. Maya’s standing outside, smoking, huddled in a knee-length black overcoat.
 

“Don’t want any,” Alfie says through the intercom.

Maya gives the camera the finger.

“Let her in, Alfie. She’s had a shit night, too.”

Alfie rolls up the clattering door. I click the laptop closed without knowing why. Instinct, I guess. Maya wasn’t stretching much for her role tonight. She
was
a mail-order bride. Only it was Yugoslavia, not Russia. A few years later her jerk-off hubby met with an untimely demise. Hiking in the Grand Canyon and…oopsie!
 

Thousand foot drop.
 

Messy, but effective. No witnesses to say he didn’t just stumble.
 

Maya even got a police helicopter ride out of the deal—

“Ah, ze accomplices,” Maya says, still in character, puffing on her cigarette as she strolls into the garage like she’s entering a red-velvet cabaret in Paris. Then she stops. Looks at me and Alfie and says, “Where’s Jay?” in a much less accent-heavy voice.
 

“You two were supposed to rendezvous and come here,” I say.

Maya thanks me for telling her what she already knows in a snarky way that means she’s getting worried. “Can we turn a fucking light on?” she says while Alfie rattles the door closed. “Jay never showed.”

My heart thumps loud in my ears. “What do you mean?”

Maya slips of her heels and settles into the Porsche’s passenger seat. The car doesn’t suit her current get-up. It’s not glamorous enough. We’re not exactly friends, Maya and I, but we’ve done more than a few jobs together. “He wasn’t there, sweets.”

“Must’ve stopped in at Bangers.”

Bangers is Jay’s favorite hang. He uses it to de-stress. No, it’s not a titty bar. It’s an indoor golf range. Even golfing has to sound sleazy in Vegas.
 

Alfie’s trying to stay casual, but I see he’s worried. Jay would never rat to the cops. I look at my broken finger. But if he’s in the box of the casino? With that fucking creep Blake looming over him, cutting off his fingers one by one? Who knows what he’ll say. Probably anything to make the pain stop.
 

“You guys should jet for a little while,” I say, also trying to sound casual.

“Oh yeah? To where?” Alfie says.

“And with vut monies?”

I nod, walk to a set of old, half-empty vending machines. Dig in my purse. Find three of the four quarters I need. A day late and a dollar short. Story of my life.

Alfie says, “If you drop in what you got, then hit the left side of the machine real hard, sometimes it’ll give you something.”

“That’s a win,” I whisper.

I close my eyes. My back’s turned to my…friends? Partners in crime? Both? I feel like fucking crying. The stench of oil in the shop’s making my empty stomach turn.
 

But I don’t let myself cry. I’ve tried that.
 

Doesn’t change shit.

“Luck be a lady,” I mumble, lifting a few quarters to the slot. I hesitate, then quickly drop them in and smack my hand against the machine, adding to the dent already there. There’s a pause, then a Diet Dr. Pepper can plunks down.
 

“Your lucky night,” Maya says in a way that kind of gives me the creeps.

The can’s warm in my hand. Doesn’t fizz when I pop it open.
 

But it tastes like liquid sugar, which is just what I need.
 

Almost buck poorer now. That means I have…less than thirty-six dollars to my name. Payday at the grocery store isn’t for another eight days. Mom’s gunna run out of meds in three. The bills are piled so thick I can’t remember which one needs paying first. I take another sip of the lukewarm soda. Shit. I needed the Savannah to come through.
 

I have no Plan B.

I need a night in shining armor.
 

No. Screw that.

What I really need is my gun.

“I need to get home,” I say, thinking of my mom and my prized possession, my Ruger LC9. Here’s the thing: you own a sports car, what do you want to do with it?
 

Drive fast.
 

You own a gun?

Yeah. You want to shoot it.

I drop the empty can to the cement and think about pressing the Ruger to Blake Stone’s temple.

***

“Jay turns up, get him to text me on the burner,” I say to Alfie as he slows to drop me off several blocks from my apartment. After what went down at the casino it’s not a long shot to think the tool’s on my apartment, either the cops or the Gaming Commission or Savannah’s own private security detail. Hell, maybe the SWAT came out for a joyride.
 

Landon Stone has the money to hire just about anyone he wants, including the best retired PI’s and military personnel on the planet. I can’t imagine he’d waste expensive resources on a small-fish like me. But the Vegas PD and the Gaming Commission? They’d love to pick me up as a prize to parade before Stone and the rest of the casino owners.

“Take care of yourself,” Maya says as she climbs over from the backseat into the passenger’s. “We’ll talk soon.”

We’ll talk soon.

It’s an oddly serious thing for Maya to say. Usually she says goodbye with a careless, almost flippant wave. I watch the Porsche pull away. I’m on edge is all. Feeling hyper-suspicious. The Dr. Pepper’s eating a hole in my gut.

Plus, I’m almost at my apartment, which always makes me feel like shit. I worry about the day I walk in and find moms dead. Some days I avoid going home at all. I have some spots that are pretty safe where I sometimes sleep out. But then I start to feel guilty for avoiding going home, and I know even if she won’t show it moms worries…
 

I take a few heavy steps, then force myself to walk faster.
 

Like tearing off a bandaid.
 

Lets get this unpleasantness done with.

I’m still barefoot, so I’m watching where I step. I pass Nico’s Liquor Mart, the grungy yellow sign flicking off and on randomly. Some dude’s passed out in a pool of puke in the stoop. Nico and his baseball bat will take care of that right quick when he shows up. There’re a few tweakers pacing and waving their arms in a wired, jerky way, the meth or crack or whatever poison of the day zinging through their veins.
 

I wouldn’t choose stimulants.
 

Life’s stressful enough already.
 

But heroin? The big mellow? I could get behind that.

Just sort of spread my arms and drift into the sweet fog.
 

Course I never will. Not my style.
 

I think about it sometimes, though. A grass-is-greener kind of thing. Maybe in the same way some people think about offing themselves. Ideation, they call. Well, I ideate about becoming a heroin addict. We’re all seeking escape. That’s what this town’s about.
 

Some of us are just more honest about it.

The tweakers spot me. I’m alone and a woman. That’s enough to get them riled. Three guys and a woman. Course the guys send the woman out of the alley first. She’s tiny, with stringy matted hair and skeletal arms that she’s scratching at. I don’t slow my stride as she falls in beside me, but neither do I hurry.

“Nice day huh?” the woman says.
 

“No.”

They’re into this soft-sell now. Like trying to be all chummy.
 

It irks me.

“Listen, hun, you got a—”

“No.”

She’s falling behind. Getting tired after fifteen feet of brisk walking. She can’t be much older than me. “Fuck you, you stuck-up bitch,” she hisses when she realizes she’s getting nothing.
 

Anger floods into me. I’m about to turn on her when I remember the way Blake was looking at me in the alley. The scorn, even disgust on his face. Like I’m some sort of…creature. Subhuman. It’s prolly the same look I have on my face now, and isn’t that the way of it? There’s always someone lower down the pole for us to hate on.
 

Helps us get through the day.

I turn into a parking lot in front of my building. A busted-out neon sign says it’s the GoodNight Motel, but underneath there’s a piece of spray-painted plywood drilled to the sign post that says I’ve arrived at the Birch Terrace Apartments. The new owner didn’t bother updating the old motel much when he converted it into cheap-ass apartments for the servers and busers and landscapers who keep Vegas looking clean and pretty.