CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The ace of diamonds winked at him, a mate to the ace of clubs that the dealer revealed next on the green felt of the blackjack table at the Luxe.

“I’ll split,” he said to the goateed dealer.

Together, Brent’s two aces were a bust. Torn apart, they gave him a second chance in the game.

“I’ve got a very important question for you,” Mindy said, as the dealer laid a three on top of her eight and Matchbox Twenty played overhead. The band was in concert at the Luxe in two weeks, after the Alvin Ailey troupe departed from its brief stay at the hotel’s new theater.

“Hit me,” Brent said to his friend, and she rolled her eyes at his pun. “What’s the question?”

Mindy adopted a girly, love-struck tone. “Have you thought about what you’re going to wear tonight to Alvin Ailey?” She batted her eyes and squeezed his arm. “It’s such a big decision.”

“Bow tie. Seersucker suit,” Brent said with a straight face, as the dealer slapped two new cards face up for Brent. Only the two of them and a lone bald guy nursing a tropical drink played at that table on a Saturday afternoon. The goateed man dealt Mindy another card, too. A six, giving her seventeen.

“And a panama hat. That’d be a nice touch,” Mindy added, nudging Brent with her elbow as he stared happily at his new cards. Eight and a nine. Didn’t get much better than that.

“Absolutely,” he said. “Or, call me crazy, I could just go with jeans and a nice button-down shirt.”

“I’ll stay,” Mindy said to the dealer, then to Brent, “Fine. Be that way.”

The bald man busted on his turn, then the dealer drew until he reached 17 and had to stand. It was house rules, and Brent beat him with his 18 and 19.

“You lucky bastard,” Mindy said in a low whistle.

Brent simply shrugged, an admission that he’d always had some kind of Midas touch at the tables. But he also had another more important skill, and while it was one he’d told Shannon he was not applying in relationships, it was a rule to live by if he wanted to survive in the casinos with a wallet intact.

Scooping up the chips, he tipped an imaginary hat to Mindy. “And on that note, I’d better quit while I’m ahead.”

“Thanks a lot. You killed me there, taking all the good cards,” she muttered.

“Play another round. I’m out.”

The bald man with the piña colada took off, too.

“Stay with me. Be my lucky charm,” she said, and Brent relaxed in the chair as Mindy went up against the house again, trying to win back some of her losses. “By the way, have I ever told you that Michael Sloan is insanely hot?”

Brent groaned. “Can we not talk about how hot you think her brother is?”

“Oh, they’re all lookers. All three of them,” she said, with a breathy sigh. “All three. I’d take any of them, honestly. Ryan, Colin, Michael.” She counted off on her fingers.

“Okay, you really need to stop now.”

“Hey,” she said, lowering her voice, a sign that she was downshifting to a more serious moment. “Speaking of tonight, does she ever talk about what happened with her family?”

Brent nodded. Mindy had lived in Vegas her whole life. She knew the Paige-Prince saga, since it had been in the local news when they were both in high school.

“It’s weird, don’t you think?” she continued. “The Royal Sinners.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just the whole idea of them. Like the Latin Kings, or the Crips and the Bloods. I hate them,” she said, her voice a harsh seethe as the dealer slapped her cards on the green felt and “Overjoyed” sounded through the casino.

“They’re street gangs. Of course you hate them. That’s like hating cancer.”

“They went kind of quiet for a while there. A few years ago. Did you know that?”

He shook his head. He honestly hadn’t tracked the goings on of the gang culture. But Mindy knew the underbelly of the city of sin better than anyone. “Five or six years ago, it seemed like they’d all kind of fallen apart. But I hear they’re trying to be active again. Recruiting new members. Hitting the streets again with drugs, tagging, fights over territory.”

He clenched his fists. His blood went cold. “Should I be worried? For her? For her family now?”

Mindy shook her head and squeezed his shoulder. “I wasn’t saying that at all. When you started seeing her again, I did a little digging into Stefano with some of the guys I know on the force. A couple of them were active when it all went down. They say Stefano was on the outs when he killed Thomas Paige. He was doing his own thing. Kind of separating from the Sinners.”

Brent’s jaw tightened. A fresh wave of hate surged through him. He hated that Shannon had gone through that, that this kind of canyon of awful had not just touched her life, but had marked it. Had been the line in it. The before and the after. “So, he was, what? The odd man out in the local gang?” he asked, as the dealer tipped his forehead to Mindy, his way of asking her next move.

“Hit me,” she said to him, then dialed down the volume. “Supposedly. They said his girlfriend disappeared, too, around then. They’d wanted to question her to see what she knew, but couldn’t find her. Anyway, those were just the things I heard. That’s all.”

That’s all. That’s all. That’s all. The words reverberated in his head, mingling with the anthemic chorus of the pop song about a love so powerful it consumes you with joy.

Joy. Hate. Love. Death. They were inextricably linked.

“Hey! Look! I got twenty-one!” Mindy clapped in glee.

“Then it’s time to cash out,” he said.

She shook her head. Her eyes lit up with a fresh wave of excitement. “No way. My lucky streak is just starting. It’s my day off. I’m staying.”

“I’ll catch you later then, lucky lady,” he said, and headed to his office, needing work, needing business, needing the relentless focus on contracts, and deals, and plans to erase the cold metallic taste of hate that the discussion of gangs had left in his mouth. No fault of Mindy’s, and all things being equal, he’d rather know the details than not know them. But he was ready for that part of Shannon’s past to stay firmly in the ground, and never fuck with her future.

Focus on the present. Focus on today. Focus on tonight.

The trouble was, the conversation gnawed at him. He opened a browser window and searched Google for news on “Royal Sinners.” He read a few articles—drug busts and convictions here and there. That was it. Like she’d said, the gang seemed to have petered out for a bit. All in all, this had to be a good thing—that the gunman her mother had hired hailed from a gang that had dwindled in power and was now focused on drugs. Shannon’s father’s murder had never been about drugs; it was a cut and dried murder-for-money crime.

Brent shut the browser, parked his boots on his desk, and rang his buddy who ran the Luxe hotel chain—Nate Harper, who lived in New York with his wife. After they caught up briefly on work and business, Brent made his request. “Hey man, you know anyone at this hotel who can score me a nice suite last minute on a Saturday night in Vegas? Happy to pay top dollar.”

Maybe it was wishful thinking. Maybe it was just some mad hope. Or perhaps he simply wanted to be prepared for any and all possible outcomes tonight. Hit, stand, or double down.

Nate laughed loudly. “You hoping to get lucky at my property this evening?”

“I’m always hoping to get lucky,” he said.

“I’ll take care of you. Stop by ops on the way out. Alfonso will get you a key,” he said, referring to the property manager on site. Brent knew the guy well.

“I owe you,” he said.

“I owe you. Your club is driving business like crazy. It’s like a goddamn slot machine that pays off every time,” Nate said, and Brent grinned. That was what he liked hearing. Edge was indeed the golden goose. He zeroed in on that for another hour, then checked the time. He needed to head home and get ready to pick up his date. No motorcycle tonight. He’d reserved a town car.

On the way out through the casino, Tanner’s name flashed across his phone screen. He nearly crossed his fingers, praying the man wouldn’t say something to ruin his Saturday.

“Hey Tanner. What’s up?”

“Meeting was moved up. Gotta do lunch instead of dinner,” Tanner barked.

Brent’s shoulders tensed. “Tomorrow? What’s the deal?”

“The neighborhood association president, Alan Hughes, has to drive his daughter to summer camp on Sunday night, so dinner won’t work tomorrow. Only lunch. But listen, I think I’ve got him fluffed nicely for you.”

Fluffed. The man actually used a porn term. “So he’s leaning our way?”

“It’s looking like that. See? I told you I’d be good for you. I bet you want to pay me extra each month on the lease, don’t you?” Tanner said with a raspy laugh.

Brent shook his head in exasperation. Tanner was a piece of work. “Glad to hear that about Alan,” he said, avoiding the other comment. He flashed briefly to his conversation with Bob from the comedy club, who’d been getting fleeced by his landlord, too. Fingers crossed that this meeting tomorrow would send them all down the right path. Brent could continue the expansion of Edge, and Bob would have the new job he needed to pay the bills.

“So be here by noon, got it? Same location. McCoy’s.”

“See you tomorrow.”

Brent sighed heavily in frustration as he hung up. Win some, lose some. He called his assistant and asked her to change his flight from the morning to the midnight red-eye to New York. That gave him two hours with Shannon after the show ended. Crap. Make that one hour, since he’d need that hour to get to the airport and through security. Even so, he picked up a key from Alfonso.

Wishful thinking for sure at this point. But sometimes you had to roll the dice.