Except for the whip in his hand.
"Good evening Dennis," Aston said. "Wonderful party tonight. I've brought you a gift- the finest specimen from my personal collection."
The man approached, his eyes too glassy, his excitement palpable. He looked me over like he was evaluating an object at a market. "Remarkable, Aston," he said, his eyes still lingering on me. "This will be a most memorable night. For all of us."
And then I began to feel panic.
“Mr. Holder.”
I looked up to see the head of casino security standing beside me. A barrel-chested man with a bulbous nose and hands so large they looked like they belonged to a giant, Mark was exactly what you’d expect the head of security at a major casino to look like. He was intimidation on two huge legs.
“Mark,” I said. “How are you? How’s the wife?”
“Doing good, Joe,” he said. “Mr. Anders would like to see you.”
If my consulting firm hadn't been hired by the casino, those words would strike fear into my heart. Mr. Anders was one of the most powerful men in Vegas, known for his intolerance of cheating and disloyalty. And here I was, working in his casino. With my kind of background.
It was all Benicio’s doing. The Panamanian smuggling kingpin who hired the Inferno MC to run his protection was fiercely loyal to his family. Since his daughter, Dani, was married to the Inferno MC President, anyone who was close to Blaze was close to him. And with all that had happened, I knew Blaze still felt responsible for April’s death, despite being in another country when she was murdered. I didn’t say no when Benicio put in a word for me with a small, secretive consulting firm that specialized in white hat hacking and security testing for casinos all over the world.
What the hell else was I going to do? I was a hacker and embezzler who had been caught. I had a record. No legitimate business was going to hire me, and a fucking criminal wasn't going to trust me with his financials, not after what I'd done. Benicio had stepped out on a limb for me, told this firm to hire me. It was the reason I was living in Vegas. It was the only job I could get.
To say I was grateful to Benicio was an understatement.
“Does he want me to finish testing the equipment, or see me when I’m finished?”
“He says to come up when you’re done,” Mark said.
“Will do,” I said. “It should only take me a few more minutes.”
Ten minutes later, I was headed out of the casino, making my way through the machines, and I ran into a woman.
Literally.
"Hey!" she said, her eyes wide as she stumbled on her heels, losing her balance. I grabbed her by both arms to steady her, meeting her gaze for a moment.
Holy shit, she was gorgeous, with long dark hair that cascaded over her shoulders in waves, framing her delicate features. She was tiny as a bird, but I could tell she wasn't delicate.
"Sorry," I said, not moving my hands from her arms. I found myself not wanting to move, too mesmerized by the intensity in her dark eyes.
She didn't respond, instead yanked her arms out of my hands, her eyes darting behind me like some kind of scared animal. I realized what I was seeing as intensity in her eyes was really fear. And then I saw the red welts on her arms, raw and angry on her skin.
"Hey," I said. "Are you okay?" I reached for her arm again, about to pull her away so I could talk some kind of sense into her. Whoever she was looking for, whoever she was afraid of, I couldn't just send her back to him.
But before I could say anything, I heard someone clear his throat behind me, and I turned to see Mark, the security guard, standing there, shaking his head. When I looked back, the girl was gone, walking toward a man in a suit who stood on the other side of the room, his arms crossed in front of him.
"Mr. Holder," Mark said. "That's not someplace you want to go."
"What are you talking about?" I asked. "Did you see her? She looks scared out of her fucking mind."
Mark shook his head. "You know that phrase about sleeping dogs," he said. "Let it go. Don't even think about it. That's trouble you don't want to be involved in. Not with her. Not with who she’s with."
But even after I turned to walk away, I could feel her tiny body in my hands, the tremble as I gripped her arms.
And later that night, I couldn’t quite shake the way I had felt looking at her. I felt protective. Like I wanted to kill whoever had frightened her.
I had also experienced the unmistakable rush of attraction.
It was something I hadn’t felt in a long time.
And, almost immediately, a feeling of guilt washed over me, so strong it nearly took my breath away.
Later that night, I lay in the bed, awake in the darkness, listening to the creaking of the ceiling fan. Most times were okay now, but nights were the worst. It was the time when I couldn’t shut down my thoughts, no matter how hard I tried. Lying awake in bed at night was when I missed April the most, when I questioned whether I could keep doing this every day, the rinse-lather-repeat of the same thing over and over again. Sometimes I truly didn’t know what the answer to that question was.
Tonight, I kept seeing the face of the girl from the casino when I closed my eyes. And felt my heart race, thinking about her.