All In

[DANTE] The Bellissimo is mine. Not my father's, not the family's mine. Every inch of her, from the crystal chandeliers that cost more than most men make in a lifetime to the emerald felt where fortunes change hands every six seconds. I built her while the old guard was still arguing over which of them deserved the Strip. I put my name on the deed and my boot on the throat of every rival who blinked too slow. I don't blink. Tonight I'm doing what I do every night, walking the floor like a ghost in a five-thousand-dollar suit, watching the money move. The tourists love me or they love the idea of me. Dante Moretti, the prince of Las Vegas, the man who owns the prettiest cage in the desert. They take my picture. They whisper my name like it's a spell. They spend. It bores me to death. The high rollers are worse men who think a million dollars makes them interesting. The cocktail waitresses are beautiful, practiced but empty. The air smells like perfume and greed. I've been breathing it so long I've forgotten what anything else smells like. Then I see her. It hits me between one heartbeat and the next. There's a blackjack table on the east side of the floor table twelve and behind it stands a girl with honey-colored hair and a mouth made for sin. She's dealing cards to a fat tourist in a golf shirt, her fingers moving in that quick, practiced rhythm dealers get after a few thousand hours and she's smiling. But the smile doesn't reach her eyes. Those eyes are tired and sad in a way that makes my chest go tight. I've seen every kind of woman walk through my doors hungry, greedy, broken, dangerous but I've never seen one like this. She looks like she's holding up the whole world with those slim shoulders, doing it quietly, without complaint, like nobody ever told her someone else could carry the weight. Mine. The word slams into me so hard I stop walking. A busboy nearly crashes into my back and stammers an apology I don't hear. Mine. Not a thought. A verdict. The same voice that told me to build this place, that told me which men to trust and which to bury, is telling me that the girl at table twelve belongs to me. That she's the reason I've been so goddamn bored my entire life. I don't believe in fate. I believe in leverage. But this feels like neither. It feels like a door I didn't know was locked just swung open. "Rocco." I don't look away from her. The dealer at twelve. My right hand materializes at my elbow the way he always does. Bianca Rossi. Twenty-three. Works doubles, sometimes triples. Sends everything home to her mother in Pahrump. He pauses, because he's known me long enough to wait for the real question. You want a file, boss? I want everything. I watch her tuck a strand of hair behind her ear and the casual gesture does something stupid to my pulse. Name, address, debts, fears, ex-boyfriends. Whether she takes cream in her coffee. And Rocco, I especially want to know who's been making her sad. Rocco doesn't ask why. That's what I pay him for. But I feel the weight of his glance. "Vincent Calder," I add, because I've just noticed the pit boss hovering behind her table like a vulture. What do we know about him? Forty-five. Married. Fifteen years at the Bellissimo. Good with numbers, bad with waitresses. Rocco's voice flattens. There've been complaints. Nothing formal. About her? A pause. Some of the girls. I'd have to dig. Dig. I finally turn and whatever's on my face makes Rocco go carefully still. If that man has ever laid a hand on her, I'm going to take it. I want to know exactly how much of him to take. Understood. He melts into the crowd and I go back to watching the girl. She's good at her job. I can see it in the way she reads the table, the way she keeps the drunks laughing, the way her smile never flickers even when a man ten years too old leans over the rail and stares down her vest. She's dealt a thousand hands in that same spot, invisible to everyone. Not to me. Never to me again. I stay by the marble column for an hour. Maybe two. I watch her work and I catalog everything. The small furrow between her brows when she does mental math, the way she rubs the small of her back when she thinks no one's looking and the half-second of pure longing when she glances at the exit. She's exhausted. She's too proud to show it. She's beautiful in a way that has nothing to do with the casino lights and everything to do with the quiet steel underneath. Then the drunk tourist says something some i***t joke, some stumble and she laughs. A real laugh, surprised and bright, the kind that comes from somewhere honest and unguarded. The sound buries itself in my ribcage like a hook. I've been waiting my whole life without knowing I was waiting. Now I know. Now I don't plan on waiting much longer. Then, like she can feel the weight of my stare, she looks up. Our eyes meet across the floor. Brown eyes, warm and wary for one endless second the whole casino drops away the bells, the chatter, the churn of money. It's just her and me and I let her see it. All of it. Everything I am and everything I'm about to be to her. Her lips part. She misdeals. "Sorry," I see her mouth form, her face flushing pink as she scoops the cards back. The tourist doesn't care. The pit boss, Calder, leans in close too close and says something that makes her spine stiffen. I watch Calder's hand settle on her wrist under the table. The red that floods my vision is almost calm. This is the thing I understand. Rage is the language I was raised in. I can feel the weight of the gun at my hip, the itch in my palm, the clean, cold arithmetic of violence. Not yet. Not in front of her. Not on her table. But soon. I stay until her shift ends. I watch her count out her tray with those quick, careful hands, then rub her eyes with the heels of her palms like she's trying to push the exhaustion back down. She gathers a battered purse and heads for the staff door. I let her go. Letting her out of my sight feels like a physical injury. "Rocco," I say quietly and he's there. The file. Tonight. Every page. And Calder? Leave him breathing. I roll my shoulders, never taking my eyes off the staff door she disappeared through. For now. I have other plans for him. Because Vincent Calder touched what's mine and men like him don't get quick endings. They get lessons. I'm going to write one on his skin that every other man in this building will read. I pull out my phone and make a call that will change the trajectory of a woman's life before sunrise payments cleared, debts erased and a monster removed. Then I pocket it walk back across my floor, through the tourists and the chandeliers. For the first time in years, I'm not bored. I'm awake. Somewhere on the other side of this city, Bianca Rossi is going home to a threadbare couch and a cat with good instincts. She has no idea that her entire world just tilted on its axis. That's fine. I'll tell her myself. Soon.