Page 4 of Femme Fatale
The room went silent. There was a lot of noise outside. A slot machine whirled with a winner, a barker blared on the PA, a spill of laughter that sounded like glass breaking. But in here, the only noise was the little electric tick of the old wall clock. Shit in my life was going south fast.
I looked around the table and saw what I needed to see. “Alright. You didn’t come here just to warn me. What do you want?”
Stephanie smiled, all teeth. “We want you to join us. Vegas needs a club president who knows the city. Zeke wants you out, and if he can’t buy you, he’ll break you. We want you with us when he tries.”
“A biker club,” I said, my head spinning.
The whiskey was starting to burn in my blood, and I liked the feeling. I’d missed this—the certainty, the thrill of knowing something big was coming.
“I’ll think about it,” I said, knowing that I’d already decided.
Pearl shrugged, as if she expected nothing else. “Don’t think too long.”
I watched them leave the room, four shadows with different gaits and speeds, all dangerous in their own way. Stephanie paused at the door, turned, and tossed me a poker chip. I caught it without looking, felt the weight. It was heavier than usual.
“A souvenir,” she said. “In case you forget who’s watching.”
She walked out. I waited a minute, then turned the chip over. The edge was notched, and etched inside was a phone number.
Outside, Vegas kept on howling, but now the sound was different. Louder, closer, and for the first time in years, I felt the old itch, the one that only came when a game was about to get interesting.
I pocketed the chip and poured myself another drink. If Dark Shadow was coming for me, she’d find out exactly how wild a place Aces Wild could be.
The minute the door shut behind them, I felt the afterburn. I stared at the chip in my hand, the notched edge cold against my palm. I didn’t like being played, even by women who knew the game better than me.
I was still rolling that chip between my fingers when the door opened again and Stephanie returned, this time alone.
She didn’t bother to sit. “You’re not taking this seriously,” she said.
“Is that right?” I said, tossing the chip back on the table. “Because I haven’t called the cops, shut down the floor, or run screaming into witness protection?”
She smirked. “Because you think it’s about ego. You think if you out-stubborn Zeke and his crew, you win.”
She flicked open a small hardcase—a portable, untraceable, hyperparanoid sort of thing—and slid it to me. Inside were three USB sticks and a single white casino chip, our Aces Wild logo etched on one face. I picked up the chip. It had been drilled, the kind of surgical bore you only noticed if you’d once run a chop shop. Inside, a sliver of something glittered in the halogen light.
“Tracker?” I said.
“Listening device,” Stephanie corrected. “Your Turkish friend left it at Table 5. Took her less than sixty seconds, and your security team missed it twice.”
I felt heat crawl up my neck. “What else did I miss?”
“Play the blue stick,” Stephanie said. “It’s your security feed, but hacked. She ghosted your cameras for three minutes.”
I slotted it into my laptop, clicking through the static-laced footage. The woman—Dark Shadow, Kara, whatever her real name—didn’t move like a thief. She moved like a pro, every motion slow and deliberate, never hesitating. The footage caught her eyes at one point, and even pixelated, I could tell she was looking straight into the lens.
“She wants you to know she was here,” Stephanie said.
I closed the laptop. “You bring this to the cops?”
“You know better,” she said. “Jack has Metro in his pocket. The Turkish mob owns three blocks in North Las Vegas. You’re on your own, unless you want to do it our way.”
“Which is?”
Stephanie smiled, but it was only muscle, no joy. “Show of force. But smarter. Be cleaner.”
Goblin slid back in, followed by Pearl and Calypso. Goblin was chewing on a toothpick now, a nervous tic.
“I’ve seen her work,” Goblin said, not waiting to be prompted. “She did a job in Hamilton last year. Nobody even knew she was in the country until a week later, when three guys turned up dead and the rest just left town.”
