Page 49 of Femme Fatale
"I called the cops," I said, voice rough. "I told them it was self-defense. They'll believe it, or they'll pretend to."
She nodded, not looking at me. Her eyes stayed on our father's body. The old bastard was finally out of her life, but from her face, I couldn't tell if she wanted to weep or light a cigarette and toast the occasion.
"Did it hurt?" she said.
I barked a laugh. "He didn't even feel it. I made sure of that."
The silence crawled up the walls, filled the corners. I tried to stand, but the blood loss hit me with a dizzy left hook. I gripped the desk, hissing as the pain doubled down. Simone made no move to help. She just watched, calm as a judge, taking in every detail.
"You can have the casino," I told her. "All of it. The money, the assets. Even the house. I don't want any of it."
She blinked, slow. "What do you want?"
I had to think about it. The pain in my side made it hard to concentrate. I wanted a bed, a bottle of cheap whiskey, and somewhere to sleep for a month. More than that, I wanted out. I wanted to be someone who could leave the city and never look back. But I didn't say any of that. I just shrugged.
"Doesn't matter. I won't be around long," I said.
For the first time, she looked straight at me. Her eyes were wet, but the rest of her face was stone. She walked closer, carefulnot to slip in the blood, and knelt beside the chair. She reached out and pressed her palm to my cheek. Her fingers were ice.
"You don't have to go," she said. "You could stay. Start over. Let the past die here with him."
I almost laughed. "The past is in my bones. It always will be."
She let her hand fall away, stood, and straightened her skirt. "I'll fix things," she said. "I'll make it look clean."
"I knew you would," I said, and meant it.
She walked to the body, stood over it, then nudged the head with the tip of her shoe. For a second, she looked like she might spit on it. Instead, she just shook her head and sighed.
"I have to leave," I said, rising from the chair. The pain was sharper now, a stiletto under my ribs. "When the police come, tell them I ran. Tell them whatever makes it easy."
"Where will you go?"
I didn't know. Vegas was the only place that had ever made sense to me, but now it felt like a haunted house with all the lights broken.
"There's someone I need to find," I said, surprised at how true it sounded.
Simone nodded. "Don't get killed."
"That's the plan," I said, and limped to the door. My hand slipped on the handle, leaving a fresh smear of blood. I thought about wiping it clean, but decided against it. Let them see what I'd done. Let them know I could bleed.
Outside, the sirens were louder. I made it to the stairwell, body protesting every movement. The lobby was empty, all the dealers and showgirls gone, just the echo of my boots and the wet slap of my own blood tracking across the tiles.
I stopped at the exit and looked back up the stairs. I pictured Simone in the office, already arranging the scene, already rewriting the story for the morning news. She was better at this than I ever was. She'd survive. She always did.
Me? I had a Harlot to catch. And if I was lucky, she'd still want me, even with the blood on my hands and my heart beat to shit.
I stepped into the night, blinking at the neon and the noise, the pain in my side flaring up as the wind hit it. I laughed, tasted iron, and started walking. I'd made it out alive. For now.
The city didn't get quieter after midnight. It just changed frequencies. The foot traffic outside the casino shifted from desperate losers to shiftless predators, and the air grew thick with the hot stink of weed, exhaust, and sweaty people. I limped around the block twice, letting the wind peel some of the sweat off my face. Every other step made my side throb, but I kept at it until I couldn't feel the ache anymore.
I circled back to the employee entrance, one I used to sneak in and out of when I was a kid, and my father still believed in locking doors. The security panel still beeped on the old code. It was my birthday, the only day the man had ever remembered, even if it was to ruin it. I palmed the latch and let myself in.
Simone waited in the corridor. She'd cleaned the blood off her hands. Her face was raw and damp, and I realized she'd spent the last ten minutes alone with the body, doing what needed to be done. She held a glass of whiskey in one hand, neat, and the other clutched a phone, already dialing through our father's contacts. The way she stared at the display, you'd think she was trying to memorize every name before she deleted it forever.
"You came back," she said, not looking up.
"Forgot my jacket," I lied.
