by Sal Bianchi
“See?” Nick smirked. “That wasn’t so hard, right?”
“You’re going to pay for this!” Domenico growled as he cradled his arm to his chest.
“Yeah, I’m sure I will,” Nick scoffed as he wound his arm around the blonde woman’s waist. “Come on, let’s go do something else.”
Just like that, everyone in the bar returned to their own business. It was a divey enough place that fights weren’t that uncommon, and now that that show was over, no one really cared about what would happen next.
“Come on,” Mandy, the girl with the tattoos, said as she clung to my arm and pulled me toward the entrance. “We should split before the big guy gets up.”
“Where to now?” the blond girl asked once we were outside of the bar.
“Well, we’re in Miami, right?” Nick grinned. “Let’s hit a casino.”
The girls cheered with excitement, and I did my best to react with enthusiasm to his suggestion. Honestly, after that fight, I was feeling a little drained and ready to go home, but Nick and the girls seemed so pumped at the idea that I couldn’t bring myself to rain on their parade. After all, it was likely to be fun.
“All right.” I agreed. “Which one, though?”
“Just follow me,” Nick replied slyly. He had a conniving look on his face, and I felt a surge of apprehension over whatever he might be thinking.
15
Nick
The casino I headed to was one connected to a large and luxurious hotel situated right on the beach. It was the kind that had no windows or clocks, and that always smelled faintly of cigarette smoke. You couldn’t walk anywhere without being assaulted by bright flashing lights, loud beeping sounds, and women in tight, skimpy dresses that walked the floor offering clients free drinks. After all, the drunker they got, and the longer they stayed, the more money they would end up losing.
“Whoa, this place is legit,” the girl with tattoos gasped as we stepped into the casino. She’d been hanging off of Jase since we’d met at the bar, but I had a feeling Jase was more into Kat, the one with the long brown hair. I made a mental note to give them a chance to talk later in the night.
“Yeah, it is,” Jase mumbled pensively as he looked around the casino. He shot me a confused look, and I grinned back.
“What should we try first?” Erica, the blonde girl I was with, asked eagerly.
“Poker,” I answered immediately. I was confident I could win, and it would be our safest bet for winning something before getting kicked out.
“Hey,” Jase hissed as he sidled up to walk next to me as we approached the poker table. “Isn’t this casino owned by… you know?” he asked me cautiously as he tossed a glance at the trio of girls chattering away in front of us.
“By the Family, you mean?” I smirked. “Yeah, it is.”
“And you’re cool with that?” Jase asked, his eyebrows shooting up into his hairline.
“Yeah, I am,” I replied firmly.
Something had clicked into place back in the bar during my fight with Domenico. Ever since I’d left the mafia, I’d been walking on eggshells, too scared to do anything in case I accidentally provoked them into retaliating. I’d realized while I was fighting with Domenico that I wasn’t interested in living such a pathetic existence anymore, especially if random mafia members were going to be attacking me regardless of how well I behaved.
“I’m not going to worry about ticking them off anymore.” I shrugged. “They can deal with it. This casino’s a giant tourist trap. Most of the people who come here have no experience and no idea what they’re doing. It’ll be a cinch to figure out their tells and win.”
Jase was staring at me as if I’d grown two heads, but then he blinked and nodded his head.
“All right,” he chuckled. “I guess I can’t argue with that. I bet that’s going to make Alessandro really mad, though.”
“Good.” I grinned as we made it to the poker table. I took a seat in an empty chair.
“No-limit Texas hold 'em,” the dealer announced as he began to shuffle the cards. He glanced up at me, and his hands faltered for a moment in their movements. He was staring at me with an odd expression, as though he was surprised to see me there. I didn’t recognize him, but considering this place was run by my former mafia Family, it wasn’t that surprising.
For a moment, he looked as though he was going to say something, but then his eyes drifted over to Jase and the group of girls all gathered around, and he decided against it. He probably didn’t want to start bringing up Family business in front of them.
I handed the money for the chips over, and the game began in earnest. The dealer dealt each of the six players at the table their hole cards.
Before touching my own cards, I made sure to watch the reactions of the other players at the table surreptitiously. The man immediately to the left of the dealer was careful to keep his face blank as he checked his cards, but I could see his ears turn red. If he made a low starting blind, then it was likely he had a bad hand. The next man, sitting between us, was far more obvious, as I could see his eyes light up for a moment before he carefully schooled his features into an expression of calm. The woman sitting on my other side was by far the least obvious, but I was sitting close enough to her that I could see her leg bouncing nervously beneath the table. I almost felt bad for the young man sitting on the dealer’s right, who was so obvious in his enthusiasm that probably everyone at the table could see right through him.
I lifted the edges of the two cards I was handed in a quick, practiced movement before setting them flat on the table again. They were a two and four of diamonds. It wasn’t the best hand I could have been dealt, but I could work with it.
The first man immediately to the left of put down a small opening blind, just as I’d suspected, and from there, gaining the upper hand was an easy matter. I won the first round with a straight flush and managed to just barely steal a victory in the second with another flush using two of the community cards. By the fourth round, I was up over a thousand dollars in chips, and the dealer looked like he was ready to snap.
“This table is closed,” he suddenly announced, much to the dismay of the other players, especially the young man who I’d correctly assumed would be an open book and who had lost several hundred dollars during the course of the game.
“That was amazing,” Erica gasped as I began to gather up the chips I’d won. “It’s like you were reading everyone’s minds. Or seeing the future.”
“Yeah,” I replied vaguely as I noticed the dealer step away and say something quietly into a walkie-talkie. “Okay, I think it’s time to go.”
All three girls were still talking excitedly about the game as we headed over to the cashier’s counter to cash in the chips I’d won. Jase kept glancing around nervously, as though we’d be jumped by a group of mafiosi at any moment.
“Hi.” I smiled at the man standing behind the cashier’s desk. “I need to get these cashed, please.”
“Right away, sir,” the cashier replied politely as he took the chips from me. He didn’t give me any funny looks or anything, so I assumed he must just be a regular employee. I was just thinking that we might actually get out of here without any issues when a group of three men came stalking up to the cashier’s desk.
“Hello,” the tallest of the three men greeted us with a fake smile. He was wearing a sharply tailored suit and had graying hair and a gaunt face. Judging by the way he carried himself and his deceptively cheerful customer service voice, he was clearly some kind of manager or director for the casino. “My name is Tony Marcello. I’m the assistant manager here at the prestigious Morton Casino. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask to see your IDs.”
“I know who you are,” I replied flatly. “I’d recognize that crypt-keeper face anywhere, Tony. Don’t you usually send some low-level muscle to intimidate people when they annoy you? I’m surprised you came out here just to kick us out yourself.”
Tony stared back at me in disbelief. H
e was one of my father’s most loyal men before he’d died, and I’d never liked him. He was mean to me even as a kid and had always compared me to my older brother. I’d been so intimidated by him that I’d never said more than a few words to him before, so it probably came as a shock to hear me speak so much and so disrespectfully.
“It’s standard policy,” he replied curtly, “to check identifications in cases of large wins.”
“Large wins?” I scoffed. “I barely won more than a thousand dollars. Does the casino consider that a large amount? It couldn’t be that the Family is hard-up for money, right, Tony?”
His eyes went wide as saucers at the casual way I’d just mentioned the mafia. I honestly didn’t care anymore. The way I saw it, he had a lot more to lose than I did if rumors started spreading that the casino was owned and operated by the mob.
“You can’t just demand people’s IDs!” The tattooed girl huffed indignantly. “People have rights! And we were about to leave anyway, so what’s your problem?”
Her shrill voice had caught the attention of a few of the other casino-goers, and I could see Tony gritted his teeth in anger at the scene we were causing.
“My apologies,” he snarled. “I must have been mistaken.”
He cast me one last hate-filled glare before turning around to march away, his two henchmen at his side.
“What was his problem?” Kat muttered thoughtfully. “I’ve seen people win bigger jackpots and not have any issues.”
“Who knows?” I smirked as I watched Tony slip away into the crowded casino floor. As I took the cash from the cashier, I started to wonder why it had taken me so long to start doing whatever I wanted.
16
Nick
The first thing that registered after I woke up was a throbbing at the back of my skull and, oddly enough, in my knee. I groaned as I opened my eyes, only for the pain to intensify as I looked at the light streaming through my bedroom curtains.
After we’d left the casino last the previous night, the girls had taken Jase and me to a nightclub that they’d insisted was amazing. Jase and Kat snuck away at some point during the night, and the tattooed girl had eventually slunk away after declaring that she felt like a third wheel. Erica and I had stayed at the club for a couple of hours longer before finally making our way back to my apartment.
Half of my memories of the night were either blurred from drunkenness or just missing entirely, but I could distinctly remember banging my knee against the coffee table in my living room as we stumbled inside. That explained the pulsing pain I felt in my leg.
It didn’t explain where Erica was, though, since I was definitely alone in bed right now. I glanced around the room and noticed that all of her things were gone, including the trail of clothes we’d left between the front door and the bedroom. She must have left while I was still asleep, then.
I pressed my hands against my temples as I got out of bed and headed into the bathroom. It had been a fun night, but I was paying for it now with a hangover. I downed a couple of aspirin from the medicine cabinet behind the bathroom mirror before stepping into the shower. The steady thrum of hot water felt nice against my aching head, and I stood there until the water began to run cold.
Once I was showered and changed, I started to gather up my things to head to the SDCT office. As I did, I wondered if I should tell Flint about the fight with Domenico the previous night. It didn’t really have anything to do with the case, but Flint would probably want to know about anything that happened between me and the mafia.
In the end, I decided not to bring it up unless Flint did first. Nothing had really come of it, and if I told him, he’d probably just get grumpy about it and tell me to stop doing stupid things.
It wasn’t until I left my apartment and was standing in the parking lot that I remembered I’d left my car back at the club the night before. I’d been drunk enough that Erica and I had decided to take a cab back to my place.
I sighed as I trudged back into my apartment to get my bike. As I dug it out of the back of my closet where I’d shoved it back when I first moved in, I realized it was in worse condition than I remembered it being. Nevertheless, it would have to do until I got to the SDCT office and retrieved my car.
Jase and I used to ride our bikes up and down the boardwalk when we were still in high school. I’d used it while I was in college, too, but I’d barely touched it since I’d gotten the rusty trash heap that was my car. As I dug it out of the back of my closet where I’d shoved it back when I first moved in, I realized it was in worse condition than I remembered it being. Nevertheless, it would have to do until I got to the SDCT office and retrieved my car.
The trip to the office took about twice as long by bike as it would have taken if I’d driven, and my back was sore by the time I arrived. I made it a point to exercise and stay in shape, so I wasn’t really tired, but I wasn’t used to the bike-riding position anymore. I took a moment to stretch and pop my back before making my way into the building and up to the office.
As usual, the floor buzzed with sound and movement as the agents went about their work.
“Just strolling in whenever you feel like it as usual, huh?” Bette sighed at me melodramatically as I passed by her desk. It was impossible not to, since hers was the closest to the main entrance. I had to walk by her literally every time I came to the office.
“Good morning to you too, Agent Owens.” I smiled at her, barely bothering to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.
I walked briskly past her before she could say anything else. As fun as it was to tease her, it would be mean to antagonize her too much, and I had a job to do right now. I decided to go straight to find Jase to see if he had any new information about the case.
When he saw me, he smiled and waved me over. “It’s about time you got here,” he said and then elbowed me casually in the side. “Come on, Flint has some information for us, and I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Sorry about that,” I said as we made our way to Flint’s office. “I had to bike over here, since I left my car at the club last night.”
“Oh,” Jase snickered. “I didn’t even think of that. How late did you and Erica end up staying out?”
“Late,” I replied as we stopped in front of Flint’s office door. As usual, the shutters were drawn closed, so I knocked on the door and waited to see if he was in there.
“Come in,” his gruff voice called from inside.
“Good morning, Officer Flint,” I said as I pushed the door open.
“It’s ‘director’ now, Nick,” he corrected me flatly.
“Right.” I smiled sheepishly. “Sorry, old habit.”
“Yeah, I know,” he replied, looking back at me a little sadly. “Anyway, now that you’re both here,” he nodded to Jase and me. “Let’s cut to the chase. We have something new on the case. Police were able to get samples of Ryan Rothschild’s fingerprints and DNA. We found matching prints in the victim’s home, but considering he was living there until recently, that doesn’t actually prove anything.”
“Well, yeah,” I shrugged. “Especially since we’ve established that it was most likely that woman who killed the senator.”
“Right,” Flint shrugged. “What’s more confusing is that we found his prints at the scene of a different crime.”
“What?” I exclaimed, shocked by the unexpected turn of events.
“About a month ago, a man named Carlisle Rutherford died under unusual circumstances,” Flint explained. “He was in his sixties, and his health was poor, so at the time, it was unclear whether his death was the result of natural causes or not. However, it was suspicious that he was found dead when he’d been just fine the day before. Even more suspicious were the fingerprints found on the window sill of his bedroom.”
“Didn’t the police conduct an investigation?” Jase asked.
“To an extent,” Flint nodded. “But aside from the unidentified fingerprints, there were no signs of foul play. None of the windows
or doors had been tampered with, and there weren’t any signs of injury on the body. In the end, the police decided that the most likely cause was a heart attack or stroke.”
“But now we have this connection to Ryan Rothschild,” I mused aloud. This was so bizarre. It was pretty obvious that Ryan hadn’t killed his wife, at least not with his own two hands. Yet now we had evidence that he was at the scene of a different murder.
“There’s a bit more to it,” Flint continued. “Rutherford’s daughter, Marina Rutherford, never accepted the police’s determination. She insisted that her father had been murdered, and the person she suspected most was her own brother, Shane Rutherford.”
“Why would she think that?” I asked. I was getting more puzzled with every new detail that Flint divulged.
“According to her,” Flint explained, “Carlisle was about to write his son out of his will. She insisted that he must have killed their father in order to avoid losing his inheritance, but when the police looked into it, Shane had an airtight alibi.”
I felt a chill run down my spine at those words.
“So, it’s exactly the same situation,” I muttered. “Just like Ryan and Alexis Rothschild, the main suspect conveniently had a perfect alibi for the time of the murder.”
“That’s right.” Flint nodded seriously. “I also thought it was too much to just be a coincidence. For now, I’d like you two to go speak to the daughter and son and see what each has to say about the death of their father. There’s no doubt that this is somehow related to our current case. I’ll send their personal information to Agent Park’s work tablet.”
“All right,” I nodded as I moved to stand up. Flint just turned to the papers on his desk and began to get back to work. As long as I’d known him, he’d never been one for pleasantries or long goodbyes. Once the conversation finished, that was it. Some people might interpret it as rude, but I’d always thought it was his way of trying to be honest and efficient.