by Myra Scott
Wise words that are going to kill me, sooner or later, my headache told me silently.
***
By the time I was crossing the casino floor, the day’s meetings were just one big blur. Luke was off getting us coffee, because God knew we still had a long day ahead of us.
I hadn’t even had time to stop and take some medicine for my migraine. I was running on fumes, and the casino floor was anything but helpful. There were bright lights, loud, sudden noises, and guests who’d had too much to drink all around me.
By now, weaving through that kind of crowd was second nature to me. I could navigate even a rowdy crowd without getting tripped up anymore. Becoming an expert at going unnoticed in this kind of environment was something I was quietly proud of.
For a split second amid the white noise of the casino, I felt something unusual.
It was like a moment of tense silence that felt too calm for this time of night, like something was just slightly out of place enough that it felt wrong.
Before I could look around and see what the source of that feeling was, I heard it at the same moment the tense pause broke.
“Hey fucker, that’s my friend’s drink you just knocked over! You gonna buy him a new one?”
“Excuse me? You’re the one who’s been bumping into us all night like you own the damn place!”
Shit.
My head swiveled in the direction of the noise, and my heart dropped. Those were the sounds of a fight brewing, but it was worse than it sounded. There weren’t just two drunk men squaring off at each other.
Two entire groups by the roulette tables were starting to get interested.
The first man who’d spoken was around my age, in his late twenties, and he was with about seven men about the same age and similar builds, all dressed fairly nicely. I knew a bachelor party when I saw one.
The man who spilled his drink couldn’t have been more than twenty-one, and the half-dozen men coming to back him up looked about the same, all of them wearing sweet outfits that screamed college frat.
Those two kinds of groups were a powder keg on their own on the best of days. Together, it was a disaster waiting to happen.
I looked across the casino and didn’t see any security on the way.
“What the fuck,” I muttered, heart racing. This was the sort of thing that should have been handled already with a fully functioning staff, but with all the overflow of business, we evidently couldn’t keep up. Meanwhile, things were escalating fast between the two groups.
“I don’t have time for this, get your frat-boy-ass out of my face.”
“Hey, what was that? You want to say that to my face instead of walking out like a little bitch?”
They weren’t a sophisticated bunch on either side, it had to be said.
The bachelor was shaking his head and rolling his eyes, trying to walk away, but the frat boys were bowing up, raring for a fight.
“Gentlemen!” I called out, starting to hurry toward them.
CRACK.
Too late.
The bachelor had spun around and laid out the college kid with a solid punch to the jaw, and I saw a molar tooth go rolling across the carpeted floor. It took about half a second for all hell to break loose.
The two groups of men descended on each other like they were staging a fight in a movie. As soon as they came together, though, it became clear neither group had any idea what they were doing, and both groups were very drunk.
Fists just flew out wildly, some of them hitting the other group, some hitting each other. By the time one man grabbed another and shoved him to the ground, I knew it was time for me to intervene.
I bolted forward and caught one of the men by the arms from behind.
“Break it up, come on!” I barked at them, but most of them were too aggravated to even notice that I’d come into the scene. I felt an elbow hit me in the side, and I gritted my teeth.
One of my hands grabbed a man by the collar and dragged him back while the other hand held back the punch he was about to throw. The man he was fighting just took the opportunity to hit the guy in the gut.
Grunting, I put myself between them, and I soon felt a sharp pain in my stomach from another blow.
I’d thrown myself into the fray, and I was quickly getting into the thick of it.
I lost my sense of direction as I tried to push the people away from each other. It was like wading through a sea of angry cats. I felt blows coming in on my shoulders and my back--neither party was especially interested in backing down anytime soon, and I was just in the way.
Getting more aggressive, I started shoving both sides back with both arms bowed, and as I did, I felt a punch catch me on the side of the head. It was just a jab, but I was still dazed, and when I turned to see who was after me, I saw one of the younger faces in the crowd. His punches kept flying in at me, buzzing around my face like angry hornets, and the look on his face was infuriating. He had this sort of sneer like this uppity kid was zealous to land a few punches on me, and his irritating jabs came in so fast and light that I started to feel claustrophobic among the sea of bodies.
It was just this persistent, irritating feeling that I couldn’t shake this kid, like he was the embodiment of all the little problems that had been building up over the day and wouldn’t leave me alone. I started shoving my hands forward to push him away, keeping my body from losing its cool, and before I knew what was happening, I watched one of my fists fly forward and catch him on the eye.
In my defense, it worked.
The kid stumbled back into the crowd of his friends, holding his face, and it proved enough of a distraction that some of the men paused to see what was going on and who was winning the brawl.
It wasn’t until then that the security personnel flooded the scene, and at least three security guards took hold of the biggest fighters, shouting orders for everyone to get back and not touch each other.
I staggered back, and someone started to come for me before he realized who I was. He then took me by the arm and led me away, and it was at that point I realized that it was Bart who was guiding me.
“Shit, what the fuck happened, Mick?” Bart grunted as we turned and watched the guards break up the rest of the fight. “You brawling to blow off some steam, now?”
“No,” I hissed, biting back a few other choice words I had as I rubbed my sore head and felt the many blows I’d be feeling in the morning. “I was trying to break it up when I saw the staff wasn’t around to take care of it.
Bart clenched his jaw, but he was looking at the men, not me. “Police are on their way,” he said. “We’ll have this squared away in a hot minute. You okay?”
“Just a little banged up,” I grunted.
“Good,” he said. “But shit, we’ve got to get this staffing situation under control.
My migraine throbbed harder than any punch I’d been given that night.
And when I saw Zane standing on the far end of the casino, glaring at both of us and gesturing for us to come his way, it throbbed so hard I thought my head was going to explode.
Five minutes later, me, Bart, Gage, and Zane all stood in one of the private rooms just above the casino floor, usually used for questioning suspicious guests when there was a problem. It didn’t set a great precedent for the way Zane was glowering at all of us, his arms crossed over his chest.
“I don’t want to hear a rundown of what happened out there,” Zane started. “I’ll expect a full report about that before tomorrow morning, Mick.”
My jaw clenched as I mentally added another load of work to the already teetering tower of it.
“As for you, Bart,” he went on, “that was a complete failure of the security staff. I saw that fight breaking out from my office, and there wasn’t a single guard in the vicinity. No wonder Mick jumped in the way he did--that’s not an excuse,
though,” Zane added, pointing a finger at me.
I kept quiet. I always did. Every little annoyance was just another fly buzzing around my head, and I could ignore flies.
But the more they started biting, the harder it got.
“The staff is spread thin, you know that,” Bart protested. Bart was a big bear from Texas, it was awfully hard to get him to back down on anything. “That new nightclub is draining the staff, and we’re not hiring enough to keep up with it.
“We’re hiring the right amount,” Zane said, “but Mick, we need you to get a better handle on all these staffing issues we’re having. We wouldn’t have so many guards quitting on us if we screened them better.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but Bart interrupted me.
“We wouldn’t have this problem if we’d just close off the nightclub for one weekday night to train them all properly, like I’ve been asking,” he insisted.
“The gamblers would throw a fit,” Gage said, a frown on his face. “The nightclub has been all over the news, we can’t let it slow down while it’s raking in this much money.”
“Agreed,” Zane said, “Diego’s been reporting the same on his end, but La Torre doesn’t have the same staffing issues that we do. Bart, we’ve had a spike in thefts that we haven’t seen the likes of since we first opened and I didn’t have you on staff yet. We can’t afford to let that become an ongoing problem, I want to make that very clear. Mick, the list of staffing issues is growing faster than it’s shrinking, and that’s completely unacceptable.”
“Security is worn-out because you still haven’t gotten me the infrastructure operating system I’ve been requesting all week!” Bart retorted, a little fire in his voice. “You can’t just tell me ‘do better’ when I’ve been waving a solution in your face for-”
“You want to know what the problem is?” I snapped, not bothering to keep my voice down, and every head in the room turned to me.
I never raised my voice, ever.
But my face was cherry-red, and whatever had been throbbing in the back of my head had finally cracked.
“I can’t keep up with all your incessant requests because you think I’m some kind of slot machine you can just throw emails at and get results immediately!” I railed, my fists clenching. “Do you know how many times an urgent email comes into my inbox? I tried to have one fucking meeting to fire a goddamn HR rep, and I can’t even get through that without being expected to magically put out fires that I was supposed to know about and have solved three days ago! Do you even think for one second when you send three emails in a row that I might be doing something besides waiting hand and foot on each and every one of you to take care of something your oversights can’t manage for one goddamn day?”
For the second time today, you could have heard a pin drop in the room I stood in. I glared at each and every one of them. Now would have been a good time to storm out furiously, but I didn’t. I wanted them to know what it was like to have something important waiting on them impatiently.
I never blew up like this. My whole MO was the calm and collected anchor of our group, and Zane’s face couldn’t have been more shocked if I’d pulled a gun on all of them. Finally, Bart broke the silence with a hearty laugh, clapping me on the back.
“I’m starting to rub off on the guy,” he joked.
“Someone needs to get laid,” Gage added, playing off Bart’s energy.
That did it.
I shook my head and turned on my heel, throwing the door open and slamming it behind me. I had never seriously thought about walking out on the Sentry before, but damned if I didn’t feel like it right that second.
...and damned if Gage hadn’t hit the nail on the head.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I hope you enjoyed The Charmer. I enjoyed writing Zane and Diego’s story and hope you’ll check out Mick’s story next in The Perfectionist. Mick’s motto is ‘Everything needs a place, and everything needs to be in its place.’ Find out if this meticulous man can let go and find happiness.
As an indie author, I’m always grateful for feedback. If you have the time and desire, please leave a review, good or bad, where you purchased this book. It helps me decide what readers like and don’t like and how to plan for the next story.
If you’d like to reach out, message me anytime at [email protected]. I love hearing from readers.
Happy reading!
Myra
ALSO BY MYRA SCOTT
Sweet Temptation
Calling the Shots
Never Look Back
Blown Away
Hell Let Loose
Hurts So Good
Sin City Sentries – 4-book series:
The Charmer – Book One
The Perfectionist – Book Two (due mid February)
The Hothead – Book Three (due late February)
The Protector – Book Four (due early March)