Page 1 of Obsessed Bratva's Pregnant Claim
Chapter One
Sofia
I would give anything to be covered in the blanket on my couch in my apartment right now. But the night was still early at the casino, and that meant work was still in full force.
The Strip never really slept.
It was something thousands of people said, but I knew to be true as a matter of firsthand experience.
As the skies got darker, it only changed its clothes, swapping the afternoon tourists and shrieking bachelorettes for something darker, something with more danger.
By midnight, the Golovin Casino exhaled a different kind of air. The lighting changed. The music dropped a register. The men who took the VIP floor seats after midnight were not the kind who took photographs or posted about their winnings. They were the kind who could lose fifty thousand dollars in an hour and order another round of Macallan without blinking. I knew most of them by now. Three years on this floor had given me a fluency in dangerous men that no school ever could.
My feet ached. My smile was automatic, somewhere between warm and untouchable. I had come to learn that if it was too friendly, they often thought it was an invitation. If it was too cold, they complained to management.
I have no time for complaining. There’s work to do.
I balanced the tray with the ease of someone who had done it ten thousand times, which I had, weaving betweenclusters of men in expensive suits who smelled of scotch, power, and something indefinably predatory.
The air smelled of cigarette smoke and cologne and underneath it all, faintly, money. Las Vegas had a specific perfume, and the Golovin Casino had bottled it.
I was halfway through a circuit of the floor when a hand closed around my wrist.
Not so hard. But the grip was undeniably proprietary.
“Hey.” The voice, heavy with a Dallas accent, was slurred at the edges. “How about you slow down, sweetheart. Keep me company for a minute.”
My smile remained on my face.
“I’ll have your drink out to you in just a moment, sir.”
“I don’t want the drink.” His thumb moved in a slow circle on the inside of my wrist. “I want the company.”
The tray in my other hand held four glasses of whiskey and two champagne flutes. I had done the math quickly. I knew if I pulled away hard, one of us was wearing the drink. If I made a scene, Marco, the shift supervisor, would materialize within thirty seconds. Then the conversation afterward would be about my attitude, not the man’s hands.
“I’m afraid I have a full section tonight.” I let my wrist go slack until his grip loosened, then stepped back in a single smooth motion, as if it had been my choice all along. “Enjoy your evening.”
I was already gone before he could speak again.
“Whew,” I breathed.
That was survival in the Golovin Casino. It was not glamour or excitement. It was simply the constant, exhausting arithmetic of keeping yourself intact while making everyone else feel like they were the most important person in the room.
I deposited the tray at the service station, allowed myself exactly three seconds of pressing my palms flat against the cold steel counter, then straightened and went back out.
It was a few minutes to 1 am when Marco found me.
He appeared at my elbow the way he always did. He was wearing the particular expression he reserved for requests that were unusual but not quite unusual enough to refuse.
“Reyes.” He called, his voice low. “I need you to run a private drink order. Suite corridor, past the poker suites.”
I looked at him. “That’s a restricted area.”
“I know what it is.” He pressed a single card key into my hand, warm from his palm. “Somebody called it in specifically. Macallan 18, two glasses, neat. I need someone discreet.”
In Las Vegas street-speak,discreetmeantfemale, which was also another name forless threatening. I had learned that translation in my first month.
I also knew the tips from those rooms could cover a week’s rent in one night.
