Page 134 of I Will Revel in Glory (Death by Daybreak MC 3)
“Whatever,” Johnny mutters, settling back into his seat for the remainder of the drive.
The casino is like something from another world. One minute, we’re in the endless shadows of the national forest and then there’s a huge, brightly colored billboard, and the whole world shifts. The trees pull back, the building rises from the shadows, and I see a huge parking lot filled with countless cars, their surfaces dewy from the on and off rainstorms.
The moon is covered with smoke from the wildfires, but it doesn’t matter. Triangle Lake Resort is bright enough to cast the entire area in brilliant, glittering light.
“You think they’ll card us straight off?” Johnny is asking as we climb out, and I find myself pausing as Dena pulls her convertible—with the top up, mind you—into the space next to me. She damn near runs over my toes, and if she did, I’d have killed her for ruining my carefully applied pedicure.
“Gidget,” Dena says, voice clipped as she looks me over and her two cronies creep up on either side of her.
“It’s Tina tonight,” I correct, pointing at my blond hair and wondering what finally happened to that weird love triangle between Tina, Trevone, and Kellen. Considering the boys are here together, and Tina is decidedly not, it must be something bad. “If you call me anything else, Cat will find out I was here, and he’ll probably kill all of us.”
I give a faux grimace, shrug my shoulders, and pretend like I’m not wearing a small pin camera on the front of my dress. It doesn’t look like much, just a tiny silver skull, but it’s relaying live video and sound back to the other Daybreakers.
Here goes nothing.
“Tina?” Dena queries back, pursing her mouth like a cat’s asshole. God, I hate that expression. “What is wrong with you?”
“Clinically?” I ask, and then shrug again, my clutch held firmly in my right hand. “I’m seriously considering psychopathy, but it could just be antisocial personality disorder.” I take the clutch with me as Dena makes an annoyed sound, her heels clacking as she follows along with the rest of our group.
Luckily, the boys with us are all football bros with enough muscle to look older than they really are, and Dena and her girls know how to do their hair and makeup as well as I do. We might get carded, but unless these idiots have jacked-up fake IDs, we won’t get caught. Considering they live in Ashbury, they probably bought their fake IDs from a Daybreaker minion meaning it’ll be quality stuff.
We head up the front steps in a group, and I look down at my clutch, pulling out my phone and pretending to be engrossed in a text message as we sweep through the front doors.
“You want a drink or something?” Tre asks, seemingly relieved when we’re not immediately tackled by casino goons three steps into the front door. On my right, there’s a classy lounge full of glamorous looking people with absurdly bourgeois drinks in their hands. Ahead of me and to my left, flashing, blinking machines of every flavor fill the room, broken up only by craps or blackjack tables, a roulette wheel, or the customer service desk in the far corner.
There are three different sorts of casinos in the world (in my humble opinion, at least): the shady sort, the touristy kind, and this—the classy variety.
Mafia.
I can smell the silk and sweet venom of careful monsters, and my heart leaps in my chest. I reach up to press a button on the earbud I’m wearing, the one that’ll allow the boys to talk directly to me. I left it off in the quiet car, so there wasn’t any echo or anything to give me away to the others.
“Took you long enough,” Crown chastises, and I can hear the restlessness in his voice. I can’t respond to him without looking crazy in front of my lovely group of high school buddies, so I ignore the quip.
“A drink would be great,” I tell Tre, flashing a coy smile. “I’ll go find a table.”
“Well,” Dena chastises, looking Johnny and Kellen over. “Aren’t you going to offer us anything?”
“I’ll buy if you put out,” Kellen says with a smirk, and Dena giggles at his misogynistic douche-baggery like he’s just offered her flowers. Fuck, if one of them dies in the crossfire tonight, I hope it’s Kellen Doughty.
“Get something for my girls, too, ‘kay?” Dena offers up, looking around for a prime spot. She decides to head straight for the table closest to us, the one that holds that in-between space between the pit and the lounge. I stay cloistered with the other girls, enjoying the anonymity of our little group.
We take seats around the glossy, white surface of the table as my eyes scan the room. I don’t expect to see Giulia or any of the men in Alvise’s tactical team. I’d recognize them, too, since I spent hours and hours this week looking through the photos that Grey sent me.
