the dirt. The story is that he’d been in it pretty bad with one casino. The owner wasn’t happy. The loan sharks weren’t happy. There were a lot of people after him.”
“But who killed him?” Lilly asks breathlessly, edging forward in her seat.
“Walter. This thug who owned Casino MegaMax.”
“I don’t remember seeing that one along the strip.” Lilly wrinkles her brow.
“Well, now it’s known as the Fortuna. You’re sitting in it.”
Lilly exhales sharply at these words. The surprise on her face is evident. “Did you… Did you kill Walter? As revenge?” Her eyes are wide as she asks, fearful of what revelation I might share.
“No.” I give her a small smile and squeeze her hand gently. “I was just a powerless kid then, a low-level casino employee. But when I found out that Walter was responsible for my father’s death, I started figuring out how to get revenge. That’s when I met Jack. At the time, he was the owner of Destino. Casino MegaMax was his biggest competition. Jack fucking hated Walter. There were many reasons. Walter was a shady character and never played by the rules. Even in Vegas, there are laws of the street. But Walter didn’t abide by any rules.”
Lilly nods, entranced by my words, and nudges my hand gently, urging me to keep talking.
“Well, I approached Jack. It took months. I was constantly at Destino, trying to catch him, waiting around his favorite bar, restaurant, you name it. I was like his shadow for a while. He got really mad at one point. I mean, of course he didn’t have the time of day to give some random, small-town, punk kid. But, finally, I managed to buy him a drink—and then I beat him at a game of cards. That’s how I really got his attention. So I told him my story. And that’s when he decided to help.”
“He helped you get back at Walter?”
“He did more than that. Jack took me under his wing. He saw that I was motivated and smart. Given my father’s past and my own dedication to self-control, he knew I’d never have any issues with alcohol or cards. And he knew that my desire for revenge would be the strongest motivator for me to succeed.”
“To succeed in what?” Lilly looks confused.
“As a casino owner. See, Jack had had his eye on Casino MegaMax for years. The property is perfectly situated to make it a fitting sister casino-and-hotel to Destino. So when I told Jack I wanted to take Walter down, Jack was on board. He’d been watching Walter work for years and he knew exactly what his M.O. was. Like I said before, Walter wasn’t one to play by the rules. But there’s a code in this game. If you win fair and square, you win. The other guy is supposed to pay up. But Walter never wanted to pay up. He preferred to have his henchmen dig a hole in the desert if you beat him. In that sense, much of his money was blood money.”
“Including your Dad’s.” Lilly murmurs the words sympathetically.
“Yep. At first I thought some loan sharks had taken my father out. Then, I thought maybe he’d failed to pay up after losing a private game to Walter, or that he owed Walter’s casino money. Jack told me the truth—that my father had actually won a high-stakes game against Walter. Huge pot. It would have taken care of all the money he owed. Could have set him up with a clean slate, even a new life. But of course with a pot that big…”
“Walter would rather kill your dad than pay it.” Lilly concludes the story sadly.
“Correct. Anyway, Jack had already seen me play cards. He knew I could beat Walter. And he also knew what would happen if the stakes were high enough.”
“Walter would try to kill you too.”
“Yeah. The problem was, of course, that I was just a broke kid, living paycheck to paycheck. I was making decent money in tips but I was also sending cash back to my mother. So Jack offered to front me the money to enter a high-stakes poker game with Walter. Then, he got to work on turning Walter’s people against him.”
“Like, his security team?”
“Yeah. Walter had security around him constantly. Literally by his side. I know you think that the security here is crazy,” I pause and give Lilly a small smile, “but compared to what Walter had, it’s nothing. He had four armed guards with him