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I want to be sure that we get at least one of these men alive, but saving Alessio is more important.
Aiming at the man’s hand, I squeeze the trigger. Three times. I miss the hand, but all three shots go under his arm, into the side of his chest.
He jerks and slams back into the wall. As he crumples down, he leaves a long red smear behind him.
We won’t be getting any information out of him.
Alessio is on top of the other shooter. He slams the man’s gun hand against the wall. He slams the barrel of his gun against the man’s wrist and fires. Then he jams the gun up, into the gunman’s chin.
“Say something, motherfucker. Say something right now that will make me not kill you.”
The man’s voice is choked and strangled.
“What do you want?”
While I kick the weapon away from the other man for safety, I shout, “Who sent you? Who’s paying?”
Sounding like he’s gargling, the man says, “I don’t know.”
Alessio tells him, “Wrong answer. Try again?”
“The contract came through the dark web. There’s no way to know who’s on the other end.”
Alessio smiles, “Then an entertaining death is all that you have to offer me.”
The gun barks. Behind the man’s head, a wide splash of red sprays the wall.
“So, what happened, Tai?”
Alessio and I are on Tai’s bare chairs, back in the big office. Two tribal wall hangings are all the luxury he permits himself. He doesn’t drink, so we’re taking tonic water, too.
“Four men came in. Somehow they got in past security. One of them got away.”
I say, “We have fingerprint and face biometrics here, don’t we?”
“We do for staff.” All three of us know it, but Tai goes over it again. “For guests, we mainly rely on the facial biometric.”
Alessio says, “That’s a pretty advanced system, though.”
Tai nods. I’m familiar with it. Carlo demonstrated it to me. Guests don’t want to feel like they’re being tracked and monitored, so the biometric cameras are discrete. For that reason, there are a lot of checks, including earlobe and iris scans.
Tai says, “These didn’t come in as guests, though. They were all wearing chef’s uniforms.”
Alessio asks him, “What was the damage?”
“They robbed everyone in the restaurant and bar area. Took jewelry, watches, wallets, and phones. Plus key fobs for their cars, although most people don’t drive here. Our clients are usually driven.”
I’m shaking my head. “That’s bad enough, though.”
“That’s not the worst of it, unfortunately. They robbed everyone in the Number Four cards room, too.”
That’s a shock.
Under his breath, Alessio says, “The Number Four?”
That’s where the high-stakes poker tables are. All cash. And invitation only.
“The two you found in the corridor? They came in and went straight to Poker Room Four.”
