Page 27 of Roulette Rodeo
The red panties, the unfinished note, the color itself...
"Red," I whispered, the name clicking into place like a round chambering. "Your name is Red."
It fit.
That auburn hair that caught light like fire.
The cherry notes in her scent.
The way she'd blushed crimson when I'd called her 'little cherry.'
Red.
I folded the panties carefully, reverently, like handling critical intel. Which, in a way, they were. These were going in my pocket, and they were staying there. The pack didn't need to know. Not yet.
Because if I told them, showed them what she'd left, they'd want to hunt.
And while part of me—the predator part that had been honed in countless firefights—wanted that too, another part knew she wasn't ready.
She was virgin.
Untouched. Unclaimed.
In Vegas.
Which meant she was either hiding or hidden.
Protected or imprisoned. And given what I knew about this city's underbelly, the latter was more likely than the former.
I pulled out the casino chip again, looking at it with new eyes.
The Crimson Roulette. Exclusive. Private.
The kind of place that might keep beautiful omegas as... what? Decorations? Entertainment?
The thought made my hands clench into fists.
If someone was keeping her against her will…dare had caged my omega?—
No.
I forced myself to calm, to think strategically. I didn't have enough intel. Had no clue about her situation, story, or why she was here or even how she'd stayed untouched in a city that devoured innocence.
But I could find out.
Vegas was a city built on information. Everything was for sale if you knew the right people, asked the right questions, applied the right pressure. And after seventeen years of applying pressure in places where the Geneva Convention was more suggestion than law, I knew exactly how to get what I wanted.
I pulled out my phone, scrolling through contacts until I found the one I needed.
Melro "Mercury" Chen—information broker, former CIA, current pain in the ass who owed me three favors from Kabul.
"I need intel on the Crimson Roulette," I said when he answered. "Everything. Ownership, employees, especially any omegas on staff."
"That's gonna cost you," Mercury said, but I could hear the keyboard clicking.He was already searching."That place is locked down tighter than Fort Knox. Very exclusive clientele, very particular services."
"Define particular."
"The kind that skirt the law but never quite break it. At least not provably."
