Page 45 of Roulette Rodeo
"This says I can leave."
"After a year, yes. With full payment of contract price." Marnay's smile is bitter. "Though I doubt you'll ever save one hundred million dollars."
A year. I could survive anything for a year.
And if they were monsters, if this was just another cage with prettier bars, at least I'd have an end date.
I sign my name with a steady hand:Rowenna Vale.
Not Red.
Not the persona I'd worn like armor for three years.
My real name, for better or worse.
"Congratulations," Marnay says, taking the papers. "You're now property of the Lucky Ace Pack. May God have mercy on your soul."
"God's never had much interest in Vegas," I reply, tucking my money—my money—into the bag. "Why start now?"
He actually smiles at that, a real expression instead of his usual calculated masks. "You know, Red, I almost liked you. Of all the girls who've passed through here, you were the only one who never begged."
Now he’s praising me. Where was all that when I wasn’t his monopoly card?
"Begging doesn't change the cards you're dealt."
"No," he agrees. "But sometimes it makes the dealer feel better about taking your money."
The silence is heavy with truth.
"Your new owners are waiting. Follow. We’re heading to the Platinum Suite."
Owners. The word should make me sick. Remind me that I'm still property,trapped, playing a game where the house always wins.
But all I can think about is forest green eyes and the way he'd said my name—Red—like it was a prayer and a promise.
We leave Marnay's office through a different door, one that leads to a private elevator I didn't even know existed. It’s all mirrors and gold, reflecting my image back a thousand times. Red dress, red lips, red shoes.
Red, red, red.
Like my name.
Like the panties I'd left behind.
Like the blood probably pounding through his veins when he'd decided to bet everything on an omega he'd kissed once in a storage closet.
The Platinum Suite is on the top floor, accessible only by private elevator. It's where the real deals are made, where millions change hands over brandy and handshakes. The elevator ride feels eternal and instant simultaneously.
The elevator is so silent I can hear both Marnay’s and my heartbeats—his slow and reptilian, mine a staccato Morse code of pure panic. The walls are polished to a mirrored gloss, so it’s like being in a Klein bottle of myself, infinite reds stitched together by gold fretwork and shadow. I’m clutching my life savings in a death grip, but it’s nothing compared to the chill of his voice as he says, “You’ll want to take this.”
He presents a vial.
No, not a vial—a via, as if the word is Latin for ‘last chance.’
The glass is the sort you’d expect to see holding perfume in an assassin’s boudoir, slender and fluted, stoppered with something that looks a lot like bone. The liquid inside is a horror show of color:ombre, I’m sure he’d say like he’s gifting me some true definition of shifting colors, but it’s more like an oil slick on pond water, a chemical rainbow threatening to separate at any moment.
I take it in my hand and it’s heavier than it looks, weighted with all the intent of a poison or an antidote.
I don’t ask what’s in it.
