Prologue
A Gamble with Death
Hunter
Sometimes being a bodyguard provided great luxury.
Tonight, I’d escorted a client to a casino that was exclusive to the rich. Designer perfume mingled with Cuban cigar smoke. Money stank of dirty hands passing it around over time. Sweat reeked from losers, while wild hope spiced the air.
My client, Mr. Strickland had been camped out by the roulette table all evening. The Carrillo Cartel would give five million to anyone that delivered Strickland’s head. But that hadn’t stopped Strickland from feeding his addiction.
This is why I don’t gamble.
Soul-erosion came from high-end gambling—this dark mixture of greed and fear. The shit that would keep the average alpha hard for a week. The win rested in eternal bias. A mirage of fifty-fifty chances that almost never came. Luck held rank as master. Everyone else participated as slaves. So, when a person won, they burst with excitement, overloaded on adrenaline, and somehow believed in God.
Yet, the hidden metronome of the casino continued to spin wheels and break hearts.
“Let’s go!” Strickland placed his bet and rubbed his hands together. Others followed suit. An excited buzz rushed around the table as the wheel spun. All eyes watched the ball race along.
Strickland had been on a winning streak all night. His style was half mathematical, half intuitive. A pile of plaques lay in front of him, worth more than a million.
I couldn’t see my partner, Baptiste, but his voice came through on the tiny plug in my ear. Each heavy word rode a thick Creole accent. “We should leave.”
My other partner, Nakita sounded in the earplug too. “I agree. This is dangerous.”
I spoke to both of them through the small microphone in my collar. “Okay. We’ll go in ten minutes.”
Baptiste was thirty years old, born in Haiti, half black and half French. Tall and baldheaded, he caught most people’s attention when he walked by. A talisman hung from his left ear—an evil eye carved into the center of the bone with feathers dangling from the bottom.
He was superstitious—the type of guy that didn’t make plans on Friday the 13th. He never went straight home after a funeral, certain a bad spirit would follow him back. Once I saw him shoot a man in his leg for opening an umbrella indoors. Apparently, doing that brought bad luck. And true to Baptiste’s word, a bad luck bullet came.
And then there was my other partner, Nakita.
At twenty-five, she was the opposite of Baptiste—a foster kid from the rough streets of Moscow. She had pale skin and black hair. Short and curvy, she was an adamant atheist with dreams of overthrowing the Russian government. Loved poetry but hated any other writing. Would never buy a television but sat in the movie theater all day every Saturday.
When I started my security agency, I hired Nakita and Baptiste first. For five years, they worked for me. After the first year, they fell in love. The second year, they married. The third year, they bought a house with a big yard and their own gun range. By the fourth year, they’d begun talking about kids.
On the fifth year, Baptiste came to my office.
“We’re done, after the Strickland job,” he’d said.
“I knew it would be coming.” I pulled my bottom desk drawer open, grabbed the package, and handed it to him. “Here.”
It was a small box wrapped in pink and blue stripes.
Baptiste studied the box. “What’s this?”
“Don’t open it until your first child is born.” I leaned back in my chair. “And don’t tell me a present for an unborn baby is bad luck. I checked. There are no laws of spirituality being broken.”
A wide smile spread across his face. Baptiste rarely smiled. Thank God, because it was one of the few things in this world that scared me.
“Thank you.” Out of nowhere, he rose from his chair, walked around my desk, got to my side, and grabbed me into an uncomfortable hug.
“Okay.” I nodded, when he let me go. “Hug me again, and I’ll kill you.”
Baptiste walked back to his chair. “You need love.”
“I don’t.”
“And what about your Zola?” He pointed to the center of my shirt.
One couldn’t see it, but he knew that I wore a little girl’s heart-shaped locket under the shirt. A picture of Zola and me lay inside. She’d given it to me for my birthday. Only ten years old, she figured a fifteen-year-old boy would love it.
Baptiste asked the question again. “What about Zola?”
I rose from my desk, already done with the conversation. “She’s my sister.”
“Only from adoption.”
“Focus on Strickland.” I handed him the folder. “See you tomorrow.”
Baptiste took the information. “I can do a mojo bag for Zola and you.”
“Keep that shit away from me, please.”
Baptiste laughed. “How can I keep God from you, when you are God?”
This was our last job. Things would change, and I wondered if I could ever replace two people who I considered family.