The shining black Bentley in the lumination of the underground parking lot allayed to a vacant space among the stacked rows of luxurious motorcars.
The man in the black evening suit scrutinized the image in the rear–view mirror of the car, clear and toneless ocean blue eyes staring back at him.
Brushing up his thin brown beard with careful dab of fingers—and a casual comb to the short brown hair, satisfied with the look he adjusted back the mirror to it's place.
Climbing out of the car he shut the door, and locking with the remote key, he slipped it inside the pocket of his jacket.
As he walked out of the parking lot, he bared himself to the chilly midnight breeze of Las Vegas in the beginning of October.
He stared up at the monstrous casino implanted in his sight—proud and blaring with golden brilliance, shunning away the silimitude of a dark, sunken of the night.
Shrugging lightly his shoulders to loosen up the tension, he straightened up the spine and in a poised manner piloted up the stairs and through the massive open entrance—and into the buzz, exhilarating resplendent anteroom of the Casino.
"Good evening sir. Welcome to Casino River Reign." The assistant greeted as he stood at the cassier's desk.
"Good evening." The man flatly reacted and fished out a black slim leather wallet from the inside breast right pocket of his jacket, then pinching out a black credit card he held it out to her
"Chips in twenty–five million dollars."
"Certainly Sir." The accountant replied with a smile.
---
Chest puffed and calmed demeanor, he penetrated in the VIP room with the personnel carrying a tray of a hill—embodied to thirty million dollars in plaques.
The casual chats of the people muted as he approached the lone high table enacted at the centre of the room.
Half of the seat were already taken up by the players. The cards placed face down on the desk were being churned, shuffled and in the end blended by the pit manager.
He lowered himself down on the number 7 of the chair, and then exchanged a tight smile of regard with the players.
The personnel with him after placing the tray of chips on the table, wished him good luck and excused himself.
"In good spirits, I perceive Mr. Green." The tall and slender built Supervisor smiled at the acquainted customer.
"Indeed." Nicholas Green returned with a thin smile to the man accross him.
"I wish you a good fortune tonight Mr. Green." The Supervisor bestowed.
"I appreciate it."
"Would you like any drinks sir?" The waitress standing behind him asked.
He briefly glanced up at her. "A glass of dry martini please."
"Sure sir." She said, and moved away to the sumptuous space of bar girdled in the left corner of the extravagant gold and deep red walls ornated room.
Treading his survey up at the scarlet ceiling, a massive twinkling crystal chandelier tarried right above the red surfaced high table with green rims. The velvety cushioned chairs and the carpet were all the same painted—in the allusive bloodbath of red.
The waitress soon came back with a v–shaped glass of dry martini, garnished with a skewer of olives.
He leaned back on the chair and brought the glass near his lips.
Drawing a sip, the bitter taste of the martini glided his tongue, but indifferent against the harshness of the liquid, he roved his sharp gaze around the room.
Employees lingered to tend to the guests' care, and the faces of the players with him seated round at the table were recognised by him only because he had done a pleasant analysis into their lives.
This turf and time was theirs to gait on and relish in the prospers of money.
The domain of the upper class denizens.
And he was assumed to be one of them; a business tycoon with an industry of steel unthriving for this period of diminution.
To atone for the loss and fortunately run a vein of luck he appeared in the Casino River Reign—organizing tonight the annual holding of the highest gambling of the year the Western Hemisphere was yet to witness.
Sensing a presence at the right of him he turned to see the chair of number 6 occupied by a woman with a cordial grin offered to him—plastered on the showy scarlet lips.
"Pleasure to meet you here Nicholas." She greeted, holding out her hand.
She was Rachel Beckham: the wife of a multi-millionaire, and perhaps was here to assess just if the rust of the year had been grinded off her golden spoon.
Nicholas without much deliberation signed a gesture of assent with his head, placing the drink on the table he shaked hands with her. "The feeling is mutual, Mrs. Beckham."
Just then, the vast metal door opened and three unsmiling figures of men invaded the pleasant air; demanding with them the silence of apprehension and reverence.
And along them strolled in the personels who held their ponderous tray of plaques. Orbs of envy stucked to the heads turned to them.
The Supervisor and Pit Leader momentously waiting at the door warmly welcomed them.
Solemnly Nicholas stared at them. The first of the three was Lukas Ito, a tall slender looking man with drooping eyes and straight black hair, and beside him was Jordan Evans with straight blonde hair.
And after them was Sam Ishmael.
With each big strides within—he brewed predicament and allegiance.
Ephemerally skimming the players riveted on the seats, he caught the cold stare of Nicholas Green.
A muscle in Nicholas Green's hardened jaw ticked, roping veins from the clenched fists to his neck, but gripping the frayed respiration—he achieved to offer Raka a nod of devoir.
The ten of the players, and the Banker had now submerged themselves into the seats for the game of Baccarat.
Ishmael seated on the Banker's chair, scathed the thick slab of cards in a ritualistic prosaic, which the Pit Manager had placed on the square margin of his table.
He ensuingly slipped the six packs into the clear glassed and metal shoe and looked at Ishmael, probing for the starting gamble to be made.
Ishmael then instructed in stifled words to the Pit Manager.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, the stakes are made. A five million dollars." The Pit Leader remarked as half of the players immediately tensed with an almost conceding sigh out their mouth.
Undoubtedly, the opening of the bet from the Banker who owned the Casino would be not inferior than five million dollars.
The man on the number 1 seat to the left of Ishmael calmly tapped the table.
Lukas Ito grinned widely. "Attained."
With the actualisation of more of the players, the game launched with an obscure ambiance of battlefield in solitaire—with the cuts of cards on the blood soaked slab of the high table.
---
The mind was ironically littered with curses in each losing bet and encore in winning bank—in a sinisterly reserved room with the gloom of cigarettes, serrated scents of perfumes and alcohol breaths out the lips of stressed players, the peak of the Baccarat game was in subjection.
Ishmael stared at the man in his mid–forties strained on the number 8—who's urgently dipping his head and lifting a chink with the insert of thumb of the right hand to peek at the value of the cards planted face down, cupped and shadowed by his fat calloused palms.
Although he had not yet stumbled into the big break—and had reduced of the plaques of the kick off of millions of dollar cluttered on his margin, his will for a hope of luck had yet not strayed.
He was on the left to Nicholas, James Perez; an owner of millions worth of company with the business in guns.
He flattened his hands on the table and raised his head to snare Ishmael's gaze on him.
"A card." He demanded without humor.
The intention of asking for a card and not to stand on the two cards in his hand, it purposed he had to improve his count to the closer of nine.
Impassively Ishmael looked down at his two cards and twirled them face up. The people round the table exhaled in yearn and anticipation as they revealed seven of spades and an ace; an absolute count of eight.
James Perez sat unimotionally, awaiting for a card as the Banker slapped the shoe and slinked out a card. Slowly he turned it face up—as Nicholas heard the swallow of lump coming from James Perez beside him.
The pink of the bottom was planted on the slab, James Perez sighed out a shaky breath as the card divulged a bloody red, eight of hearts.
The Pit Leader with the spatula dropped it accross before James Perez.
He glanced at Ishmael and found him calmly seated without any movement, then with professionalism he reached out the spatula and flipped James Perez's cards.
It conveyed a king and a spades of five.
A wheeze of dissapointment overwhelmed the table, symphatizing the doom of James Perez.
Ishmael had a count of eight, closer to the winning hand of nine. He had won, again.
James Perez gritting his teeth pushed out the remaining two million plaques. He had nothing left.
The Pit Manager added them to the mountain of ninety–two million plaques which were reposed at the heart of the table.
Rachel Beckham had about a five thousands left, she had long before paused on gambling with the realisation that her alloyed golden spoon had rusted beyond repair, and she could not be on par with the pure of wealth.
Xia He, in her late thirties next to Rachel Beckham had about half a million remaining, and she paralleled the same decision as Rachel Beckham.
Most of the player's margins had bare minimum plaques lingered over the course of two hours of the Baccarat game.
And the ones who still stood strong were Lukas Ito, bussinessman John Cali Antony on number 3, assuredly the banker—and along him was Nicholas himself with the fourth million added to his opening amount.
Along with James Perez, Frank Bernardi an Italian mafia on number 4, the druglord Louis Gerard on number 9 and the politician on number 10 were done and out of the game.
Ishmael in a low tone specified the impending bank with the Pit Manager. In the dwindling hours of gambling, he opened his mouth only when obliged.
A body operating akin to a mechanoid, he had no flicker—a sway of emotions in those dark, vacuous stoned gaze.
Nicholas sweeped his gaze from the banker to the faces round the table, everyone had hushed down, wearing an exhausted blue, restlessness at the demise—otherwise the fear in the intuition of the inpouring doom.
"A raise of fourty–five million." The Pit Manager announced.
Silence.
No one dared to.
"The bank is met." Nicholas unhesitatingly declared, pushing forward the plaques of fourty–five million, reeling eyes on him.
Ishmael retained his apathetic stare for not more than a brief second, then smacking the shoe, he fingered out a card, one for him, and the other for Nicholas—repeating until each of them had two of the bottom up pink cards in their possession.
The Pit Manager swiftly, delicately slid the cards and sinked accross with the long black flat spatula before Nicholas's clasped hands flattened on the surface.
Nicholas had the Banker's uncurios eyes riveted to his form, and the prophesied gawk of the refused players.
Nicholas maintaining the auspiciously detached demeanour gathered the cards and placed them in the centre of his margin. Carefully in the shadows of his big hands, he then slightly lifted the cards with his long forefinger—squinnously only to his view.
He then flicked it up to the enquiring browse of the players.
Curled brows, grudging smack of tongues and envy drown the table as his cards divulged his fate of four of hearts, and a five of diamonds. A natural nine. He won.
The obvious gazes then trained to Ishmael. He couldn't beat that. Could he?
Ishmael shrugged lightly his broad shoulders—draped in deep blue dinner–jacket, and flicked his own two cards to reveal the face value of a queen and a nine of spades.
Incredulous exhales, and almost grudging scoffs shrouded the table in a traction between the two players who had knotted a draw.
"An equal." Exclaimed the Pit Manager, and assembling the used four cards, disposed them through the wide slot in the table in his spot.
In that moment, the door gaped and in walked a tall tan skinned man cladded in a formal wear, like every other customer in evening attires.
Zev, Raka's right hand man headed straight to Ishmael, and leaning down to the level of his ear muttered words inaudible to the rest.
And there, Nicholas could perceive the first wave of emotion in the dark eyeballs in Raka's visage in all of this evening. Zev then stood upright beside his boss.
Ishmael smoothening his palms on the table arose to loom over the seated frames of the players.
"It was an honourable venture with our distinguished guests. Now with your indulgence, I'm obliged to retire for the night."
With a nod of acclaim Ishmael turned and strode his way to the door, Zev walking at the rear of him.
The atmosphere lightened with the murmers and ponderous sighs following his departure. Two employees then came to collect the piles of plaques in trays.
"What might be that urgent for him to leave in flukiness of climax?" Jordan Evans urged Lukas Ito seated beside.
"He's got bloom of a wife, a crucial priority over making money." Lukas Ito smirked at him, his partner in the organization of an infamous drug cartel, eyeing at him with a lustre of a knowing gaze.
---
"Mr. Sam." Nicholas called.
Ishmael halted before the closed elevator door eyed him, marching to him along the ablated wide and long profuse white and gold ornamented hallway.
Nicholas had quietly excused and snaked out of the VIP room, to have this brief exchange with the prominent drug lord and business man.
"It was a pleasure to be introduced to you. I'm Nicholas Green." He said, holding out his right hand.
Ishmael regarded the shake of hands. "It was a good game." He declared in a sunken, groggy tone.
Nicholas offered him a smile of respect, and retracting hands the elevator door opened.
With a final nod of exchange, Ishmael and Zev walked in and the elevator door sealed to his face.
With the drop of grin, in the pleasant face replaced a demeanour so darkened and morose; a man in a cavernous grave.
Awaiting to divulge the existence.
To burn and refresh, ambushing and slaughtering—to kill him and kill him, shredding and grating Raka until not a scrap of bones shall be left in him.
Heading towards the washroom, he loosened the tie in his collar and broke buttons. He shut the door and crashed to a sink, pressuring open the faucet he roughly splashed his face with cold water.
Gripping the sink to strain his feet to the ground, knuckles draining hue, he swallowed, louring at the stranger in the mirror—breathing unrhythmicly.
An itch in his cheek, harsh calloused fingers peeled away the artificial beard to betray him brutally better at the clean shaven jaw reflecting; Rhett with a tightened jaw glaring back at him.
His fist flew at the mirror, battering to shreds, sharp clinking blades cluttering down on him. The vermillion from the cuts dribbling down his hand and soaking the arm covered in black blazer and shirt.
But the tumultuous chest in flames, the red in mind colourblinded him of the wordly hurt.