CHAPTER TWO
Fallen from Grace
SEVEN MINUTES LATER, I’M dropped off at the crappy apartment complex we’re staying at in outer downtown central. We wanted to be close to the Strip, but we are also broke as hell, so we settled for this place. Outdated, cracked, and crumbling in some places, and in desperate need of a fresh coat of paint.
Marco waits until I’ve let myself inside the apartment before he drives off.
I lean back against the door and breathe out a heavy sigh. I’m exhausted. Mentally drained.
If given the chance, would I have taken a different route than the one I started down five years ago? I close my eyes and think about my now cancer-free mama living in a house she no longer owes the bank for.
Nope.
It was worth it.
All of it.
If given the chance, I’d make the same decisions again and again.
Crouching down, I unzip my shoes and toss them aside before shuffling further into the apartment.
I was nineteen when Mama got the news.
Breast cancer.
In a household of eight where she was the sole breadwinner, it was really bad news. One of my uncles was undocumented and did nothing to contribute to the household. My aunt, engaged to be married to a shady loan shark, worked as a cashier at minimum wage. My other uncle did construction work, but he also had three kids who’d eat the damn paint off the walls if they could, so everything he contributed to Mama went right back to his greedy-ass gremlins. My older sister had just become a pregnant marine wife and was preparing to move to Washington.
Mama had a decent job as a restaurant supervisor but had to stop working after she was diagnosed. When I realized that none of my relatives, living in her house and mooching off of her, were willing to step up and offer support when the bills started to pile up, I knew it was up to me to ensure her survival.
That’s when I turned to the casinos.
See, back when I used to hang out with the Garzas, I’d learned a lot. Picked up a lot of tricks and tactics. Flavio Garza himself had sometimes walked in on our card games and schooled us in the art of cards.
He taught his sons, and he taught them well. Passed on his gifts. Unlike me, however, they never used their gifts for anything other than unrewarded fun.
But with a sick mama, a growing mountain of medical bills, and the looming possibility of homelessness if the mortgage wasn’t paid, what I had—the knowledge gained from the Garzas—was like a golden ticket to the chocolate factory.
So, I took to the casinos. Nervous and guilt-ridden but determined.
The more I got away with, the more confident I became. But I was still untrained, green, so in a matter of a few months, I was banned all over L.A.
Having family in Vegas, I started making trips here on the weekends, hitting up the casinos. That’s when Slim came into the picture. He caught me counting in WILDDICE one night. But instead of booting me like the others, he offered me a deal: if I worked for him, he would train me and protect me from getting caught. “With me,” he’d said, “you’ll make millions.”
Turned out Slim had been a counter himself. One who’d never been caught. He got rich from cheating cards, built his own casino, and now he recruits people like me to travel with him and hit up the big dens.
Young and desperate, I took him up on his offer and joined his team of four, and it was like nothing I’d ever experienced. We’d make thousands of dollars in one night. Hundreds of thousands in a week.
I learned there was a whole underbelly operation of casinos and “inside work.” Some covert membership club that Slim was a part of. What it meant for us was that the blind eye was turned on us—instead of being stopped, thrown out, and banned, we were ignored. Slim wouldn’t tell us what he gave the clubs in return, and we didn’t care too much. The money was good. Though, the protection didn’t cover all casinos, so some of them were real risks. Thrillingly dangerous.
“Stunting for the gram” was a part of it. We had to fit a certain image. What people needed to see when we were looked into was expensive brands and icy jewelry. Lamborghinis and million-dollar mansions. None of it was real, of course. All rented. But we had to look the part. Like idle trust-fund brats with bad gambling habits and money to blow.
In the first year of working with Slim, I’d single-handedly paid off Mama’s mortgage, covered her medical bills, and hired full-time help while she went through chemo, since traveling with Slim meant I couldn’t physically be there for her.
To be able to do that, take care of my mama like that, was a kind of high I never experienced.
Within two years, I was close to becoming a millionaire as Slim promised. But I would learn that a lot could turn to nothing real damn fast.
See, we were making a lot of money, but not as much as we could have. Forking over seventy percent of everything we made became harder and harder each time. In the beginning, it didn’t bother me. To go from being broke as hell to suddenly making thousands of dollars, I was too desperate to care. And I suppose that’s what Slim counted on.
But after three years, as the giddiness and desperation started to dissipate, my ears became unplugged to the whispers and grumbles of my teammates—we were being taken advantage of.
It became a problem. I tried to negotiate with Slim, but he wouldn’t budge. That was the price for being on his team, nothing more, nothing less.
One night, after an exceptionally big win, we had a big fight about it. It ended with Ellie and me splitting away from him.
We didn’t need him, we told ourselves. We knew the ropes, knew the game, knew his contacts. We could do it all on our own and keep all our earnings.
We were wrong.
We had the skills, but there was one thing we forgot to consider—we weren’t a part of the “secret club.” Slim was. We’d been given the blind eye only because we were with Slim. The minute he made it known we were no longer with him, eyes were on us.
We kept getting busted and banned. Ninety percent of the time we were roughed up and forced to pay back twice what we cheated. Not the standard at all casinos, but some of them were straight up gangsters, so even though we knew we were being intimidated and shaken down, we ponied up.
Before long, cash started to dwindle. We no longer had a pool of resources to cover our fake lifestyle, it was all on Ellie and me. No cash coming in, but a shit ton going out. Housing, supporting our families, renting all kinds of expensive shit to keep up the front, being intimidated and ripped off by thug casino owners….
Twice, our rented house was burglarized, all our stuff stolen. If we’d been smart, we would’ve taken what little we had left and gone home. But we weren’t. We ran ourselves dry.
Got our butts kicked, tossed, canceled, and banned.
Now here we are. Fallen from grace.
I glance around the tiny one-bedroom apartment. Popcorn ceiling, water-stained walls, and naked light bulbs. It’s a shithole for a guest apartment that still costs far too much, but people rent it anyway because it’s close to the Strip.
We’ve been here about a month now.
We spent the first two weeks resting, wallowing, and eating junk food, considering how our lives have been nothing but nonstop craziness for the past couple of years. Slim had recruited Ellie in Miami. She’d never been anywhere else before that and although she’d been with us for a while, this is her first time in Vegas. We spent last week planning; gamble small, only on the weekends, stay under the radar, and save, save, save.
It’s our first night on the Strip and already Ellie has decided to go rogue. Vegas does that to people. The bright lights and the glitz and the Wonderland glimmer make them stupid.
I push away from the door and toss my purse to the ugly green couch across the room. Heaving out another sigh, I start for the bedroom, mumbling under my breath, “I hope to God you know what you’re doing, Ellie.”