The Player, The Thief and The Broken Heart - Chapter Seventy-Eight - The Future Gone With One Word

Steve breezed past the security guard lounging behind the desk and pressed the call button for the elevator. He waited until the doors rolled shut behind him, then grinned and punched the air. Who cared about tomorrow – he'd made it through tonight in once piece. Yeah, he'd lost and he hadn't even beaten that Lachlan douche but he'd survived the night and tomorrow he'd get his old life back. Damn he'd missed it.

The elevator slowed, easing to the ground floor with a quiet hiss. Never before had he felt so alive. What he wanted to do next came to him clearer than the crystals dangling from the chandelier in the hotel lobby. First, he took out his phone and opened his banking app. All his money was in there again. His trading account had been restored. Yes! Next, he looked up the number for his condo and pressed call. He hit their voice mail and said, "Hey, Kate, I've been thinking about you the whole time I've been here. Sorry I was so stressed out lately thanks to all that shit Yushenko was pulling but I finally got it resolved. For all I know you've taken off for a vacation in Hawaii or you're out with your girlfriends celebrating your newfound singlehood, but if you do get this, I want to say that you were right – I need to grow up – so I'd like to ask you if you'd marr–"

The line clicked and a male voice slurred, "Hello?"

Steve hung up. That cheating fucking bitch. In one split second he'd gone from feeling on top of the world to hitting rock bottom again. Twice tonight in the space of ten minutes. One single word and his future was shattered. He crossed the hotel lobby and lumbered through the glass revolving doors into the casino concourse, deflating the entire way like a balloon with a slow leak.

Now what. Jeannie had told him she'd be on the casino floor somewhere, partying with some of Rebecca's "friends". They shouldn't be too hard to spot if they were still here; most of the patrons were pretty dowdy and the hot chicks would be hitting the clubs by now. He was about to head to the gaming tables when he spotted a leggy blonde in an extremely low-cut blue dress coming down the escalator. He'd been to enough crazy parties on Wall Street to know a high-priced escort when he saw one.

He went up to her and said, "Excuse me, you weren't with a friend named Jeannie earlier with black hair to her shoulders and–"

"Oh, Jennie," the blonde said vacantly. "Yeah, she said she wasn't feeling too good so she went home. Sorry." She cast her eyes away from him like a queen who'd just told a slave to get out of her sight, and strode toward the exit.

Steve followed her outside, keeping enough distance so she wouldn't notice him. On the street the temperature had dropped and it was shockingly quiet now that slot machines weren't blasting his ears. He took out his phone and called Jeannie. It went straight to her voicemail. She'd given him a home number too, so he tried that one and all it did was ring and ring.
Damn it, after such a crazy night, he needed to get laid. Last place he wanted to be was anywhere near Yushenko, so he began wandering up the strip, the pulsating lights from the Bellagio fountain luring him closer.

Leaning on the railing, he gazed up at the rooftop for the Golden Dunes. The game was still on. He could tell by the faint glow coming out of the windows on the topmost floor. Weird how he'd spent the entire evening up there, bumping elbows with some of the richest people on the planet, and now he was on the ground again, with the rest of the peasants. He squinted, spotting movement only a little below that window. A little late in the night for a window cleaner or a daredevil to be out and about. Maybe he was seeing things, but it looked as though some gorilla-sized being was rappelling down the side. He was probably just tired.

The first thing he was going to do tomorrow, was transfer all his assets to another bank. Hopefully he could find one that was well out of Yushenko's reach. After that, he hadn't the faintest clue anymore.