Sarin watched where the car had entered as she stared with her mouth open wide. Her hands clutched the banknotes she had been given as she walked back to the hotel. The hotel staff looked at her in bewilderment as she returned with a pale blank expression. However, she paid no attention to the man as she walked straight past him.
She was momentarily dazed by the chandelier lights and closed her eyes briefly. Sarin grabbed her passport from her bag as she headed towards the casino. She was surrounded by the sound of slot machines being played and people talking overlapped into a mumble of noise.
“I would like to exchange this please.”
She handed the casino staff member the bloody bills and showed her proof of identification in the form of her passport. The staff member looked down at the money. She waited for the amount of bills to be counted, and it was found to be five $100 bills. Sarin watched the staff member look at her with trembling eyes. She remained calm and asked for what she wanted.
“One $500 chip, please.”
The staff member frowned and appeared troubled looking at the bloody bills. However, soon a chip came out from the slot opening. Sarin grabbed it and turned her back with no hesitation. She didn’t pay attention as she passed the guards surrounding the area. She made her way past the people sitting in front of slot machines with flashing lights as they focused on the screen, or sat at the tables as they played games with the dealers.
If you think you’re lucky, a casino would be the best place to test the theory out.
She met Owen by chance. When she travelled all the way here, she vaguely thought that she might not be able to see him after all. Then she met him. Unfortunately, she didn’t get much out of it in the end.
She wanted to test her luck out one more time. So much so that she even took a return flight back to the casino. If she’s lucky, she might be able to see him again. She had yet to figure out what to say to him when they did. In the meantime, she decided to bet on one particular game.
It was the same game that she played with her sister when they were younger. They played the game when there was nothing to do. They would go out many times and pick many flower petals to use as a substitute for money to bet with. The two would bet on how many white bikes would pass by as they sat in front of the supermarket.
She stopped walking as she reached the roulette game table she had been eyeing. She stood in front of it as she watched the current game that just to began.
The numbers 1 to 36, 0, 00, and 38 were drawn on the board of the table. The dealer rolls a white ball on the wheel with all the same numbers with little slots. A bet is placed on the table, while the ball lands on one of the slots in the wheel.
Usually, she’s not the reckless kind to take bets on just one number. If she was playing like she normally did, she would choose multiple numbers and sides. Sometimes even by the colour of a number divided into two and taken in double or triple.
The dealer placed the small ball down into the roulette wheel before turning it. The white ball began to quickly spin on the wheel as the game began.
“All bets down, please.”
Everyone with a chip in their hands began to place their bets down as soon as they heard the dealer give a greenlight. The people surrounding the table tossed chips on the open numbers for fun, while she decided to place her cash chip in one of the frontmost numbers. Sarin didn’t have time to change her cash chip for a coloured chip, so she had to play with the chip as she had it.
[TLS/NOTE: Coloured chips are of a specific colour (ie red, blue, green etc). When you buy chips from the croupier, you can choose the colour. It makes it easier for you to know where your bets are, and which wins are yours. They can only be used in roulette.
Cash chip are chips have their actual value clearly written on the actual chip itself, and can be used in other casino games as well. ]
At the same time, the man next to her hit her arm as she was leaning towards a number. The bump made her chip fall on the number 11.
[QC puppy: R U D E, LEMME SLAP HIM ]
He turned to take a look at her with an intriguing gaze as he glanced down at her chip. He placed his own cash chips on the numbers 11 and 14.
“No more bets.”
The dealer announced once the bell rang. The hands of those wandering around the roulette board stopped.
The white ball continued to spin in the wheel and rolled about four or five times before it stopped. Sarin’s eyes closed for a second as she realised that this was a test of fate.
“Number 11.”
It was a straight bet. There was one out of thirty-five chances of the white ball landing on a number she bet on. She had one chance with her $500 chip, so she only had one opportunity.
[TLS/NOTE: A straight bet: It means you will be given 35 times the money of your original bet plus your original bet. The numbers are from 1 to 36, including 0 and 00 in standard American casinos.]
Sarin fixated her gaze on the number with an unbelievable expression on her face.
The man that had pushed her from earlier started to cheer. He had a naturally cheerful expression as he swept all the chips given by the dealer.
“Excuse me. I bet on it too.” Sarin protested to the dealer.
The dealer’s eyes shook as she spoke in a quiet but persistent voice. At once, the man’s gaze beside her became harsh.
They had both placed their cash chips in the same spot coincidentally. The man had to take 17x of the bet because he had split his bet over two numbers. However, he took his share of 17x and her share of 35x of the bet as well.
“It was my bet. You had a chip, but you stupidly dropped it.”
[QC puppy: BRUHHH HE KEEPS BEING R U D E DISGUSTENG ]
He said as he pointed down towards Sarin’s feet. A $500 chip was on the floor by her feet as if it had been dropped like the man said. It couldn’t be. Sarin looked at the dealer pleading for help, but the dealer smiled awkwardly then looked away. There would be no help as no one would intervene in their dispute.
Even if the dealer had seen the scene play out, he wouldn’t intervene even if he wanted to. He knew if he did, then he would be caught in a very troublesome situation.
The man stretched out his tattooed hand to the back of his head. His voice sounded raspy from the phlegm in his throat. His accent was strong as it was clearly heard when he spoke to her.
Sarin tried to request the CCTV recording from the game. Suddenly, someone tapped her on the shoulder as she tried to ask.
“Don’t. Unless you want to be found dead in the street with a bullet in your head.”
A person beside her gave her a warning in a low voice. The men in black suits stood behind the man’s back. They were all looking at Sarin and watched her every move. If she was deemed troublesome, they would make sure to take care of her.
“They are the Red Mafia.”
In other words, there are countless bodies of frozen and murdered people everywhere in Eden City each morning. This was a warning to her to not add her own body into that count. She could check the CCTV, even though the process seems simple enough, in casinos it becomes very burdensome. A person needs to be prepared for the casino and its management to be corrupted in some sort of way. It was hard to tell what kind of penalty she would get in the end.
It would be an inevitable death. Sarin’s mouth dried at the warning that she would indeed become a corpse the moment she stepped foot out of the hotel.
The woman who had uttered the warning clicked her tongue softly.
It was natural that one of the 35 chances proved her luck. However, luck always came with its own misfortune. Those who knew that the man was from the Red Mafia actively avoided him. Sarin was the only one that had stood closely next to him. She had no idea who he was from the moment she started betting as they just met during the start of the roulette game.
The man threw a chip at the woman as he was satisfied that the whole dispute was taken care of by her explanation. The woman had just felt sorry for Sarin, but happily accepted the $500 chip with a loud cheer. His thin and torn lips formed into a pleased smile.
“Why don’t you pick up the chip you dropped? Try actually betting this time. Maybe the goddess of luck will be on your side.”
The man said in an incomprehensible accent as he chuckled at her. When she clenched her hands into tight fists, Sarin dug her nails in her palms. The stinging pain brought her back to her senses.
It’s okay. It wasn’t even her own money anyway.
35 times chances to win with the money she bet. She did win a large amount, and she could fight the man for it.
The amount of money automatically passed through Sarin’s head, but it wasn’t enough for her to give up her life. She remembered how shocked she had been when she saw a frozen dead body on the street on her first day. She tried to convince herself that losing money was logically better for her than dying.
It was better than dying…though the money might help solve her problem.
Human beings are so cunning. She just wanted to see how much luck she had left, and she knew that it would be almost impossible to hit one of the 38 numbers. Now, she felt wronged about the money that flew right out of her hands in front of her.
Kwaang!
Strangely, her heart was filled with hot anger. Sarin suddenly turned her head to the intense loud sound, when tears threatened to spill from her eyes. Someone’s upper body was rammed into the slot machine next to the roulette table. Their head was slammed into the monitor of the machine, while their hands and legs wiggled together before they slumped down.
Then she saw a pair of leather gloves holding the person’s neck. Sarin’s eyes focused on the individual to confirm the owner of the gloves.
“You shouldn’t have played if you were going to tamper with it in the first place, Sir.”
Strands of the black hair that had been neatly swept back with pomade escaped his hairdo and flowed down onto his forehead. His golden eyes shined like the colour of a chandelier’s bright light. The man shook his hand towards the men around him. Right away, the rest of the situation was handled by the guards following him.
[QC puppy: OUR DADDY OWEN ASGDJFDS ]
They pulled out the bloody unconscious man from the broken machine monitor. His face was stuck inside of it and looked badly injured. The men took him somewhere as they dragged him away. A casino employee appeared and put up a sign ‘IN REPAIR’ on the slot machine. The smile was never gone from his face the whole time.
As if the commotion was important, the eyes that had gathered during her game had dispersed in an instant. Everyone had focused on the more alarming and dramatic situation.
The man in an expensive three-piece suit took off his leather gloves one by one. He made his way down the red carpet. Whenever his body moved as he walked, his suit seemed so tight that it looked like it would rip anytime soon. He clearly showed off the presence of the large muscles on his body.
[QC puppy: AHSDGS PLEASE, HOW CAN HE BE SO SEXY ]
“Is there a problem here?”
He approached Sarin, and asked her in a business-like voice.
“It’s been a while, Owen. There’s nothing wrong here. Isn’t that right, miss?”
The man’s face started to show signs of frustration. However, he stood up casually and patted Owen’s back. It was his attempt to show him that there was no problem going on.
Sarin was so small in stature that she had to look up to see the man’s face. Her height was 160cm, and it was considered average back in her home country. However, here she was so short that she looked like she would collapse if she got hit a couple of times.
Owen tilted his head and looked down at Sarin. Her face seemed pale from what he could see, but it was mostly covered with her long hair. When he saw that, he didn’t say anything even though he wanted to. He frowned without checking the man’s face that had touched his back.
Suddenly, the hands that had nearly killed a man reached out to the countless chips.
He found the same $500 chip that the man had claimed to use to bet with in the roulette game. As if he was watching from start to finish, he found it easily among the numerous chips. He inspected it closely and flipped it over.
“There’s blood on it.”
Owen’s gaze focused on the man with a smaller body than his. He had calmly spat out those words, but the look in his eyes said otherwise. Sarin was familiar with that kind of gaze, but she couldn’t remember the particular name for it. Owen turned away from her to face the man. He grabbed his wrists and turned his palms back and forth as he checked them briefly.
“Oh, Owen?”
He let go of one of the man’s hands. The man stretched it out after the harsh grip on his wrist caused him discomfort. Then proceeded to extend his hand out behind him. One of the expressionless guards beside the man placed a knife in the palm of his hand.
Unexpectedly, something happened in an instant.