Page 79 of Fixate

Their eyes widened when they saw me pointing toward the monitors.

Potts, a guy in his forties who had a bad habit of biting his nails, spoke up first. “Uhm, sorry sir. We were just talking for a bit. Things have been fine though.”

“How can you be sure? If I’d wanted to hurt you three, you’d already be dead by now. You didn’t even realize I’d been standing in the back of the room for ten minutes.”

The guy beside Potts scoffed. I couldn’t remember his name, and with his badge flipped, I didn’t much care to ask either. Asshole.

“Yeah, but you’re you. I bet you could sneak up on anyone and kill them.”

I bristled at his words. “What is that supposed to mean?”

His eyes went wide. “Nothing, sir.”

The third man finally took his shot at explaining. “We are sorry, sir. This won’t happen again. Things have been quiet. We should have known there was —”

Just then, the phone rang. It wasn’t the regular phone though. It was the red one in the corner of the room that only meant problems were headed our way.

I grabbed it before any of the idiots in the room could. “This is Ricardo,” I answered.

“Um, sir. There’s been… well…”

“What is it?!”

“A bomb threat, sir, Ricardo, sir. There’s been a call to say it will go off in ten minutes. They didn’t say where it was.”

I slammed the phone down before they could say anything else.

“A fucking bomb threat!” I roared, making the men’s faces pale. “We have to get people out of here. And Pharrell…”

I froze when I remembered he was still in the shower after our morning together. He said he needed to do some grooming and wanted to soak up some heat since my feet and hands were like ice.

At the time, I’d laughed it off. Now I was furious because he would be several feet above us. Could he get downstairs in ten minutes with all the hotel guests trying to get out too?

I pulled my phone out to see if Pip was near him. He’d be able to assess things quickly enough. The three goons were still looking at me as if I were going to direct them on what to do next.

“Protocol,” I bit out at them as I turned to the door. “Fucking follow the protocol.”

When I’d done my initial walkthrough of the casino and learned everything, Pharrell had assured me there was something for every type of problem — fire, bomb threats, heists, etc. meaning these men had to know what to do.

Fuck. I hoped they did.

Pip answered on the third ring. “Howdy there.”

“No time to fuck around, Pip. Bomb threat. Get Pharrell and get out. Now.”

“Done.”

I heard the line disconnect and breathed a bit easier. Pip might not have beenLa Famiglia, but he was fucking close enough to count. If there was anyone I trusted enough to get Daddy to safety, he would be it.

Two steps out of the security office, I heard the blare of the fire alarm start. Fucking great.

Part of me wondered if this wasn’t part of the protocol. Maybe this was a way to mobilize people without having to yell about a bomb threat.

With that rationalized thought in mind, I took off towards the banks of stairs. There was no way Pharrell’s elevator would work with the alarm blaring. He’d have to take the long way down just like everyone else.

Except, that wasn’t the case.

Two minutes after my call with Pip, the two of them strode from the elevator like there was nothing wrong. Clients and guests swarmed the bottom floor, all of them rushing to the front door to hit the main drag. I didn’t even want to think about the number of people who’d been displaced in this rush.