Page 97 of Forbidden Empire

His father's approving nod that day might as well have been a blood oath. The man raised him on hushed lessons between hands, molding him into something with edges that could cut, a mind that calculated odds before most kids learned multiplication, a face no one could read even when he was bleeding inside.

Thal cut through the casino world like a shark through still waters—deliberate, patient, lethal.

His mind calculated odds faster than dealers could shuffle, his face betrayed nothing while others sweated their tells. In penthouses where champagne flowed and million-dollar bets were placed with casual nods, he moved with the easy confidence of someone born to the rhythm of chips clicking against felt. The air of belonging clung to him like expensive cologne.

Once he'd conquered dealing, he flipped the script.

He was the one raking in chips while others watched their stacks dwindle. Night after night, he'd rise from tables surrounded by hollow-eyed men who couldn't figure out how he'd gutted them.

The whispers started before he could legally drink, wonder boy, card savant, as he dismantled veterans who'd been playing since before his birth.

By twenty-five, his name alone made players fold. He'd shattered his father's achievements, turned legends into footnotes, and collected fortunes with casual indifference.

Then came his father's slow-motion collapse, bad debts, desperate deals, and dangerous associations. The day they found the old man in the trunk of a car with broken fingers and a bullet hole, Thal built walls around himself that no one would ever scale again.

He’d already pocketed a small fortune when he bolted from the East Coast, drawn west by the promise of neon on the Las Vegas strip.

Vegas swallowed him whole. Here, at last, he could shake off the heavy weight of his father’s broken legacy, carve out something of his own.

He slipped right in among those who mattered, the men and women who truly ran the city, and he did it with the same sharp instincts and fast-talking charm his father had drilled into him, only now he was the one holding the cards.

It didn’t take long. He hustled, he gambled, he won.

Soon enough, he had the capital he needed, and with it, his first casino: The Atlantis.

The whiskey bottle emptied between us that night, glass by glass, as Thal unraveled his past like a deck of cards while we sketched plans to dismantle the new real estate hotshot.

Three years back now. Some New York developer who'd strutted down the Strip signing checks with a flourish, thinking Las Vegas would spread her legs for anyone with deep enough pockets.

In Vegas, a fat wallet isn't a skeleton key. I've watched men worth millions stand outside velvet ropes, desperate eyes darting for someone, anyone, who might recognize them.

Meanwhile, guys with empty pockets but the right handshake glide past security without breaking stride.

Cash was vapor here.

It materializes in stacks on felt tables, disappears into cocktail waitress tips, and reappears in jackpot sirens. We all participated in the charade, pretending those green rectangles mattered, when they were just paper totems in our collective hallucination. The developer never understood this particular mirage.

Trust was our currency, more valuable than the chips that changed hands across felt tables.

When I called Thal at three in the morning, he answered. When Zeno needed someone silenced, I made it happen without question. We traded favors like breaths, held each other's darkest moments in closed fists. Vegas ran on this invisible ledger of who owed what to whom.

The tourists never understood this.

They flooded our casinos in their polyester shirts and flip-flops, wallets fat with cash they thought mattered.

We let them believe their money bought them status.

They remained outsiders, temporary amusements who'd be gone by Monday.

Our inner circle had no vacancy sign. No application process.

Over decades, we'd drawn the lines tighter around ourselves until power concentrated in just a few hands.

And tonight, those hands were all clasped around whiskey glasses in my private room.

Thal occupied the leather armchair to my left, while Zeno claimed the one beside him, bringing a thundercloud into my office with every breath.

For twenty minutes, he'd hammered me with questions about his half-sister.