Mira sank onto a sofa cushion, pressing the slip of paper flat on her thigh. “They took a magical imprint of my brand, Collin. Said it was for verifying staff identities. I’m… worried they can trace me back to the diffusion mesh. My marker brand is basically a blueprint.”

  I ran a hand through my hair. “We might need to rewrite your brand from the inside before they trace it. Selene, is that feasible?”

  She considered it silently, nibbling her bottom lip. “We can conceal the existing brand’s active connection if we place a decoy script on top of it. It’s like forging a new layer. But that takes time, and if I do that, I risk exposing my own login. They already cut down half my admin privileges.”

  “It’s necessary,” I said. “We can’t let them track Mira just from an imprint. We’ll do a partial rewrite. We’ll use the same code as we’re using in the logs, give them a false path pointing at Minnow.”

  Selene paused, then nodded. “I can do that if I can get an hour alone in the internal network room. The problem is I might need to physically route some cables, or at least no one else can watch me.”

  That, of course, was the rub. The inspectors were swarming the place, and the maintenance corridors wouldn’t be empty. But no plan was free of risk.

  I convinced Lana to meet with the inspector downstairs to keep them off her case. I went with her, but the inspector insisted on speaking to her one-on-one in a side lounge near the performance stages. Lana gave me a soft, worried smile and ducked inside the lounge alone. I paced outside, my mind wandering to all the ways this could blow up. Then I heard loud voices from behind the closed door—an argument. I pressed my ear to the crack.

  “I’m not giving you my personal data,” Lana was saying. “You realize that’s a violation of performer confidentiality if you force me.”

  A man’s voice replied, slick and calm. “We don’t need to see your personal data, Ms. Lana. We just want your real name on file. The House requires compliance for the Luck Redistribution event. You wouldn’t want them to think you’re a security threat.”

  Lana’s voice tightened. “I’m not a threat. I’m just not comfortable handing over that information.”

  “Then I’ll note your refusal in the log,” he said, “and we’ll see if the House wants to keep your services.”

  Silence hung for a moment before Lana said, “Fine. Go ahead.”

  I stepped back as footsteps neared the door. It swung open, revealing a short man in a pinstripe suit. He had receding hair and small eyes like a rodent. He eyed me with disdain. “You people think you can hide from the House Council’s net. You can’t.” Then he brushed past me and left.

  Lana emerged from the lounge, shoulders tense. I guided her aside, away from any eavesdroppers. “He threatened to yank my performances and freeze my pay,” she said. “But I don’t care. I’m not letting them record my name.”

  I nodded, proud of her even as anxiety gnawed at me. “We’ll handle the fallout. Keep your phone close. If they’re planning something else, we’ll adjust on the fly.”

  By mid-afternoon, Selene texted me that her brand rewrite for Mira was complete—she’d managed to slip into the main server room while a shift change was happening. “I tested the code,” she said, back in the penthouse. “If the inspectors use the brand imprint they took from her, they’ll only see references to Minnow’s old account structure. It’ll look like he somehow manipulated her brand. No mention of us.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. That was the biggest immediate threat. “Mira, can you confirm you’re feeling all right? No weird pains or anything from the brand rewrite?”

  She lifted her shirt slightly to look at the faint magical mark near her ribcage, barely visible unless you knew where to look. “I feel normal,” she said, though her voice had a tremor. “I just—this is all happening so fast. Yesterday we thought we had a stable plan. Now they’re on to us, and everything feels unsteady.”

  I slid an arm around her middle. “We’ll get through it. One day at a time.”

  Lana spoke up from near the balcony. “What about me? They still want my real name. They might keep pressing. How do we hide that?”

  “You keep ignoring them,” I said. “We’ll cover the rest in the ledger so it doesn’t matter. If they freeze your pay, we’ll manage. The bigger threat is them reclassifying you as a security risk. That could lead to an attempt to mark you forcibly. We won’t let it reach that stage.”

  Her jaw tightened, emerald eyes flashing. “All right. But I’m not leaving this place unless you say so.”

  Selene gazed out our floor-to-ceiling windows. The city sprawled below in neon and steel, the afternoon sun just beginning to slant across the towers. “One more worry,” she said. “The next big push in the event is a ‘bonus round’ scheduled for tomorrow evening. They might use that as justification for more audits. Or they’ll spin it as a final wave of the funnel.”

  I drummed my fingers on the table. “We’ll keep the diffusion mesh going. If we can keep it stable through that bonus round, we should hamper the event’s ability to concentrate luck. They can’t brand an anchor if the luck is spread out across thousands of micro-bets. Meanwhile, the inspectors might realize the funnel isn’t building enough. They’ll look for scapegoats. Possibly, they’ll pin the sabotage on Minnow’s leftover accounts. That’s exactly what we want.”

  Selene nodded. “Right. So by tomorrow night, one of two things happens: either our diffusion plan holds, or the inspectors unravel it.”

  “And we’re not letting them unravel it,” I said firmly.

  That night, we reactivated the mesh across new sets of tables and kiosks. Selene had to operate partially from her compromised access, but she still had enough of a backdoor to slip in micro-transaction offsets. We used carefully timed bet patterns from me and from the scattered group of ‘paid players’ we had on standby. We even placed a few strategic bets under Lana’s staff code, disguised by the group-credit scheme. The idea was to make it look as if she was just another general staffer placing casual wagers on breaks. Thousands of tiny wagers, each less than ten dollars, adding up to a monstrous swirl of untraceable churn.

  Around 2 a.m., I took a breather in the penthouse living room. Selene was back by then, leaning exhaustedly in an armchair, her silver-blonde hair in a tangled ponytail. She’d been manually adjusting time stamps on the system for hours. Across from us, Lana snuggled with Mira on the couch, the two of them dozing.

  I felt some guilt for pushing everyone so hard, but we were near the finish line for today. “Selene, you think we’re out of the woods tonight?” I asked softly.

  She shrugged. “We’ve done all we can. I guess we’ll know in a few hours if the inspectors discovered the decoy. If they do, we might wake up with them knocking on our door. If not... we survive to fight again tomorrow.”

  I nodded and rubbed my temples, exhaustion creeping in. “All right. Time to rest.”

  As we turned in for bed, Lana took my arm. “Collin,” she said quietly, glancing at Mira and Selene. “I’m sorry if I added to the stress today.”

  I shook my head, brushing a hand through her dark hair. “You did what you had to do, and I’m proud of you for refusing to back down.”

  She leaned her forehead against mine. “Just… promise you won’t let them label me a threat. I don’t want to be dragged off to some secret room and forced to be a conduit again.”

  I wrapped her in a gentle hug. “I already promised. I won’t let that happen.”

  We held each other for a beat, ignoring the tension in the air, and then parted ways for some much-needed sleep.

  The next morning, no inspectors arrived at our penthouse door. That alone was a small victory. But the day was just starting. By noon, the city’s usual swirl of tourists and gamblers flooded the casino floors. Tension grew as the “bonus round” for Luck Redistribution approached. The House fed ads into the digital signage: “Double Points, Double Fortune—This Evening Only!”

  That afternoon, reports arrived that the inspectors had locked certain staff accounts, but they hadn’t targeted Lana yet. They had indeed flagged “Minnow’s associated accounts” as suspect. Good. Our decoy had yielded the exact suspicion we needed. The House was investigating the dead man’s operation and, hopefully, ignoring us.

  We headed downstairs to the mezzanine lounge for an early lunch, needing a short break from the penthouse. Lana insisted on joining despite the risk, and I didn’t blame her—everyone was stir-crazy. So we snagged a corner booth, a little out of the main foot traffic. Selene fussed over her phone, checking logs about every two minutes. Mira and Lana tried to relax with coffee.

  Halfway through my sandwich, I saw three suits walk by, scanning the crowd. My heart jumped until I realized they were scanning badges, not faces. Selene followed my gaze. “That’s them,” she said softly.

  I put my sandwich down. “If they come this way, just act natural. We’re normal casino patrons having lunch, got it?”

  Everyone nodded. We carried on with small talk for another minute or two. The suits lingered at the bar, then left, heading to an employee-only corridor. I felt tension seep out of my shoulders.

  Mira pulled her jacket tight. “That was too close.”

  “We’re all right,” I said. “They have no reason to suspect we’re here unless they have direct orders to collar us.”

  We finished lunch quickly and hustled upstairs again. No sense stretching our luck too far. By 3 p.m., Selene’s data feeds started spiking: more transactions, more micro-bets success. Our diffusion mesh was still stable. The big question was whether we could keep it up when the bonus round launched fully. The inspectors might try more aggressive tactics.

  Sure enough, a system notice came through. Mira read it out loud, pacing behind my couch. “Some cage windows are being put on partial freeze. Table limits reduced further. High-limit windows are staff-only.”

  I nodded grimly. “Same approach as we predicted. They’re trying to clamp distribution so fewer transactions can occur. That’ll create big lumps of luck flow. If that lumps onto Lana, we lose control.”

  Selene closed her eyes, mind whirring behind them. “We can pivot to the kiosks. I still have partial kiosk override. Force them to keep dispensing those micro-tickets.”

  I tapped a finger on the couch arm. “Let’s do it. The more micro-tickets we can force out, the more we diffuse. Meanwhile, if they freeze those kiosks entirely, they’ll anger all the normal customers. That might be a risk the House is unwilling to take.”

  Lana looked at me sharply. “But if they do freeze them, do we have a fallback?”

  I let out a breath. “Yeah—we start distributing transactions across the digital sports-betting channels for tonight’s late game. It’ll be messy, but at least it’s another route.”

  She took my hand. “I don’t know how you keep all of this in your head.”

  “Lots of practice,” I said, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze.

  The clock ticked closer to the evening’s bonus round, and the entire city felt charged with an uneasy energy—like the calm before collision. We had a plan, but so did the syndicate. We each waited to see who’d blink first.

  Chapter 7

  By the time the hotel’s evening crowd surged in, the inspectors were in full crackdown mode. My phone buzzed with new alerts every few minutes: “Cage Window 2 Frozen,” “Lobby Kiosks on 50% Transaction Limit,” “Elevated security presence on the main floor.” Everywhere, the House was tightening the screws.

  Selene ran a quick diagnostic from her laptop in our penthouse living room. “They’re basically bottlenecking all transactions except for the highest-tier VIP areas—the big-spender rooms and private tables. That’s where the House can control every chip.”

  “That means more lumps,” I said, pulling on a fresh button-down. “If recorded transactions are forced into big increments, that luck funnel starts building up again in fewer places. We have to work around it, or Lana becomes a magnet.”

  I saw Lana across the room, rummaging through her wardrobe. She pulled out a shimmering midnight-blue dress. “If I’m going on stage tonight, I’d rather not look like a victim,” she said softly. She caught my eye in the mirror. “Still want me to perform?”

  I nodded. “That’s the best cover. If you vanish from the schedule, they’ll assume you’re a direct saboteur. As long as they see you singing, they might hold off forcibly branding you.”

  She pressed her lips together, considering. “Okay, then.”

  I turned back to Selene. “You said we can route the mesh into the promotional payouts themselves?”

  She tilted her head, uncertain. “Yes, if we link it to every free spin, every comp card, every ‘bonus credit’ the House is giving out. People think they’re just freebies, but they’re actually part of the promotional event’s pool. If we conscript that pool into our micro-transaction swirl, we collect thousands of small triggers the second patrons claim those credits.”

  I liked the idea. “So basically, we tie the House’s own promotional freebies into our churn. That way, the House is forced to create a barrage of tiny transactions. Enough to negate the lumps from the cage windows being frozen.”

  She relaxed into a small smile. “Exactly.”

  I grabbed my jacket. “Then do it. And keep an eye on how the inspectors respond. Let’s see how they handle the meltdown we’re about to cause.”

  We parted ways around 8 p.m. Lana headed down to the Pearl Stage, where she was set to do a short performance set for the bonus-round crowd. Mira and Selene stayed in the penthouse, setting up the infiltration code. I went downstairs to greet a handful of my ‘paid players’ personally, giving them quick instructions on how to claim freebies at any console they could find. That included promotional vouchers, scoreboard coupons, slot machine sign-up rewards—anything that was typically overshadowed by bigger bets.

  “You want me to keep scanning my player card at each kiosk?” asked Teddy, one of the more reliable men I’d recruited. “Even if it just gives me, like, a dollar in credit?”

  “That’s exactly what we need,” I said. “Every time you do, you create another micro-transaction. Times a thousand people, times ten kiosk claims per person… it adds up.”

  He gave a skeptical nod, but he’d been paid in advance, so he’d do it. Leading him and the others onto the main floor, I noticed a strong security presence. Guards were stationed by the corridor leading to the staff offices, and the watchers near the elevator banks had multiplied. My heart pounded, but I pretended everything was normal.

  I parted ways with the group, stepping back into a less obvious vantage point to watch. Sure enough, in the next half hour, I saw clusters of players scanning or swiping their cards, claiming freebies. The lines at the promotional stands were growing. People were excited at first, but the system was moving slow—probably from the House’s attempt to push back. The result was a jam of partial transactions, each one logged in the system as a micro-bet. Just what we wanted.

  While I monitored the floor, my phone vibrated. An incoming text from Mira: “Inspectors locked me out of staff services. They’re re-examining my brand. I’m in an interview room near the ledger cage. Countdown curse triggered???”

  My stomach twisted. “Dammit,” I muttered. Mira had mentioned a brand-based countdown curse earlier, something the House used to forcibly seize a marker if the person’s ledger link was compromised or tampered with. We’d done a partial rewrite on her brand, so maybe that set off an internal alert.

  My phone buzzed again: “They’re physically scanning my brand. Collin help???”

  I typed back: “Hang on. I’m coming.”

  I shoved my phone in my pocket and took off toward the elevator. A black-suited guard tried to stop me from stepping onto the staff-only floor, but I flashed a VIP pass. “Business with an old friend in the ledger cage,” I said. The guard sized me up, but eventually let me through.

  The corridor was dimmer here, minimal lighting. I followed the posted signs: “Audit & Verification, Room B.” Outside the room, I saw a reflection in the glass panel: Mira was in there, flanked by two men who stared at her brand with an intense glow from a scanning device. Her face was set in determination, but I could see her trembling shoulders. I pushed open the door without knocking.

  “Stop,” I said, voice low. “You have no right to do that without her explicit consent.”

  Both men turned to glare. One wore an inspector’s badge that read “Holton.” He clicked off his scanning device. “We have every right,” he said. “She’s under a ledger brand recognized by the House Council. We can verify it as we see fit.”

  Mira looked at me, relief mixing with fear. “Collin—”

  I stepped forward. “Under what authority are you forcibly scanning her outside the normal procedure? You’re not House security, you’re an external contract. That brand is private property of the House, not the commission.”

  Holton’s lips curled in a thin sneer. “The brand is syndicated property, and I represent the syndicate. That includes the House Council. Let me guess—this here is your attempt to sabotage the brand so it can’t be traced. We’re simply verifying if it was tampered with.”

  My mind raced. If the partial rewrite was discovered, we’d be done. “If she’s a staff member, she deserves representation by in-house counsel before further brand intrusion. Every staffer does. Or do you want me to call hotel management?”

  He glared at me a moment, then shrugged. “Fine. We’ll continue this tomorrow.” He gave Mira a cold look. “That brand had better match the official ledger logs, or we’ll consider you in breach of contract.”

  They walked out without further fuss, both men exuding the kind of controlled menace that spelled trouble. I stepped over to Mira and placed my hands on her shoulders. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded, tears threatening. “They said a countdown curse was hooking into my brand. That if it fails verification in the next day, it’ll forcibly ‘reclaim’ me as property. Collin, is that possible?”