“I obviously have chips.”

“There’s a USB hidden behind my work badge. It contains one million dollars in cryptocurrency.”

A smile curled at the corner of Lucien’s mouth. He shoved his chips into the center of the table with a crash.

“I call. Double the stakes.”

The cards were revealed.

I lost.

The room exploded with laughter.

Someone tossed a phone in front of me. A loan app was open on the screen.

“Go ahead. Borrow money. If you can scrape together three million, maybe you’ll earn the right to keep playing with me.”

I glanced at the phone and didn’t touch it.

The trash around the table had already started circling me like vultures.

“What’s wrong, little Cassie? Scared?”

“You don’t even need a loan.”

“Take your clothes off right now. One piece at a time. I’ll lend you a thousand for each one.”

“Strip naked and I’ll give you ten grand.”

“At that rate, how many years is it gonna take her to make thirty million?”

Someone grabbed my wrist.

“Come upstairs and play with me for a while. I’ll give you a million. How’s that sound?”

I shook his hand off and slapped him across the face.

The man flew into a rage.

“Who the fuck are you pretending to be? Lucien, teach this bitch a lesson.”

Lucien kicked his feet up onto the poker table.

“If you won’t borrow money, then I’ll use your father’s fingers to cover the debt instead.”

On the screen, one of Lucien’s men walked toward my father with a machete in hand.

Tears streamed from the old man’s terrified eyes.

I saw the wet stain spreading across his pants.

My vision blurred.

The blade pressed against my father’s hand.

I stared at Lucien. “Tell him to stop.”

Lucien smirked.

“Or you could just go upstairs and spread your legs. Nobody gets hurt that way.”

“You might even enjoy it. You’d be making money while getting fucked.”

Lucien looked around the room, and the crowd burst into filthy laughter again.

I rose slowly to my feet through the sound of their laughter.

The man I’d slapped thought I was finally giving in. He reached for me again.

I drove my heel straight into his chest and sent him crashing to the floor.

My stiletto pressed down on his chest while I kept my eyes on Lucien.

“Call the casino manager over here.”

The casino manager lowered his head and hurried to Lucien’s side.

Lucien looked at me mockingly.

“She still won’t give up. Go ahead and show everyone her salary records.”

“Does she even make three hundred bucks?”

The manager bowed repeatedly.

“Young Master Lucien, Cassie’s salary is indeed very low.”

Satisfied, Lucien waved a hand.

“You two. Drag her upstairs.”

“Tie her up.”

“Take turns enjoying her.”

Several large men grabbed my arms.

The man I’d kicked jumped back up and slapped me hard across the face.

“Bitch!”

My head snapped sideways from the impact. I spat blood from the corner of my mouth.

Lucien looked at me lazily.

“If you kneel down crying and beg me right now, I’ll make them stop.”

“Then I’ll even let the manager lend you three million so you can keep playing.”

The manager kept his head lowered, bowing toward Lucien again and again.

Then he spoke quietly.

“But last year, Cassie donated three million dollars to the casino foundation.”

“The agreement stated that she could access those funds at any time.”

The cigar slipped from Lucien’s mouth.

The entire room froze.

I spoke calmly.

“Now I have chips.”

“So tell me, Lucien.”

“Are you calling or not?”

Thirty minutes remained before the moment I died in the crocodile pit in my last life.

Three million dollars’ worth of chips was piled onto the table in front of me.

My hand had barely lifted when a young woman suddenly ran into the casino.

“Cassie! You stole my money and used it to gamble with our parents’ lives!?”

She was Lily Vaughn, the long-lost daughter my parents had found last year.

Pointing at me, she burst into tears.

“I spent years suffering out there on my own. That money was supposed to be mine!”

The crowd instantly looked at me with disgust.

“She even steals from her own family?”

“Does a woman like this even have a bottom line?”

Lucien let out a low laugh.

“That’s what I said. A janitor doesn’t just magically come up with three million dollars.”

“So she stole it from her own sister.”

Lily grabbed my hair violently.

“Her chips shouldn’t even count!”

A tomato smashed against my body.

“Even casino people hate someone who drinks her family’s blood!”

I grabbed Lily’s arms and locked them in place.

Then I looked at the crowd.

“My three million dollars did not come from my family.”

“And every cent of it has a clear source.”

“You can verify every transaction through the National Trust Fund system.”

The casino manager immediately logged into the trust database and pulled up the verification records.

One hundred percent of the funds had a legitimate source.

The documents were projected onto the massive casino screen.

The crowd stared upward in shock.

Then everyone turned toward Lily.

But Lily suddenly started crying harder.

“She laundered the money first and deposited it afterward!”

“My parents raised her for over twenty years. She tricked them into signing the papers because they always favored her!”

Slowly, I raised another document.

“As for you, I had another DNA test done afterward.”

“And according to this report, you are not my biological sister at all.”

I pointed at Lily and looked at the crowd.

“The real fraud here is her.”

Lucien burst into laughter.

“Little Cassie, now you’re playing games with fake DNA reports?”

“Should I call in a DNA specialist so we can determine which report is real?”

The crowd mocked me openly.

“Please. A woman who steals from casinos would absolutely steal from her own sister too.”

“Forget DNA reports. Someone should check her credit score instead.”

“It’s probably below zero already!”

Tomatoes and eggs kept flying toward me from every direction.

My hair and clothes were soaked in slime and yolk.

Lily wiped away her tears and looked at me pitifully.

“See, sis? Nobody believes you now. That’s not something I can control.”

I looked right back at her.

“Your parents are hanging in a warehouse right now, and instead of saving them, you’re standing here arguing about where my money came from.”

“The real reason is that your lover promised you something.”

Slowly, I turned my head toward Lucien.

“He told you that if you helped him destroy me, he’d let you marry into the Moretti family.”

“Lily, do you really think Lucien Moretti would marry you?”

I stepped toward her slowly.

Lily kept stumbling backward.

“Lily Vaughn, you really are loyal when it comes to love.”

I grabbed a broken egg from my chest and smashed it straight back into Lily’s face.

She covered her face and screamed.

“She’s lying!”

I smiled while wiping slime from my hair.

“Then prove it.”

Lucien shot to his feet so violently that his chair overturned behind him.

“Get the DNA specialist in here right now!”

The floor-to-ceiling doors on the second floor opened.

The man who had been sitting in the shadows finally stepped out.

I lifted my head, filthy and covered in egg yolk, and met his eyes.

Ten minutes remained before the moment I died in the crocodile pit in my last life.

The DNA specialist declared that my report was fake.

I almost forgot the kind of power the Moretti family held in Vegas.

If the only son of the Don wanted an examiner to say the earth was square, nobody in this city would dare call it round.

Lily sat beside Lucien, crying softly as she looked at him.

“Young Master, please spare my sister. She only stole the money because she was jealous of me.”

Lucien wrapped an arm around her cooperatively.

“If she cuts off one of her own hands, I’ll lend her three million tonight.”

A knife was thrown onto the poker table.

I glanced at it.

Then I smiled.

“Lucien, so you really aren’t afraid of me opening my mouth?”

Lucien laughed.

“Afraid?”

“Why would I be afraid of a woman who wipes tables for a living?”

But while he spoke, the cigar between his fingers had already burned down to his skin.

He walked over to me and suddenly grabbed my jaw.

“Cassie, do you know the saddest thing about dead people?”

“They always think they still have a chance to turn things around right before they die.”

I slapped his hand away.

At that exact moment, a business card slipped out of my uniform pocket.

Lucien looked down at it. His pupils shrank instantly.

I calmly fixed my hair and looked at him with ease.

His hands trembled as he picked up the card.

“Casino Risk Control Specialist!?”

I nodded.

“That’s right. I specialize in investigating money laundering inside casinos.”

I leaned closer to him.

“So tell me, Lucien...”

“Are you scared?”

Lucien’s eyes flickered. Instinctively, he looked upstairs toward the second floor.

But the man above never looked at him once.

I knew exactly who he was.

Don Alessandro Moretti. Lucien Moretti’s father.

I raised my voice toward the second floor.

“Mr. Moretti, the person you’ve been looking for all week is right here!”

The Don still didn’t look at me.

But I knew he understood exactly what I meant.

Lucien pulled his gaze back and bent over laughing.

“You? A janitor?”

“You actually think you understand a gambling table?”

“Did my father hire you to wipe his tables clean?”

The manager had already placed the Organ Debt Repayment Agreement in front of me.

Lucien tapped the document with his finger.

“I want your left hand. Casino rules say that’s worth two million.”

“For the remaining million, you can use your father’s hand to cover the difference.”

“If you refuse to sign, you feed the crocodiles instead.”

Lily wiped away her tears while trying to persuade me.

“Cassie, if you stole the money, then you should pay the price.”

“It’s only one hand. Why can’t you just admit what you did?”

Lucien nudged the knife forward.

“The tools are already here.”

“Pick one.”

I spoke coldly.

“I still have other chips. Enough to cover three million.”

The casino manager lowered his voice.

“Cassie... you have nothing left to stake.”

Lucien laughed and gave an order to the bodyguards.

“She’s made her choice.”

“Throw her into the crocodile pit.”

“Right now.”

I simply let them drag me toward the exit.

“You’re wrong.”

“My new chips have already been exchanged.”

A waiter walked past me carrying a tray stacked with casino chips.

“These are Cassie Vaughn’s new chips.”

Lucien frowned and roared,

“Who authorized this!?”

The waiter lowered his head, his voice trembling violently.

“The... the top floor.”

The entire casino fell into dead silence.

Lucien jerked his head upward.

Second floor.

The man standing in the shadows slowly raised one hand at last.

“Continue.”