Pyro

Chapter 10

The room itself wasn't too bad.

Alright, it was amazing.

The embroidered drapery consisted of superlative silk: the items made of wood-like the table and bed frame-were carved with intricate designs. Everything was maintained to the highest of standards.

The most breathtaking aspect of the room, however, was the Renaissance-style art on the ceiling.

Who knew cults had taste?

After thoroughly exploring my room, locating and changing into a set of fresh clothes (which, oddly enough, seemed tailored precisely for me), I crashed into the bed.

Before I drifted off to sleep, I decided I'd keep a running tally of how many times I slept in unfamiliar beds. So far, the count was at three, including the back of a car.

****

The next morning, Zoe retrieved me for the money transfer. We pretended to only vaguely know each other, which was pretty accurate anyway.

Concerns about leaving a paper trail had plagued my thoughts, but Zoe had me shelve fifty thousand dollars out of my inheritance to one of the charities founded by Mr. Cal. He had mentioned philanthropy earlier...

I laughed. Pretending to contribute to important causes just to funnel money.

I couldn't wait to loot his hotel.

Speaking of: I had a week to locate a hidden vault and magically think up a way to break inside.

Easy enough. Especially since Zoe-er, Hannah?-declared that Mr. Cal did not want uninitiated members of his little cult wandering the hotel without an escort, so multiple guards shadowed me wherever I went. They remained out of sight, but I felt multiple cold stares focused on my back.

Even now, swarmed by countless other people, I felt their eyes drill holes into the back of my head.

As if that didn't make my job any harder, dozens of guards were stationed at every floor, watching over the guests with wary eyes. I duly noted firearms strapped to their belts, and proceeded with caution.

Bet that puts a wrench in cheater's plans, I thought to myself.

Wais wasn't kidding when he called this place a well-guarded casino. How was I supposed to find the vault while being watched like a hawk?

I still didn't understand what Wais thought I could do that Zoe or Parker couldn't. I hadn't even fully joined Mr. Cal's group yet, and they somehow wanted me to squeeze information out of him. I doubted the guy trusted me, let alone trusted me enough to just hand over the vault's location to me.

Zoe was his personal assistant, and still didn't have a smidgling of an idea where the vault was located.

And shouldn't Parker have known where the vault was? Considering he was a guard-one of Mr. Cal's personal guards, I might add-and would have guarded the vault?

No- maybe Mr. Cal didn't want anyone to know the location of his vault, even the guards. Keeping track of who knew what could be tedious and risky, especially when it came to something as vital as the vault.

It was likely only Mr. Cal knew where the vault was.

So how the hell was I, a stranger to him, supposed to get the location?