Bounty Hunter [REWRITTEN VERSION]

Chapter 23: Left, Right & Centre

MAIZE

"The woman has an elevator inside her walls—is no one going to talk about how absolutely insane that is?" Kishan seemed baffled as the elevator in question began to descend downwards into a pit of dark at Cassandra's press of a button.

The basement. That's where they were heading, Maize was sure of it. And sure enough, once the elevator touched down to solid ground again, the doors parted into a completely different view from the one they had before. It seemed Cassandra didn't just own a casino. She owned an underground arsenal warehouse as well.

The floor was easily the area of the entire casino upstairs, if not more so because being underground had its advantages for extra moulding and construction. Cassandra clearly did not skip over that fact.

"You're an arms trafficker?" Alec observed with obvious accusation as he glared pointedly at the casino owner.

She turned and sent him an artful smile. "No, I wouldn't go so far as to say that...I only have dealings with a single party." She glanced at Maize. "A mutual friend, if you will."

Maize furrowed her eyes inquiringly. Briefly, an old contact flashed through her mind back from a few years ago. But surely Cassandra wasn't talking about who she thought. The probability of that seemed too low in her mind...or did it? Whatever the case she didn't dwell on it, or rather, she was distracted out of it as it only took a moment more for her to realize that she was being sent an accusing look from the none too happy detective.

"Hey, I had no idea about this either," Maize stated in her defence, if that was what he was implying with that damn piercing gaze of his.

She stood crossing her arms as she eyed the crates and boxes of armaments and munitions. She knew Cassandra's late father had been into trafficking artillery, that was how he had made his money.

The casino owner seemed to know what she was thinking from the look on her face. "Father was always into his arms dealings...but I never really got into that sort of thing, not my style. In my opinion, the fewer guns on the street, the better. However, when he died, all of this stuff was left to me...and I wasn't going to simply give it away..." she emphasized clearly. "Now, most of it sits here, for in ever the case of an emergency..." she finished with a blatant glance at the ceiling above them.

"You're father was a—?" Alec started, but suddenly seemed to think better of it. "Actually, you know what, don't tell me...I don't even want to know anymore." The detective shook his head in exasperation as he threaded his fingers through his hair.

"That is probably the best decision, Detective," Cassandra nodded sagely and gave a wiry smile.

Cassandra lead them to her security room—a desk with a large set of computers that showed the live footage of the cameras set up all around the casino.

"I have two rooms like this, so if ever they find the other and seek to wipe to footage, I always have a backup," she explained as she rattled a few clicks over the keyboard. The footage of the main hall came into larger focus. From there they could see the cartel gang were now forcing civilians out of the building.

There were a few exchanges of shots between other malefactors and their numbers—which was not surprising due to the number of criminal personnel in the casino—but the cartel took care of them while also managing to overpower everyone else, and were now taking charge of the building.

They didn't seem to care about calls being made to local authorities—which to Maize, meant either they were overconfident in their numbers and artillery, or they already had a plan in place to ensure the authorities couldn't get to them. Neither of those reasonings were all that comforting. If one thing was clear, it was the fact that they were searching specifically for a certain set of people. They didn't let anyone leave without checking their faces. The people they were looking for didn't seem to be found, which was, of course, because they were currently in the basement watching the entire scene on a recording screen.