The moment they shoved me out the window, I heard Kate laughing. “Say goodbye to your life of the Vegas Gambling King, bro.” That was John Miller speaking. My best friend. And Kate, my wife of three years, stood right beside him. His hand was sliding over her waist. She was still holding that bottle of champagne she’d drugged me with. Then they kissed. Slow. Triumphant. Hungry. And I started falling. From thirty floors. The Vegas neon blurred into a fog of light and shadow, exactly like the glory I’d seen when I first arrived here. The wind roared in my ears. Ten minutes ago, I was still at the table. The man across from me pushed five million toward me and asked if I had the guts to match it. I slid my stack forward with absolute confidence. “All in.” I flipped the cards. Perfect twenty-one. The crowd erupted. Confetti cannons fired. Golden paper rained from the ceiling. The Vegas celebrity Mr. Dawson raised my hand and thundered: “Vegas, welcome your new KING!” Fifty million in prize money. Ten years of gambling with zero losses. Then one glass of champagne. And everything went to zero. I was betrayed by my best buddy and the woman I thought was my true love. He forced me to sign the divorce papers, transferred my trillion-dollar fortune. I reached for her but she pushed me off the tallest building in Vegas. The new legendary gambling king of Las Vegas！falling on the very day of his coronation. … The Vegas neon still flickers. Just not for me anymore. I curl in the depths of an alley reeking of rot, both hands twisted at grotesque angles. Who am I? Where did I come from? My memories are like shredded playing cards scattered across the ground！impossible to piece together into anything whole. Only hunger is real. A soggy, half-eaten sandwich lands in front of me. I crawl toward it with everything I have. A filthy boot suddenly stomps on it. Sauce splatters across my face. “Bad luck. Even trash wants to steal my food.” The boot kicks my shoulder. I tumble backward. My skull cracks against concrete. The second kick is coming！ “STOP! I’ll call the police!” The light at the alley entrance splits open. A middle-aged man, broad-shouldered and thick-backed. Beside him, a girl holds up her phone, the cold screen-glow illuminating her tight jawline. The homeless man mutters and shuffles away. The girl crouches down. Streetlight gilds her hair with warm gold. “Sir, are you okay?” I stare at her blankly. Something churns in the depths of my memory！shattering wine glasses, the world spinning, a pushing palm, the weightlessness of falling！but I can’t catch a single clear face. “We can help you contact your family!” “I don’t know!” I curl into myself, trembling, hands over my head. “I don’t know anyone! Please don’t kill me… don’t kill me…” The girl and her father exchange glances. “Dad… I think he has amnesia. And his hands!” The middle-aged man lifts my deformed wrist, his brow furrowing deeply. “Both hands fractured. Without care, he won’t last a few days.” A few days. So that’s all my life is worth. The girl reaches toward me. Palm up. “Sir, I’m Leah. My father Sam runs a small bar nearby. You can stay for a while. Maybe you’ll remember something. Okay?” I stare at that hand. Hesitate for one heartbeat. Then slowly, slowly, I take it.
“Sean! Table three needs another round!” “Sean! Whiskey on the rocks!” “SEAN！” I weave through Sam’s bar, a tray loaded with glasses that don’t wobble an inch. I flick my wrist. Several menus fly out like they’ve been enchanted, arcing through the air before landing perfectly on tables across the room. I spin back. Ice cubes scatter from my shaker, clinking as they drop into a line of glasses behind the bar, casting rainbow halos. “Sean, you’re the man!” “Wooo, bro, do it again!” “Sean, King of the Vegas Bar! Sean, OUR KING!” The crowd roars. The atmosphere burns. Behind the bar, Sam and Leah watch from a distance, smiles pulling at their mouths. “Look at those moves,” Sam murmurs. “If I hadn’t seen it myself, who’d believe this was the beggar from that alley?” Leah’s eyes follow me. “He wanted to save enough to pay us back for the medical bills.” “Medical bills?” Sam laughs. “With what he’s done to our revenue, I should be paying HIM a bonus.” I carry drinks to a table of women in the corner. My fingers twist, and a rose appears from behind a bottle. “Your drink, miss.” Their laughter never stops. They don’t just order more！they stuff tips into my apron. Leah walks over, hands me a water bottle. “Dad couldn’t stop talking about how capable you are.” I reach for it. Our fingertips brush. We both freeze. She jerks her hand back, ears burning red. “This isn’t just ‘helping out.’ This bar was dying before you came！” The bar door EXPLODES open. A sloppy young man with a cigarette dangling from his lips storms in. His eyes are poisoned knives, stabbing straight at me. “Who the hell said you could touch MY bar stuff? Get the hell away!” He grabs my collar. Alcohol and casino-cigar stench blast my face. “You’ve got it wrong, sir. I’m the server here, and we’re actually closing the bar！” “Wrong my ass!” He slams me against the wall. “I’m Sam Peterson’s son! You think some damn dishwasher can tell ME what to do?!” Mike Peterson. Leah’s brother. The “good-for-nothing bastard son” Sam never talked about without sighing. He spots the cash in my apron pocket. Greed flashes. He snatches it. “That’s for the medical bills to pay back!” “Medical bills my ass!” He shoves me. “Pay your future boss first!” He shoves hard. I stagger back, my lower back crashing into the bar. And when my elbow knocks over a stack of dice, the dice scatter across the counter. In that instant, images flash！ Crystal chandeliers. Green felt. My fingers closing around the dice cup. Three dice inside. A flick of the wrist. The dice spinning against the cup walls, striking, falling. The reveal. Triple sixes. A tsunami of chips crashing toward me. The man across the table, face ashen, then eyes blood-red as he lunges！ Those red eyes in the images overlap with Mike’s furious ones in the reality. I grab a whiskey glass on instinct, scooping the scattered dice inside, wrist rotating. Then flick！ “AGH！!” Mike stumbles back, clutching his eye. The money scatters across the floor. I look down at the bar. The remaining dice sit in a perfect straight line, ordered by size. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. A straight. Mike stares in shock. “You！you did that on PURPOSE!” “No, I didn’t！” “Shut up! You’re DEAD tonight!” He swings again. The fist nears my face. I dodge on instinct, with the glass rim catching his temple. He jerks away and I flick the last die from the glass bottom into the air！ It spins. Falls. Lands in his gaping mouth. “GUH！!” He chokes, doubling over, coughing wildly. Money flies everywhere. I look at the counter. The remaining five dice have somehow flipped themselves over in the vibration. Six. Six. Six. Six. Six. A leopard. All sixes. “SEAN!” Leah rushes over, putting herself between us. “Mike! What the hell is wrong with you?!”
Mike straightens, dice crumbs still at the corner of his mouth, eyes full of horror. “Leah, I’m your BROTHER! And you’re defending this punk！” “You stole his money and hit him, and YOU’RE the victim?” Mike’s face goes greenish. His fists crack. He looks at me, then at Leah shielding me, and suddenly smiles. That smile is a viper’s tongue. “Fine. Real fine.” He reaches to poke Leah when a group bursts through the door. “MIKE PETERSON! Where the hell are you hiding?! Get out here and PAY UP!” Mike immediately shrinks behind the bar, praying hands toward Leah. I comes following Leah out from behind the counter. A group of thug-looking men faces us. I instinctively pull Leah behind me. “Who are you?” The leader is young, well-dressed, a playful smirk on his lips. Behind him, a tall thin man toys with a deck of cards. The shuffling sounds like a snake hissing. “Who are we?” The leader snorts. “Damn, that’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all week.” Leah tugs my sleeve, voice trembling. “That’s Lucas Marsh! His father is the biggest crime boss in this district. We can’t mess with him.” Lucas slaps a contract on the table. “Your brother owes us over a hundred grand. Today he pays, or he dies.” “A hundred thousand? Didn’t we just pay off his debt months ago?” Leah’s hands shake as she picks up the contract. “Yeah, well, the idiot went straight back to the tables.” Lucas smirks. “Told you. A gambling dog can’t be saved. Debts must be paid. You still have this dump of a bar, right? Sell it to me. Might cover a fraction.” “But this is our last property! Without it, we have nowhere to live!” Lucas shrugs, swaggering toward Leah. One hand tilts her chin up. “Can’t sell the bar? Sell yourself then. With that face, working as my club’s top girl, you’d make a fortune！” I clamp his wrist. “Watch your hands.” Lucas jerks back, stumbling, face darkening. “Who the hell do you think you are?” He turns to Leah, voice sliding over her skin like a snake. “Listen here, you little bitch. This land has already been targeted by John Miller! Even if you don’t mortgage it to me, you’ll lose it sooner or later! And with my father’s connection to Miller, you won’t see a SINGLE DIME when that happens!” John Miller. That name is a burning needle stabbing into my temple. Head splitting. Images surging！ A suited man grabbing my right wrist, twisting hard. “Say goodbye to your ‘gambling god life,’ bro!” I shake my head violently, trying to drive out the visions. Mike tries to sneak away from behind the bar, but two sharp-eyed thugs spot him, dragging him before Lucas. “Please, Lucas! Give me a few more days, I swear I’ll pay!” Lucas sneers, nodding to his men. One kicks Mike’s leg, dropping him to his knees. Another flick opens a switchblade. CLICK！the blade extends. Cold steel presses against Mike’s fingers. “Sorry, kid. The boss needs money NOW. So every minute you waste, I cut off one finger.” Mike’s eyes dart around frantically. Then they fix the dice and cards on the bar. “WAIT! WAIT! Give me one more chance！” “Chance?” Lucas leans down. “You already burned my last shred of trust when you ran last time!” Mike’s gaze suddenly locks, like a drowning man grabbing his final straw. He looks at Leah. His lips tremble. He says something that freezes my blood: “Lucas, I’ll bet my SISTER to you! Didn’t you say she could be a stripper?” Leah stands frozen. Her eyes fill with shock and disbelief. “BROTHER! WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?! HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND?!” “Mike, you COWARD!” Lucas SLAMS the table, laughing wild and triumphant. “DEAL! It’s SETTLED!”
Watch👉 https://cps-front.novelix.live/app-api/ext/new/20260701APRWndqyBj 🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “Novelix” app 🔍 search for “ni930660”, and watch the full series ✨! #Novelix
Leave a Reply