The storage room lit up cold and fluorescent when I found the switch — two long shelves on either wall, stacked with trays of casino tokens in every color, and a desk sandwiched between two smaller shelves at the back. I had no idea which colors were worth what. I didn't have time to figure it out either. Grab what you can, I told myself, and trade it all in at once.
I went straight for the desk, hoping for something useful — a bag, a note, anything — and found papers scattered across the surface instead. Before I could read a single word of them, the door handle rattled.
"Shit," I hissed, dropping the paper and bolting for the only cover available: directly behind the door as it swung open.
"Can you hold this?" a woman's voice said, wheeling in a cart.
"Yeah, I got it," another voice answered from right beside my hiding spot, close enough that I could smell her perfume.
They worked fast, loading trays onto the cart, complaining about customers, about the room being boring, about wanting to go home. I held my breath through the entire exchange, my back pressed flat against the wall, praying neither of them decided to shut the door before checking behind it.
They didn't. The door swung closed behind them, and the room went quiet and empty again, leaving me alone with my heartbeat and a job I hadn't finished.
I found a canvas bag in the bottom drawer of the desk and started filling it without ceremony — every color, every denomination, anything I could fit. I paused every few seconds to listen for footsteps, certain that any second now someone was going to walk in and end this whole stupid plan before it even paid off.
Nobody did. When the bag was finally too heavy to add anything else, I zipped it shut, cracked the door open just enough to check the hallway, and slipped out into the noise of the main floor like I'd never left it.
The scary man from the entrance was waiting near the front when I got there, and my stomach dropped at the sight of him until he simply nodded, almost friendly, like he hadn't noticed a single thing.
"If you're looking to trade in tokens," he said, before I'd even asked, "go to the receptionist on the right. Fewer people."
"Thank you," I said, too startled to question how he knew exactly what I needed.
"Have a nice day," he said, already turning away. "Hope you had fun."
I walked to the receptionist he'd pointed me toward — a woman in her forties with the kind of patient, professional smile that made the whole transaction feel almost normal — and handed over the bag like I did this every week.
"Just give me a minute," she said, disappearing with it.
The wait stretched nearly an hour. I sat in a chair near the desk, trying not to look as nervous as I felt, running through every excuse I'd give if security suddenly decided to ask questions. None of them came. When the woman finally returned, she was holding a thick yellow envelope.
"Sorry for the wait," she said, handing it over. "Ninety thousand, in cash."
I thanked her, took the envelope, and walked out of that casino faster than I'd ever walked anywhere in my life — ninety thousand dollars heavier, and one step closer to making sure my sister actually got the surgery she needed.