Casinos were honest places.
That was what Daniel thought as he walked beneath the chandeliered ceiling, past velvet ropes and perfume-heavy air. They never pretended to be moral. They told you upfront: this place will take from you. And people still walked in smiling.
Drbian Lines had many neutral grounds. Ports. Warehouses. Offshore offices.
But when power needed to meet power without fingerprints, it met at a casino.
Money made everyone equal there — briefly.
The floor pulsed with light and sound. Slot machines sang false hope. Cards slapped felt with ritual violence. Chips clinked like bones. Above it all, surveillance cameras watched with the patience of gods who had seen this story end many times before.
Daniel moved without hurry.
He wore no security. No visible weapons. Only a dark jacket and a body already tired in places it shouldn't have been.
The economic devaluation had begun three days earlier.
It wasn't dramatic. No crashes. No headlines screaming catastrophe.
Just precision.
Logistics insurance premiums adjusted by decimals.
Shipping delays reclassified as "weather-related."
Currency hedges quietly withdrawn.
Letters of credit paused "pending verification."
Factories didn't shut down immediately.
They slowed.
When production slows, wages delay.
When wages delay, loans fail.
When loans fail, desperation blooms.
It was surgical. Professional. Almost polite.
Daniel had learned this style from observing corporations — the most efficient criminal organizations ever invented.
The casino manager spotted him instantly and nodded once. No smile. No questions.
Daniel followed the man past public tables, through a door marked Staff Only, into quieter air.
The meeting room overlooked the gaming floor through tinted glass. Inside, a round table waited, already occupied.
Six men.
All Italian.
All still.
They didn't rise when Daniel entered.
That told him everything.
The Jerrican family didn't believe in gestures.
They believed in structure.
At the head of the table sat the Patriarch — not the oldest, but the calmest. His hands were folded. His eyes never blinked too often. He wore no jewelry, no visible luxury. Wealth, for him, was not decoration. It was gravity.
To his right sat the Underboss — a man built like an unfinished building, scars visible at the collar. Loyalty radiated from him the way heat radiates from metal left in the sun.
Further down sat the Consigliere — thin, quiet, eyes always moving. He had never fired a gun in his life. He had ended more lives than anyone in the room.
The rest were Capos. Regional control. Enforcement. Logistics.
The Jerricans did not recruit from the streets.
They recruited from bloodlines.
Boys grew up learning silence before speech. Discipline before affection. Betrayal was not punished — it was erased from memory. Names removed from records. Photographs burned. Children told their uncles never existed.
Brutal.
But absolute.
Daniel respected that kind of loyalty. He feared it too.
"You disrupted the market," the Patriarch said at last.
Not an accusation. A statement.
"Yes," Daniel replied.
"You caused instability."
"I removed excess," Daniel corrected. "Instability was already there."
The Consigliere leaned forward slightly. "You forced other families to move early. That creates blood."
Daniel met his gaze. "Blood happens when men panic. Not when systems adjust."
The Underboss smiled faintly.
That smile was a warning.
"You are young," the Patriarch said. "But you understand circulation. That makes you dangerous."
Daniel inclined his head. "Dangerous things are often necessary."
Silence again.
Then the Patriarch spoke words that mattered.
"The Cango side is weak," he said. "They fracture under pressure. Their leader talks too much."
Daniel felt the room tighten.
"So," the Patriarch continued, "we are prepared to act."
Daniel didn't smile.
"Exclusivity has a price," the Patriarch said.
Daniel nodded. "Control over movement. No street flooding. No uncontrolled expansion."
The Underboss laughed once. "You don't sound like a criminal."
Daniel's voice stayed level. "I don't sound like an addict either."
That earned him a long look.
Before the Patriarch could answer, a sound echoed from the corridor outside.
Not shouting.
Impact.
A body hitting a wall.
Then another.
The casino lights flickered.
Daniel closed his eyes briefly.
"So it begins," he thought.
The door burst open.
Chaos spilled in.
Cango men. Not many — desperate. Poorly timed. Armed, but angry rather than prepared.
Gunfire cracked once.
The lights died.
Emergency red flooded the corridor beyond the room.
"Stay," the Patriarch ordered his men.
They obeyed instantly.
Daniel stepped backward — toward the hallway.
The Consigliere caught his sleeve. "You walk into noise," he said softly.
Daniel pulled free. "I walk through it."
The corridor was narrow.
Too narrow.
Bodies already littered the floor — wounded, not dead. Men gasping, crawling, bleeding into carpet that would never come clean again.
Someone swung a metal rod.
Daniel blocked it with his forearm. Pain exploded up his arm, white and blinding. He stumbled, shoulder slamming into the wall.
No music. No clean choreography.
Just breath, weight, impact.
Someone grabbed his jacket from behind. Daniel dropped his weight, twisting, elbowing backward blindly. He felt cartilage give. A scream.
Another man charged.
Daniel ducked, grabbed the nearest object — a serving tray — and rammed it forward. The man fell, legs tangled with others.
Time stretched.
Every movement cost him oxygen.
His finger screamed in protest. His shoulder burned. His legs felt thick, unresponsive.
He wasn't skilled.
He was persistent.
That was worse.
At one point, he tripped over a fallen body and hit the ground hard. Boots closed in. Kicks landed — ribs, back, hip. Each impact stole breath.
Daniel curled inward, protecting his head.
Not fighting.
Waiting.
A gun went off.
Someone screamed and collapsed.
The Jerrican men entered the corridor like a tide.
No shouting. No rage.
Just efficiency.
When it ended, the hallway was quiet except for breathing.
Daniel lay on his side, gasping.
The Patriarch stood over him.
"You endure," the old man said. "That matters."
Daniel forced himself upright, leaning against the wall.
"I don't like violence," he said hoarsely. "But I understand consequences."
The Patriarch nodded once.
"Then our agreement stands."
Daniel wiped blood from his mouth — his own, he hoped.
"Yes," he said. "Until the board changes."
Outside, the casino resumed its song.
People laughed. Cards shuffled. Chips clinked.
No one noticed the hallway.
No one ever did.
And somewhere far from the neon and velvet, the devaluation continued — slow, silent, professional — eating through lives not with fire, but with delay.
Daniel stepped back into the light, exhausted, alive, and increasingly certain of one thing:
The house didn't always win.
But it always collected.