Deception is the Game

            Rushing through the doors, Alice sprinted down the casino’s hotel room halls. Turn after turn, she found herself trapped in a maze of never-ending red and gold hallways, the thumping sound of her heart matching pace with the thumping of feet behind her. Five black suited men ran after her, threading swiftly through one hall and into another, knowing the building better than she did and laughing inside at the scared little rabbit.

            Finally reaching an elevator, Alice slammed her palm against the button. Over and over again, she pressed the button, looking behind her and seeing the men get closer, smirks on some of their faces and grimaces on the others. Seeing the slow climb of the elevator from floor eleven to floor twenty-seven made her shake in fear and anxiety. She looked at the fire exit and made a move towards it, only to be grabbed by the elbow and thrown onto the ground by one of the black suited men.

            The carpeting stopped her head from making a cracking sound against the floor, but it didn’t stop her shoulder from snapping out of place. Once they had dragged Alice back into the hotel room, they threw her into a chair and stood around her, waiting for the boss to come and demand the quarter million back from Alice McCade, one of the best thieves on the West Coast.

            By the time the boss had come in, Alice was convinced that she would be skinned alive. She had lost the jewels by believing her friend Cat would hold onto them while she made plans for their escape out of Vegas to Spain. Sadly, Cat was a two-faced sociopath and Alice had a tendency to believe in the wrong people.

            The boss, whose name was Aleksander Greaven, sighed, looking down at Alice, already knowing what had happened to his money because he knew what had happened to Cat, since he had been the one to make Cat’s body disappear in the desert. He was light hearted and happy on the inside, finally able to have a thief under his control. It would be easy enough to accomplish, now that Alice had had her life in his hands, and someday, he would have her body and heart as well.