Aces: Manuel's past and meeting at the Cafe
I sigh with frustration. But it does allow me to collect my observations.
Starting with this key fact observation about Aces security guards.
They are not sheepdogs.
They are sheep.
I observed them giving directions and trying to keep order.
Trying being the key word here.
I of all people should understand that new security guards start off green but it's clear that no one trained these guys or is around to show them the ropes.
Alec essentially threw them in the open and said good luck.
Their movements are hesitant, their communication is nonexistent, and they look at the crowds with the wide-eyed panic of men who were handed a uniform and told to 'look intimidating' five minutes ago.
I recall my first week on the job with Jace. We were eighteen, barely out of training and kept off the gaming floor because you need to be 21 to work security there, but Smitty drilled us until our posture and our verbal de-escalation scripts were muscle memory. We knew the chain of command, the code phrases, and where every camera was.
These boys have nothing but cheap polyester and a flashlight.
Woodstock 1999 shows why that is a catastrophically bad idea.
Frankly, I would advise these boys to take off their uniforms and run for dear life. I know for a fact that they are not getting paid enough to work in this dump.
But there is another fact I am thinking about.
Tackiness is like porn, you know it when you see it.
The decorations and colors at Aces are some of the tackiest decorations I have ever seen in a casino. Even compared to underground Casinos operated by gangsters.
Everything I have seen so far is just overwhelming gold, with bits of white thrown in from time to time.
There is quite a variety of decorations/themes I have seen work in Casinos of all shapes and sizes that have been made to work magnificently, from faithful, high-end recreations of ancient European cities and monuments to sleek, hyper modern minimalist designs and opulent, over the top fantasy worlds.
Arguably the first Las Vegas style Casino, and the one that cost Bugsy Siegel his life after he disrespected mob investors who had questions about cost overruns, the Flamingo is well decorated compared to Aces. But more importantly, for all of the cost overruns, the Flamingo was a well done and run Casino that set the standard for the Strip.
Making the tackiness even worse is the amount of scantily clad women I see plastered all over the place as decorations. It comes off as juvenile and in poor taste.
To add insult to injury, these pictures of scantily clad women are often dressed in schoolgirl outfits or something else that is allegedly sexy with them saying things like welcome big daddy, alphas go to aces and at Aces all you need to think about are money and bitches, things of that nature.
I can only imagine how this is impacting Rachel.
I have worked security in strip clubs on the Strip and the Nevada ranches that would be less offensive to women in terms of decor and decorations.
When we were first starting, it was common for young, ambitious officers like me and Jace to moonlight in those venues, both to earn extra money and gain experience. It was an intense crash course in managing violent egos, spotting vice operations, and understanding the true cash flow of the Strip's underbelly.
To be clear, all of this wasn’t just a side hustle. We weren't just 'moonlighting' at the clubs and the brothels. With Smitty’s encouragement, we were learning how the Strip works from the ground up.
We put in the hours at the high volume nightclubs, the retail corridors, and the loading docks. Whether it was profiling shoplifters in a luxury mall or auditing the freight manifests on a back of house dock, every shift was about stripping away the gold leaf.
It was about learning the structural flaws in the system, and the people running it, before I ever stepped foot into the silence of a surveillance room.
So I can say beyond the shadow of a doubt, even in the world's oldest profession, there is a standard of dignity that Aces has not only failed to meet but has actively desecrated.
Billy Atkins runs the webcam empire that funded Aces and still does, and his contracts are notorious even among my colleagues who work in the adult industry. Ninety percent of revenue to the house, punitive penalty clauses, and debt structures designed to trap rather than employ. The sex industry in Las Vegas is already gray at best, but Billy has found a way to make it even darker.
Luckily for me, I don’t find any wires or bugs planted during my search. It appears that my cover is working out well so far.
According to Aces and Alec, I am Victor Lopez, a professional poker player who also works on wall street who believes the Alpha bullshit. Jace Issac is John Miller, my business partner who shares my set of skills but handles clients and is a womanizer (which is true but Jace is a gentleman), Rachel Lin is Chanel Lee, my overworked personal assistant and David Cohen is Ariel Goldberg, my bodyguard.
I notice a subtle but acrid smell of sewage coming from the bathroom. A smell that grows only stronger nearly the toilet and the drains. It is a revolting smell that induces a sense of nausea in me.
But worst of all, I find bed bugs when I search the bed.
I am questioning if I should even sleep in this “resort” room at all.
“Just found bed bugs. Unsure if it is safe to sleep here.” I enter into the group chat.
“So Aces can’t even maintain basic hygiene standards, figures.” Rachel texts back.
“Did you find any bugs or wires?” David asks me.
“No I did not.” I answer back.
“I will take a look around myself once we get back.” David texts back.
“Understood.” I text back.
With that, I decide to take a look around Aces itself a bit more.
I put my gear and luggage away and head to the main Casino floor to get a better idea of how Aces operates and what I can understand about the Aktins brothers and this mess of an operation.
I decide to take the stairs simply because I don’t want to be in a crowded elevator with other guests. I have already dealt with enough being crowded like livestock. Besides, I need to stretch my legs.
I first decide to hit the craps tables for some low stakes play and to maybe unwind a little bit. Maybe turn off my brain a little bit and enjoy some dice.
But I can’t help but notice more problems.
Tiny tears in the wallpaper, more subtle bumps in the carpeting. While I am walking in the hallway to the stairwell, I notice the ceiling is already showing miniature cracks.
As I enter the stairwell, I can’t help but think that my old bosses would have had a heart attack looking at Aces and its construction closely. I suspect that Alec cut a huge number of corners during the construction of Aces. I wonder why he did that. But combined with the fact that he is cutting corners when it comes to protecting his money, it tells me that Alec must be desperate. The real question is why.
I make it to the main Casino floor, where I need to catch my breath a bit from climbing down 21 stories. It is crowded with people at various table games and slot machines. The casino floor feels humid and uncomfortable. Even so, I make it to the craps table with a small group.
In that group I see a most welcoming face.
Jace Issacs.
As I approach, I can see Jace isn't just playing, he is working.
His positioning at the craps table is not random. Back to the wall, sightlines to both the main entrance and the cage.
Classic floor coverage positioning. .
But right now, he's playing his role.
Jace and I have a long history. We both started in the Las Vegas Security scene around the same time.
I was always better than him at the technical and tactical aspects of advantage play and Casino security, but Jace was always better with people. I could detect cheaters better than anyone and illicit behavior, but Jace could persuade them to leave or otherwise behave themselves. Jace understands me in ways few others can.
How my brain chemistry works.
It was Jace who convinced me to work with him to start building up a retirement account with him using our skills as casino professionals to make a killing as advantage players.
But I came up with the standard operating procedures to keep our operation viable, such as not hitting the same state twice in a row, through intelligence gathering, and other things like no drinking or sex while we are on a job.
I was persuaded by him after we busted up Rachel Lin’s team of advantage players and I saw what kind of money she and her team were making. Not to mention what this line of work was doing to both of us and how little the House really cared about me and Jace.
It reminds me of the night everything changed for me.
That night, when my confidence in the place I spent my career protecting shattered completely, Jace found me staring at the numbers from the Rachel Lin bust in a 24-hour diner outside Henderson, the mountain of chips we had just hauled in from her team’s operation visible in some grainy photos.
At the time, I was feeling envious of Rachel and her money.
More importantly, I was envious of her freedom.
At the same time, I was an emotional trainwreck. My mentor, Smitty, the man who took a chance on me, was thrown to the wolves.
He sat down a coffee cup he ordered for me.
"Manuel, look at those numbers," Jace whispered, bringing up some documents and showing me.
The documents were spreadsheets, numbers of what the Pacific Group was earning. What they are still earning.
"That was one night's work. They were making enough to walk away clean, while Smitty got ruined trying to do the right thing. The House just proved the operation is a lie. And we both know this isn't the Strip we joined as kids, right?" he emphasized to me.
He leaned in, his voice dropping.
"The Vegas we started in was still a brutal place, but it had rules and certain lines it refused to cross. Now, it’s just a cynical machine. You’ve been watching it slide for years haven’t you. You watched the best of us get passed over by incompetent cronies. The surveillance system, a system you know how to use better than anyone, got turned into a data mining tool, a spy program for marketing, and even worse, our own colleagues abuse it for petty, pathetic thrills. The rot isn’t just at the top anymore; it's everywhere, in the floor, in the camera feeds, and in the people we share a uniform with. The House didn't just sacrifice Smitty’s honor. They choked the integrity out of the whole Strip, piece by piece." Jace whispers emphatically.
Jace placed his hand on my shoulder.
"The trap isn’t the job, man.” Jace began
“The trap is the loyalty they demand. They rely on professionals like us to guard their money, and the second that integrity or expertise costs them a dime, they choke you with that badge.” Jace emphasized.
“We are the best at what we do on the Strip. We know the rules, we know the cheats, and we know the system better than any of those corporate thieves. We don't have to stay here and wait to be the next body they step over. We take the weapon we built, our skills, and we turn it on the target. Rachel showed us the blueprint; we have the technical skill to execute it. We get out and build our own version of a clean game." Jace said to me with confidence.
“You understand that if we do this and get caught, we aren’t just getting backed off, we are getting blacklisted from ever working in a casino again.” I point out to him
“Maybe, but think about what happened to Smitty. A man with a flawless record thrown to the wolves to appease a shareholder. If he can be treated like that, what does that say about our chances? And besides, have you noticed how our benefits and retirements keep getting cut?” Jace asked me.
Jace then went for the kill shot.
“You have been thinking about it haven’t you? Why else would you be looking over the Pacific Group case?” Jace asked me.
At that moment, Jace had me convinced because he was right.
“We do this, we treat this as a business. We never hit the same state twice in a row, and we do through surveillance. We diversify beyond blackjack into other beatable games and poker. No drinking, no sex and no drugs while we are earning money. We do everything to maximize earnings at minimum risk. Most of all, at all costs, our bosses never find out about this,” I told him.
I recall adding one more critical detail.
“One more thing, the very first thing we are doing with our winnings is making sure Smitty can retire with dignity. We owe him that much.” I say
“Of course. I wouldn't have it any other way,” Jace answered.
On these trips, Jace is the whale of whales, the high-visibility bettor who executes the large wagers.
My job on our trips is to remain the discreet Spotter in the high-stakes rooms, feeding him the crucial technical data, the Running and True Count, using the coded language we practiced. We only make money when he places those profitable bets at my signal. Our success is entirely dependent on rigid standard operating procedures. .
We leave when I signal that the house is getting nervous, an experienced Pit Boss or security shift change occurs that is not in our favor, or the game's condition fundamentally changes.
Other times include when I signal that I am tired or overstimulated, as mental fatigue directly translates to counting errors and missed security cues. Of course, we also have signals for when we hit our maximum profit/loss limit for the day, or we use a simple, pre-planned excuse like 'having somewhere else to be' to avoid establishing a predictable routine.
Protocols I designed to both maximize profits and minimize risk.
The rest as they say is history.
But we need to maintain cover, so I address him using his alias.
I smile at Jace
“John, it's great to see you, how was the drive over?” I say to him,
Jace looks at me while he is placing a bet on the craps table.
“Better than I expected, truth be told. Though I am having some bad luck so far.” Jace says to me.
“Let me give it a go” I reply to Jace.
I place a bet on the don’t pass line. Once the dealer hands me the dice, I put the dice between my forefinger and thumb and use a parabolic toss to minimize the chaos of the throw.
But the dice feel funny.
Uneven.
The moment they settle in my palm, I know.
The weight distribution is wrong, the center of gravity is off by maybe half a millimeter toward the six-face.
It's subtle enough that a recreational player would never notice, but I've handled regulation casino dice for fifteen years.
Legitimate dice are transparent precision instruments, machined to .0005 inch tolerance with sharp edges and flush-faced pips.
These have cloudy cores, the telltale sign of weighted resin injection. The edges are slightly rounded, reducing randomness.
I execute the parabolic toss anyway, keeping the dice on-axis to minimize their rotation. It's a controlled throw that should reduce variance.
But loaded dice don't care about technique, the internal bias takes over mid-flight.
The dice land.
6-1. Seven out.
I lose the bet.
"The dice are biased," I send to Jace over the encrypted channel.
"Probably shaved on the 1-face and loaded toward the 6-face. House edge on this table is not 1.4%. It is probably north of 8%. This isn't gambling, it's theft with extra steps." I add.
Jace picks up his own set, rolling them across his knuckles like a former dealer checking for balance. His response comes back immediately:
"Confirmed. I can feel it in the tumble. The six-face always settles down. That's tungsten powder in an off-center core void. Also, the pit boss isn't backing up the boxman on calls over $25. No dual-control verification. On the Strip, any payout over $25 requires two signatures. Here? The dealers are solo, which means they're skimming or the house is letting them skim to keep them from walking off the job." Jace messages me.
"And check the stick positioning, the dealer's got his back to the main floor. Can't call for backup if he can't see his pit boss. These kids weren't trained, they were thrown to the wolves." Jace concludes in the message.
The house doesn't need to cheat at craps. The math already favors them. The fact that Alec is rigging dice means he's either incompetent at casino management or desperate enough to risk his gaming license for marginal gains.
Both options are bad for him. Good for us.
I practiced my persona as an awkward investor with Jace as my more outgoing business partner. So I am already ready.
“This is quite disappointing John. I expected much more.” I say in an awkward yet entitled tone.
“I am truly sorry about this Victor.” Jace says to me in his persona.
We walk to the Casino Cafe to regroup and plan. Over the secure chat, I send a message to Rachel and David to meet us there.
As we wait for Rachel and David at the cafe, Jace leans in, his voice low.
"The floor's a disaster. I've been watching for an hour." Jace Whispers to me.
He wasn't speaking as John Miller anymore. This was floor supervisor Jace Issac doing threat assessment.
"Security guards are all wrong. Half of them are scanning their phones, not faces. The competent ones, just fifteen percent at best, are actually tracking movement patterns. The rest are just decoration." Jace points out while whispering.
He gestured subtly toward a cluster of guests near the sports betting window.
"See how they're all facing the exits? Shoulders turned, weight on their forward foot? That's pre-escalation positioning. They're not here to gamble, they're here to fight." Jace says to me quietly.
I nodded. This was why we worked. I saw the technical failures, the games, the cameras, the rigging, the structural problems. Jace saw the human ones, the violence building, the staff breaking down, the crowd turning predatory.
Regarding the café, of course it is decorated in a tacky manner, because what else would it be.
It is an assault of overwrought, reflective gold and blinding, sterile white, with columns wrapped in cheap, fluted plastic meant to look like marble and chandeliers that are clearly molded plastic dripping with faux-crystal beads.
The only two colors in the room, gold and white, are arranged with no sense of balance, making the entire space look less like luxury and more like a melted trophy case. When all a good standard café needs is simple decor or a sound color design, Aces has gone for maximum visual noise.
A waitress in what is supposed to be a sexy uniform comes to our table to take our order.
The key phrase being supposed to be.
She is wearing a mini skirt that barely covers anything and a low-cut blouse held together by metallic gold thread that looks ready to snap.
The uniform is clearly designed to appeal to the clientele's stated 'alpha' aesthetic, comfort and practicality be damned. Her high heels are gold coated and look entirely impractical for carrying a tray, forcing her to walk with a jerky, unnatural wobble.
“Can I get you something to drink gentlemen?” the waitress asks us.
“Just some water for me.” I say to the waitress matter of factly.
“A coke for me, please” Jace says with more grace.
“Coming right up.” the waitress says to us.
Fortunately, no sultry voice.
Rachel Lin arrives first.
My most formidable adversary before Jace and I made the decision to start a double life as advantage players.
Carrying her laptop, she quickly positions her chair, and without any jewelry or makeup to distract, ran a thumb very deliberately over the cool metal edge of her machine, a minor ritual of focus before diving into the cold certainty of her numbers.
Rachel Lin made me and Jace's careers because we were the ones to bust her team, but even for us she was the toughest challenge of our careers.
Now, she is one of my best allies.
Me and Jace frequently collaborate with her team, the Pacific Group, for big wins on a frequent basis when we work.
In fact, me and Jace act as scouts for her team on occasion with the understanding that she stays off the strip.
I recall the final moments of the investigation, an investigation that took me four months.
The bust was executed with extreme precision.
There was no shouting, no force. Just Jace and his interdiction team leading Rachel’s team away from the Blackjack tables.
The investigation was the most tedious, boring and frustrating investigation of my time working for the house.
We'd bar one player, and within a week, two more would appear, armed with intelligence the last one gathered.
Her team had exhausted every other surveillance department on the Strip before they ever got to my place of work.
What made her leadership so effective was timing and intelligence.
She first sent in spotters to map out the beatable games, camera angles, and most devastating of all, our shift change.
These spotters didn't count, just played perfect basic strategy while observing the floor. Even played wrong on occasion to blend in better.
My colleagues completely missed them at first.
But Rachel's real genius was exploiting the system's weaknesses, and understanding our technical limitations.
She knew that our surveillance system, for all its sophistication, had a fatal flaw.
Bandwidth.
We had over 2,000 cameras covering over ten acres of gaming space.
The Nevada Gaming Control Board requires continuous coverage of all table games, cages, and count rooms, which means the system records everything.
But human operators can only actively monitor maybe forty screens at once.
Rachel's spotters identified our camera priority hierarchy.
They noticed that pit supervisors and surveillance analysts focused on: High denomination play ($100+ per hand). Erratic betting patterns (the classic counter tell) .Players who won too quickly.
So Rachel's team did the opposite. They bet in the $25-$75 range which is below the high roller threshold, Used team play to flatten the betting variance so no individual stood out.
They played for 6-8 hour marathons (legitimate whales play long sessions), rotated faces constantly (no pattern recognition triggers). Her counters played perfect basic strategy plus aggressive bet-ramping on positive counts, but the ramp was so gradual, 1 unit to 6 units over four hands, that it looked like a recreational player "feeling lucky."
But what really beat us was her exploitation of our shift change vulnerabilities.
Our surveillance team worked 8-hour shifts: 6 AM - 2 PM, 2 PM - 10 PM, 10 PM - 6 AM.
During the thirty-minute overlap, analysts were briefing replacements, not watching screens. Rachel's big moves happened in those windows.
She also knew our camera blind spots.
The PTZ domes have a seven-second rotation time when repositioning.
If a spotter saw the dome track away from their counter, they'd signal that counter had seven seconds of dark time to ramp their bet or palm chips.
I caught her because I stopped watching the players. I watched the patterns.
I charted every big winner over four months, not their faces, but their logistics.
Arrival times, Session lengths, Betting patterns, exit routes, Cash-out windows. I noticed clusters.
Wins that were statistically improbable in isolation but made perfect sense as coordinated team play.
Different faces, but identical operational signatures.
Then I tracked the mules, the runners who moved the money. Rachel's team had mules whose sole job it was to cash out chips and move money. I mapped the logistics. Who drove. Who carried the money. When they ate. Where they slept. The bust happened because I found the exhaustion point.
After twelve weeks of grinding, one of her mule’s fell asleep in his car in our parking garage at 4 AM. His aliased rental agreement led to a second rental under a different name. That led to a motel in Henderson where I found three more team members. Rachel was brilliant. But fatigue beats brilliance every time.
But Rachel’s success did not happen in a vacuum.
My bosses were so obsessed with data exploitation, profiling high-value guests for marketing, that they directed massive resources away from game protection.
My analysts used the high-res feeds for petty gossip because they were bored, overworked, and underpaid.
Many pit bosses were complacent, relying on the "surveillance" to catch blatant cheats.
The final confrontation took place in a small, windowless interrogation room. Rachel sat opposite me, utterly exhausted. The only sounds were the scratching of the incident report pen and the muted humming of the ventilation.
"It took you too long, Manuel." Rachel finally said.
"Four months. I thought your department was asleep at the wheel." Rachel commented
"We weren't just looking at the cards, Rachel. We were looking at the psychology, the logistics, the exhaustion. You covered your tracks beautifully." I pushed the completed paperwork across the table.
"But you need to understand Rachel. This level of talent is about to be obsolete. Predictive analytics, retinal scans, heart-rate monitors. The AI is getting too good. Soon, no AP will be able to operate on the Strip. This isn't just your bust; it's the end of your era."
I was rewarded with a promotion from Surveillance Manager to Director of Surveillance and a significant raise.
The economics of the bust were instructive and horrifying.
Rachel's operation cost the Strip an estimated $1.2 million over four months across seven properties while I was investigating her.
My property's loss: $340,000.
The corporate response cost the industry far more.
Immediate terminations: 41 personnel across six properties. Average salary: $52,000.
Average tenure: 14 years.
Aggregate institutional knowledge lost: 574 years of experience.
Severance packages, for those who got them. $180,000 total.
Unemployment insurance increases. $41,000 annually.
Recruitment and training costs for replacements. $890,000.
Operational disruption during transition. Estimated $1.7 million in additional losses.
Total cost of the "accountability measures". $2.8 million.
Rachel cost them $1.2 million. The House's response cost them $2.8 million. They lost more money firing people than they did to the advantage play operation.
But the terminations weren't about recouping losses. They were about sending a message and saving face.
I ran the numbers three times, thinking I'd made an error. I hadn't.
The system wasn't broken. It was working exactly as designed.
The promotion should have been a warning, not a reward.
When they made me Director of Surveillance, I thought it was recognition of competence. It wasn't. It was a transaction. My career in exchange for 41 others.
Let's be clear, many of the people who were fired deserved to be. They were plainly negligent and incompetent.
But many good people were caught in the blast.
Rachel's bust triggered a Strip-wide purge. Surveillance analysts who'd been on duty during her run. Pit supervisors who'd missed the Wonging patterns. Cage managers who'd processed her redemptions. Floor managers who'd been in the chain of command.
Gone. All of them.
I knew a lot of them. Robert Kim, a 22-year veteran pit supervisor who'd taught me how to read a dealer's body language. Angela Rodriguez, a surveillance analyst with two kids in college who'd covered my shifts when Jace and I were pulling doubles. Thomas Park, a cage supervisor who'd helped me navigate my first gaming commission audit.
They didn't steal. They didn't collude. They just failed to catch a once in a decade professional operation that I barely caught myself through four months of obsessive pattern analysis when everyone else failed.
But the House doesn't grade on curves. You either protect the money or you're gone.
I got promoted. They got blacklisted.
The worst part? I had to provide the technical justification for most of the terminations.
"Analyst Rodriguez failed to flag anomalous betting patterns during her assigned monitoring shift." I wrote in her report
"Supervisor Kim did not escalate heat protocols within acceptable response timeframes." I wrote in his report
"Manager Park processed high-value redemptions without adequate documentation review." I wrote for Thomas.
My reports. My analysis. My surveillance footage. It all became ammunition for the suites to pull the trigger.
I told myself it was just the job. That someone had to document the failures. That I was just reporting facts.
But facts have consequences. And those consequences have families.
I found myself staring at spreadsheets at 2 AM in the empty surveillance room, three weeks after the last termination.
The numbers didn't add up morally even though they balanced perfectly on paper.
Jace found me there, coffee long cold, surrounded by printouts.
"You're calculating whether we're assets or liabilities aren’t you?" he said.
It wasn't a question.
"We just became very expensive assets," I replied.
"Which means the moment our value dips, we become the most expensive liabilities." I added.
Jace sat down across from me, looking at the same spreadsheets that were eating at my conscience.
"Robert Kim is working loss prevention at a Target in Henderson now," Jace said quietly.
"Twenty-two years on the Strip, and he's checking receipts at the door for $16 an hour." he said to me.
I didn't respond. There was nothing to say.
"The executives who set the surveillance budgets too low? Who understaffed the floor to save 3% on quarterly reports? Who cut training to skeleton-crew minimums?" Jace continued.
There is a moment of silence between us.
"They got bonuses for 'decisive leadership during a security crisis.'" Jace says
"I know." I said grimly.
"Do you? Because from where I'm sitting, you just figured out that competence isn't a shield. It's a target. The better you are, the more expensive you are. And expensive things get cut first when the shareholders demand it." Jace said to me.
He was right, of course.
But it was my conversation with Smitty that still haunts me to this day. .
He found me in the parking garage after the last round of Rachel-related terminations, three weeks after my 2 AM spreadsheet spiral.
"You know what you did, right?" he asked me.
His voice wasn't angry. It was sad.
"You just taught the House that competence doesn't protect you. Loyalty doesn't protect you. Nothing protects you except being more valuable than expensive." Smitty said
"They were failures, Smitty. The data doesn't lie." I said.
"The data never lies, Manuel. But the people who decide what data matters? They lie all the time." He looked at me with something close to pity.
"You're standing on their bodies right now. Just like the House is standing on the bodies of every problem gambler who walks through those doors. Don't forget that when it's your turn." Smitty warned me
"It won't be my turn. I'm too good at this."I said
"So was Robert Kim. So was Thomas Park So was Angela Rodriguez." Smitty reminded me.
Smitty leaned against his car, looking back at the glittering towers of the Strip.
"The House doesn't care how good you are, Manuel. It cares how much you cost versus how much you earn. And when that equation flips, and it always flips, you're done." He warned me
"So what do I do?" I asked him
"You stop pretending the House is anything other than what it is. A predator that feeds on whoever's most vulnerable. The guests. The staff. Even us." Smitty answered.
He met my eyes.
"And you decide whether you're okay being part of that machine." he said to me.
Those words still haunt me.
When Smitty was thrown to the wolves, I finally understood what Smitty had been trying to tell me. The House protects the money. The House protects the shareholders. The House protects the executives. The House doesn't protect people. Not the guests. Not the staff. Not even us.
However, that is neither here nor there. A long time ago when I still believed in my mission.