Hunter took another drag and finally had the whole picture.
The loose threads from the last few days snapped into place.
When he first saw Terry Benedict at the Bellagio, he had already felt a strange sense of familiarity. But there had been too little information at the time, and he could not quite pin down where he had seen the man before.
The same thing had happened with Diana's target.
A few nights ago, when he went alone into the desert estate and killed Willy Bank, he had paused to confirm one last time before pulling the trigger.
He was absolutely certain that the body's original owner had never known Willy Bank, and he himself had only seen the man's photo in the dossier Diana sent him.
And yet, the moment he saw Bank in person, that same faint sense of familiarity hit him again.
Like he had passed him somewhere before.
Now, with the missing pieces in hand, everything clicked.
"That explains it."
"No wonder they felt familiar, but I could not place them."
"So these guys were all characters from my previous life."
"And not the main ones, either. Just familiar faces that never really stuck."
Ocean's Eleven was a movie Hunter had genuinely liked in his old life.
It was the story of Danny Ocean, a master thief who spent years in prison after being caught for robbery.
Then, while still in a New Jersey prison, he learned that his ex-wife Tess had already moved on and was engaged to another man.
Less than twenty-four hours after his release, Danny Ocean set his sights on Terry Benedict, the Las Vegas casino mogul dating and engaged to Tess.
He wanted Tess back, and he wanted to make Benedict pay.
So the brilliant thief assembled ten companions in total.
One was a gambling expert and con man. One specialized in theft. One handled weapons and explosives. One was a driver and mechanic. One worked in a casino and handled intelligence gathering. One was a grifter. One was a billionaire who funded the operation. One was a top-tier hacker. One was a master of infiltration and movement.
Together, Danny Ocean and his ten partners tore up Las Vegas.
In the end, they stole 150 million dollars in cash from Terry Benedict's underground vault without killing a single person.
The eleven of them split the money, went their separate ways, and started over.
And as the man who launched the whole thing, Danny Ocean not only walked away with well over ten million dollars.
He also took Tess back from Terry Benedict.
Only one person ended up hurt in that story, and it was Terry Benedict.
Hunter replayed the plot in his head, then curled his lip and looked away.
He did not know why Danny Ocean and the others kept staring at him.
But he had already lost interest in Ocean's Eleven.
Terry Benedict had annoyed him before, but now that his Gambling skill had reached max level, Hunter was in a pretty good mood and could not be bothered to go after the casino boss anymore.
Besides, the man had actually behaved decently enough.
Hunter had slapped his face in front of a whole casino floor, and though he had been right, Westerners only respected one law in the end: fists.
And yet Terry Benedict had not sent anyone after him.
Whatever the mogul had been thinking, Hunter had already gained a pile of free attribute points from the skill upgrade.
He was not going out of his way to make trouble for him now.
"Time to go."
The last few days had passed without another casino owner getting robbed or killed.
After a few days of panic, Las Vegas had returned to its usual noise and glitter.
But once his Gambling skill hit max level, Hunter had lost most of his interest in staying any longer.
He finished the cigarette, crushed the butt, and was ready to head back to the hotel.
Perkins had already returned to the hotel two nights earlier.
The safehouse was quiet and out of the way, but it was only a temporary rental. It had been arranged in a hurry, and it had nothing in common with the luxury and indulgence Perkins preferred.
It was fine for a day or two if things were dangerous.
But once she knew the area was safe, she did not want to stay there for even one more minute.
Hunter had even been thinking about whether he should spend the night with Perkins again.
After all, a wounded female assassin had a certain fragile quality that was rarely seen otherwise.
And the night before, when they had been intimate, Hunter had felt an especially strong sense of conquest, which he had to admit was pretty exciting.
He was still lost in that thought when someone called out behind him.
"Hey!"
A set of quick footsteps rushed toward him.
Hunter sensed the movement behind him and shifted slightly, avoiding the hand that had reached for his shoulder.
He turned and found himself face to face with a white man who looked nearly identical to the male assassin John Smith he had killed two months earlier in a desert town near the Mexico border.
"Rusty Ryan."
Hunter recognized him immediately.
Danny Ocean's right-hand man and closest friend.
A card shark, a brilliant con man, and a man with a mouth built for talking his way in and out of trouble.
Hunter looked at the man who had come to greet him and replied coolly, "I do not believe we know each other, sir."
The two men met eyes.
For a brief instant, Rusty Ryan felt as if the handsome Asian man in front of him, taller than he was by half a head, had looked straight through him.
He did not know where that feeling came from.
Suppressing the strange unease, Rusty put on a friendly smile.
He pointed toward his companions and said, "Man, we have all seen what you've been doing at the tables these last few days."
"You interested in coming over and talking? We have a business opportunity we'd like to discuss."
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