The old casino looked the same as it always did.
Concrete and industrial light and the particular chill of a space designed for transactions rather than people. The kind of place that had no interest in what you brought to it or what you left behind.
Ray always chose the casino when something mattered—when the conversation wasn't meant to be casual, when he intended to press, to observe, to decide. Choosing it now wasn't a coincidence.
The two men at the entrance were already moving before she'd fully crossed the threshold. The scanner passed along her arms, her sides, down her legs with the practiced efficiency of repetition. Aurora stood still and let it happen and kept her face arranged into nothing.
