“I don't fucking believe it,” Dritan said as another hand, and three grand, was lost. “You're fucking cheating,” he said as he pulled the croupier to him by the collar of her blouse. Such was the strength of his grip that he tore two buttons from it, exposing her bra.
“That's enough,” a security man behind him said. He placed his hand on Dritan's shoulder in an attempt to pull him from his seat. Dritan had other ideas, though, and flipped the man over onto his back and placed his foot on his neck. The security guard began to turn blue as he struggled to remove Dritan's foot.
The punch to the side of Dritan's face knocked him five yards away and rendered him unconscious.
“Who's this?” Milan asked.
“Dritan Polyakov,” the security guard gasped. “Albanian.”
“Let's get him out of here,” Milan said. They picked him up, carried him through the casino, and put him down in the flower bed opposite the casino. “He's banned. Put his name on the list,” Milan ordered the doorman when the reentered the casino.
“He loses a hell of a lot of money here,” the doorman said.
“I don't care. This is a casino, not a saloon bar in the Wild West,” Milan asserted.
When Dritan woke up, his suit was covered in foliage and yellow dye from the plants he'd been lying on. He had a swollen face and a splitting headache. He picked himself up and walked to a taxi that was waiting outside the casino.
“No. I'm not taking you anywhere. You'll get yellow stuff all over my car,” the taxi driver said.
“Drive me or I'll rip your fucking head off,” Dritan threatened. When the taxi driver dropped Dritan off outside Jessie's apartment, Dritan paid him and got out.
When Jessie didn't open the door, Dritan used the key he'd forced her to give him. When he slid under the covers behind her, she moved to the other side of the bed, out of his way.
“Come on, I'm horny,” he said the next morning when they woke up. He put a hand across her and groped her breasts.
“You hit me last night. My face is sore. I don't want to make love to you. I'm getting up.”
Sated by his aggression toward her the previous evening, he rolled onto his back and looked at the ceiling. “Okay. Tonight then,” he said.
Jessie almost fainted when she saw her face in the mirror. The morning sun was flooding through the bathroom window, highlighting every bruise and mark he'd made.
How the hell am I going to hide this? she asked herself. After she'd showered, she took her makeup bag and tried her best to cover up the damage. She was reasonably satisfied with the result.
The casino hadn't opened when Jessie arrived at eleven. It opened at one, but Jessie usually had a couple of hours’ preparation work to do beforehand. She used the electronic keypad to enter via the employees entrance and went to the locker room. She took off her coat and hung it in her locker.
“Jessie,” Milan said when she was walking over the empty casino floor on her way to office the hostesses used.
“Hi, sir,” she replied.
“Milan, not sir,” he said. “Wow, what happened to you?” he asked. She was devastated to see that her efforts to cover up her injuries had been in vain. She'd been mistaken in thinking that she'd hidden them sufficiently well. It was obvious to anyone that something had happened to her. “It's okay,” he said when he saw a tear roll down her cheek. “Come with me. Tell me what happened.” He escorted her into his office and sat her down on the sofa.
“He attacked me,” she said.
“Who?”
“My boyfriend. He pulled me to the ground and thumped me, two or three times. I can't remember. It hurt a lot.”
“What an asshole. Why don't you finish with him?”
She looked at Milan and tilted her head to one side. “It's not that simple. He won't take no for an answer. He's strong, and I'm afraid of what he'll do to me.”
“Jessie, you're an employee in our casino. We look after our own here. We also happen to be Russian, and we don't take this kind of shit from anybody. Tell me where he lives and I will see to him for you.”
“That’s very kind of you, but I don't want him hurt. I'm not like that. Perhaps there is another way. Would you pretend to be my new boyfriend for a while? Maybe he'll leave me alone when he sees who you are.”
“Okay. I can do that. But he doesn't know me.”
“Oh, he does. He's a regular here. In fact, he spends all his ill-gotten money here.”
“Who is he?”
“Dritan Polyakov.”
Milan burst out laughing. She raised her eyebrows and looked at him quizzically. “I threw him out of here last night. We put him in the flower bed opposite.”
“That explains the stains on his suit,” she said. In Milan's presence, she felt safe. He was a big man and as hard as nails—just the kind of guy she needed on her side to help her cleanse her life of Dritan.
“I don't think you should be working today. Come with me. Let's go and relax a bit.”