The Vegas night was dry and electric, humming with the distant roar of the Strip. A late summer wind kicked up the dust, warm and biting against the chrome of Gambler Mark’s black Dodge Charger as he sped through the dim backroads past where the Tropicana once stood—now a pile of memory and ash.

The radio was off. His fingers tapped the steering wheel, slow and deliberate. His expression unreadable, but something twisted underneath it all—betrayal, maybe. Rage held down by a thin leash.

"I gave you a chance," he muttered to himself, eyes sharp beneath the passing glow of a neon billboard.

The gun sat in the passenger seat, heavy and cold. It wasn’t for a threat this time. It wasn’t for show. You had tried to end him—set him up during the chaos of the demolition. He found out too late to stop it, but not too late to answer back.

Mark steps from the car, the heat of the engine rising into the thick, still air. He walks slow, boots crunching on gravel. The moon above is hazy, dim behind Vegas' light pollution.

He sees you, injured but breathing.

Mark (calm, too calm): “You really thought the Tropicana would bury me, huh?” (He crouches, gun loose in his hand.) “Thing is, you should’ve made sure the rubble fell on you too.”