Black Scorpion Read online

  “You’re getting very good at this, Naomi,” Michael Tiranno said, grinning.

  The economic downturn had hit Las Vegas especially hard, but he took great pride in the fact that he hadn’t laid off a single worker at his Seven Sins Resort and Casino, not one. The accountants had been fond of telling him how much he was losing as a result. He countered by telling them how much he’d gain in the long run and, true to his prophecy, the Seven Sins was now the highest grossing property on the Strip. Everyone wanted to know how he’d managed it, against all odds, coming out of the worst economic times imaginable.

  “Vision,” Michael told them, not bothering to add how he thrived on adversity, able to win a hand against even a stacked deck.

  “How much this time?” he asked Naomi, now CEO of King Midas World, parent company of the Seven Sins and all his gaming interests.

  “Eighty thousand.”

  “A worthwhile investment.”

  “That’s what you always say.”

  “Some things you can’t put a price tag on.”

  “Does that include all forty-two homes you’ve purchased at auction?”

  “It includes the forty-two families that still have a place to live,” Michael reminded her, “forty-three now.”

  “One might say being a knight in Armani armor is bad for business.”

  “God works in mysterious ways and so do I,” Michael said, smiling.

  “Well, one might also say it’s interesting that all the neighborhoods you’re buying up are zoned for commercial as well as residential.”

  “It always pays to hedge our bets. You never know, Naomi.” Michael threw open the Lamborghini’s door and started to climb out. “Be right back.”

  “Better hurry, Michael,” she said back to him, checking her Tyrant Class Samsung Note. “The press is already swarming back at the Seven Sins.”

  “That’s right. The fight’s tonight. I just remembered.”

  “I was hoping you’d forget,” Naomi told him.

  * * *

  The protesters were already dispersing when Michael rounded the corner and headed toward an ancient pickup truck painted with dust, its cargo bed overflowing with the displaced family’s possessions. A stubborn wheel kept spinning on a child’s bicycle wedged over one side, and the rest of the contents had been hastily tied down by what looked like a clothesline straining to hold it all in place.

  Inside the truck’s cab, the Marquezes followed the man’s approach with a mix of confusion and fear, figuring him for the person here to make sure they’d removed all their possessions from their former home.

  “You can move back in tomorrow,” Michael told them instead, taking off his TAG Heuer sunglasses.

  Juan and Imelda could only look at each other, wondering if they’d heard him correctly. Their five-year-old son, seated in the middle, started tugging excitedly at them.

  “I’ve also paid your storage bill, so they’re ready to release the rest of your things,” Michael continued. “Someone will be in touch with you about the details. I hold your mortgage now. You’ll be making your payments to me.”

  The Marquezes swallowed hard, fearing what was coming next.

  “Four hundred and fifty dollars a month,” Michael said, quoting a price less than half of what they’d been paying before, “no money down. Does that work for you?”

  The Marquezes couldn’t stop nodding.

  “Why do you do this, señor?” Juan asked him.

  Michael reached inside, smiling reflectively as he patted the boy’s head and then winked at him. “Because I know what it’s like to lose a home.”

  SIX

  LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

  “Tyrant, Tyrant, Tyrant!”

  The crowd’s chant echoed in his head as Michael Tiranno strode up the aisle of the Seven Sins Casino’s Magnum Arena. He gazed ahead at the steel cage in the center of the arena where a giant of a man was currently slapping himself in the chest. His thin gloves, standard issue for Mixed Martial Arts, or MMA, fighters made a hollow whapping sound, getting louder as the slaps became pounds beneath the bright lighting spilling down over the otherwise dark arena.

  Durado Segura, better known as “the Executioner,” was the reigning heavyweight champion who would be defending his title tomorrow night right here against the undefeated number one contender. Tonight was reserved for a charity “bout” between Michael and Segura with two thousand in attendance at a thousand dollars per head, the money going to one of the numerous efforts supported by Tyrant Entertainment, Tyrant Global, and King Midas World.

  “You don’t have to do this, Michael,” Alexander Koursaris, his personal bodyguard and protector, had said as they made their way through an underwater tunnel that linked the arena to the hotel and casino via the resort’s Daring Sea. A few of the marine environment’s more curious deadly residents pressed up against the glass, seeming to study him. “You shouldn’t do it.”

  “I feel like a clown in this outfit,” Michael said, straightening his trunks. “But it’s for charity, Alexander. And what’s the harm?”

  “Harm? Let’s start with the risk you’re taking by getting in the ring with this monster.”

  Alexander was every bit the match for Segura in a fair fight and then some. In fact, Michael reasoned, the Executioner would never have stood a chance against this man who’d survived the slums of Athens as a boy only because of his fists, further refining his trade in years of service with the French Foreign Legion where he became a legend.

  “Anything for the right cause,” Michael said, shrugging. “And this is the right cause.”

  “So long as your ticket to heaven doesn’t come with a stop in the intensive care ward,” Alexander warned. “Do I need to remind you that Segura once put a car lot owner through a windshield while filming a public service commercial?”

  “Twice already was enough.”

  “Then what am I missing here? Please, tell me.”

  * * *

  Michael thought back to his first meeting as a small boy in Sicily with Luciano Scaglione, the mafia don who’d raised him as his own son after the murder of his parents. How Don Luciano had knelt down before him and eased a notebook from one of his pants pockets. The notebook was covered in well-worn brown leather faded in patches. Inside, the edges of the pages had yellowed with age and featured tabs separating equal-size clumps into sections, seven of them.

  “Do you know what sin is, Michele?”

  “Something bad,” Michael replied.

  Don Luciano regarded Michael warmly, making him feel safe for the first time since the shots had rang out. “There are seven deadly sins and all men have committed more than their share of them, me more than most,” he said, with some regret in his voice. Don Luciano fanned through the pages with a single hand, skirting over a number of entries to reveal plenty of blank pages waiting for more. “I keep a record of all my sins in this book—in my own special code, of course, that no one else can read. I file my sins away in the appropriate place, careful to note when and where each occurred and, on occasion, to whom. Do you know why I do this, picciriddu?”

  Michael noticed there was writing on all seven of the tabs, dull and faded now, one for each of the seven sins.

  “No, sir,” he said.

  “To remind myself of how many acts of goodness I must perform to atone for them. A man must achieve his own balance in life. This is how I keep mine.”

  * * *

  Michael wanted to explain to Alexander how this exhibition bout was mostly about keeping his. Mostly. The rest was about truly wanting to face a man feared through the world of Mixed Martial Arts as a test of his own mettle. The cage was just another metaphorical ring in which to prove himself. But he had no intention of trying to articulate that to Alexander.

  “Tell me again why Segura threw that car dealer through a windshield,” he said to him instead.

  “He said he didn’t like the way the man was smiling at him.” Alexander shook his head, gazed toward
the caged ring. “Just know one thing, Michael: At the first sign of trouble, I’m going to intervene.”

  “You won’t have to.”

  “Tyrant, Tyrant, Tyrant!”

  The chanting grew even louder, as a “Tyrant Girl” named Kim, one of the resort’s personal concierges, held the cage’s door open so Michael could enter. He moved to his corner and found himself standing directly across from the undefeated champion, conscious of the flashes flaring in the murky half light beyond. He’d never been in any kind of ring before and was amazed at the sensory enhancement and deprivation it created at the same time. On the one hand, Michael was acutely aware of every stitch in the canvas fabric of the thinly padded ring beneath his bare feet, a bright shaft of light all that separated him from the man known as the Executioner sneering from the other side. On the other hand, the world seemed to end at the cage’s perimeter, as if it were enclosed by one-way glass that allowed the crowd gathered at ringside to see in while Michael could not see out. The sense of isolation, the insular nature of the sport, gave Michael a fresh appreciation for the fighters who made their living being bloodied and battered by men like Segura.

  It shouldn’t have bothered him, given that his office in the Seven Sins was a bubble glass structure at the bottom of the Daring Sea, the world’s largest self-contained marine environment and one of the resort’s most popular attractions. Built at a cost of four hundred million dollars, the Daring Sea featured a trio of great white sharks prowling about. The largest of these, a thirty-footer named Assassino, had grown especially interested as of late in Michael’s office, poking his nose against the thick glass and seeming to peer inward. Assassino meant “assassin” in Italian, Michael having named the creature in the wake of the deadly expedition to capture him that cost a trio of sailors their lives.

  But Assassino had nothing on Durado Segura’s glare from across the ring. Tomorrow night he would fight the challenger for the heavyweight crown in the most highly publicized MMA fight in the sport’s history. An expected record number of five million fans watching on Pay-Per-View on top of a sold-out crowd of near twenty thousand here in the Seven Sins’s Magnum Arena that would be transformed into a modern equivalent of the Roman Coliseum. For tonight’s exhibition the two thousand attendees at ringside stood on their feet, ready to watch Michael spar with the champion and then attend a reception afterward featuring the two of them, along with a host of other celebrities and dignitaries.

  Michael was still eyeing Segura warily, when the cage door opened and Kim and a second Tyrant Girl named Tess escorted famed ring announcer Michael Duffer inside, microphone in hand.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Duffer said, moving to center ring. “For the thousands in attendance tonight and the millions who’ll be watching tomorrow … let’s get ready to raise moneeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyyy!”

  The crowd went crazy, bobbing up and down on their feet, nothing more than dark opaque shapes to Michael. From here, the script was clear. Segura was to chase Duffer from the cage, slam the door closed, and grab either Tyrant girl, Kim or Tess. Hoist her overhead, while he paraded around the ring accepting the cheers and accolades fitting for a world champion. Michael would make a show of pulling the woman away, usher her to safety and then engage in a one-round spirited exhibition with only light blows exchanged by the combatants.

  “In the black corner, our challenger, with as much money as muscle and a mean streak that ensures what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. Ladies and gentlemen, Michael ‘the Tyrant’ Tirannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnno!”

  Michael was conscious of the roaring applause, but even more conscious of the Executioner’s stare from across the ring.

  “And in the red corner, weighing in at two hundred and sixty pounds of rock-hard muscle, standing all of six feet six inches tall. He is known and feared as the most dangerous man in the world. The undefeated and untied MMA champion of the world, Dorado ‘the Executioner’ Segurrrrrrrrrrrra!”

  Across the ring, Segura began parading about with hands raised triumphantly in the air, intense gaze rooted on Michael as he chased Duffer from the cage and slammed the door just as planned. Then, also as planned, he chased down the Tyrant girl named Kim and hoisted her effortlessly over his head. For some reason, the sight made Michael think of King Kong clutching the actress Fay Wray atop the Empire State Building, Kim looking like a toy in his grasp.

  Until Segura threw her headlong through the air. Kim crashed hard into the steel cage directly over the entry door and fell hard to the canvas. She was bleeding from the nose, her eyes dimming as she clung to consciousness, pinning the sole access point to the ring closed.

  Michael glimpsed Seven Sins security, led by Alexander, charge the ring. Saw Segura’s entourage moving to intercept them. Saw the Executioner himself moving to corner Tess, the second Tyrant girl, who hadn’t followed Duffer from the ring as she was supposed to.

  Michael felt something snap inside him. His focus intensified, his vision sharpened. The awareness that this had stopped being a game in that single, violent instant struck him hard and fast. He didn’t welcome or not welcome it, didn’t really think anything in that moment that seemed to freeze in time. There was only the hulking Segura moving toward Tess who was trapped in the cage.

  Trapped …

  It’s just him and me, Michael thought.

  His ears hummed with the assortment of crowd sounds, those gathered at ringside roaring and cheering Michael on in the belief this was all part of the show, the staging. The chants of “Tyrant, Tyrant, Tyrant!” resumed amid a sea of bright cell phone screens recording the scene and dotting the darkness with light, as Michael lurched into motion.

  SEVEN

  LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

  “Sir? Your passport. Mr. Devereaux?”

  Edward Devereaux finally swung back toward the polished mahogany desk inside the private VIP check-in lounge at the Seven Sins Resort and Casino, forgetting for a moment the guise he had taken for this trip.

  “Merci,” he said, taking his passport in hand.

  “Would you like me to show you to your suite now, sir, or escort you to the casino?”

  “Pardonne moi?”

  “Due to a problem with your reservation, you’ve been upgraded to a Daring Sea suite. We’re fully booked, but you’ll be charged only the price of the posted rate of the room you reserved. And a Daring Sea suite entitles you to a personal concierge to handle every need of your trip from check-in to check-out.”

  Devereaux forced a smile, hating this chit-chat for the time wasted with distraction. At least inside this well-appointed VIP lounge he was out of view from the many roaming the lobby beyond. Lingering in one place too long left him open to scrutiny, the chance that someone might notice him, warned to expect his presence. He had taken a great risk by coming here. But the stakes called for it.

  Justice called for it.

  Devereaux had crossed through the sprawling lobby, mentally cataloguing the number and placement of hotel security personnel, each with a cord rising out of their suit collars connecting to a tiny bud in their ears. Security at the Seven Sins was legendarily tight and Devereaux had only recently begun to suspect why.

  He’d read that every inch of the hotel had been designed to provide the desired effect for guests of moving from the mundane present into a majestic and ancient past offering the spirit of adventure, right from the moment they passed through the entrance. A forest of golden ionic columns greeted them, stretching upward from the black marble lobby floor adorned with live exotic flowers from the radiant golden iris to rare red poppies. The effect left Devereaux feeling he was standing not so much in a place, as a state of mind. And the state of mind of the Seven Sins conjured visions of glamour and dreams, where opulence and decadence somehow co-existed.

  Devereaux had shaken himself from the trance and continued his scrutiny of the setting, forcing himself to view his surroundings in much more of a detached manner, not a typical guest. Because he was here on business, vital business.
Not pleasure, not even close. Indeed, it was the pain suffered by others that had drawn him here.

  As luck would have it, he’d now be staying in one of the Daring Sea suites erected on ten floors beneath ground level with one entire wall offering view into a massive underwater environment prowled by the only great white sharks to ever survive in captivity. One section of the lobby floor was glass as well, allowing strollers a clear view of marine life captured in a perfectly recreated ocean habitat. Those wishing a longer and better view of the great whites themselves need only wait in line to view “Red Water,” an elegant and, for some, wicked spectacle of nature that encompassed the creatures’ feeding time.

  Devereaux found that to be an apt metaphor for what had drawn him here. Because he’d come to Las Vegas on the trail of a monster.

  And he believed that trail led to the Seven Sins.

  “One more thing, Mr. Devereaux,” the concierge, Melissa, was saying from behind the desk.

  “Yes?” he responded, trying not to sound nervous.

  She slid a piece of paper toward him. “Here at the Seven Sins, five percent of the proceeds from your stay will be donated to charity. You can check one of those on this form or write a charity of your own choice below.”

  Devereaux took the page and grabbed a pen from a nearby resting place. “A wonderful gesture.”

  “Just the way we do business here. Mr. Tiranno believes everything is possible, including helping those in need dream as well.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Devereaux told her

  Only my dream, he thought, is to catch a monster.

  EIGHT

  LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

  Michael’s thoughts became a blur, swirling about, past and present becoming one. He felt detached from his body, as if he were standing outside himself viewing his own motions.

  Tess, the second Tyrant Girl, had shrunk back against the rear of the cage, cowering when Segura reached out and grabbed her by the hair. The Executioner was grinning, as if he intended to make the second Tyrant Girl an offering to a crowd just starting to realize that things had veered off-script.